Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Okay. Good morning, everyone. Welcome back to the Huston and Services Committee. This morning, we are going to do a couple of things. We have a group of students from Randolph Union High School, and they're going to be talking about economic justice as well as housing and homelessness. And first off, for the next half hour, we're going to take a look at S-one 193. You can find it on our committee's webpage. And you can also see it's under both Eric Fitzpatrick's name. And then there is draft language that is going to be incorporated by the House Corrections and Institutions. That's under Katie's name. So both of those are there. So we have Katie this afternoon to do some markup of this. And as I said yesterday, we are under a timeframe schedule on this as time is getting close. So we are going to have a joint hearing on Wednesday with House Corrections and Institutions so that we can get the latest. It is being voted out of House Judiciary on Tuesday. And so we will have Eric and Katie do a walk through. They had that scheduled in, are getting that scheduled in corrections and institutions. So I said, let's do a joint hearing so that they don't have to do that twice. And it's also helpful, I think, for both committees to hear the questions that each other asks, especially around this particular bill. And so what we are going to do is then our language will be incorporated into the draft that will sit in corrections and institutions. And so that's sort of the dance that we're doing to try to make sure that we get through the bill in the time that we have left. So I would encourage you if you are able to, because I had never figured it out, that's why I have it printed, to look at both of these documents side by side, because one is amending the other, but it has not been incorporated into the draft that is draft 3.1 yet. So thank you.

[Rep. Brenda Steady (Member)]: Okay.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: So the main focus of the corrections and institutions amendment, you probably got sort of understanding of since they gave us sort of their outline of what they were going to do, is to remove it out of the Department of Corrections. So there is general consensus that we need to fill the gap in this system when it comes to community safety. But there is not agreement with the administration's proposal to do this within the Department of Corrections. We have in, I think our discussions have said that that is not necessarily the best place to do something that is supposed to be rehabilitative, is talking about restoring competency and or for people who have a longer stay due to insanity, defense or lack of competency to stand trial, that corrections might in fact not be the appropriate place for those individuals because of the level of their disability. So you will see in the draft language that was under Katie's name, you'll see that the corrections and institutions committee is really looking at saying it shall not be the Department of Corrections that solely operates this facility. So let's take a look first because the pieces that they have there are incorporated a little bit later. So let's take a look at the stuff that judiciary has done so far, and that's gonna be in draft number 3.1 under Eric Fitzpatrick's name. So you can you can see that there is a change from Commissioner of Corrections to the Secretary of Human Services that reflects that there should be multiple departments that are involved with these individuals, not only the Department of Corrections, which I think is consistent with the conversations that we've had around the table here. I think they need to do it for whatever purpose, but there's not really a forensic facility being established in the way. Well, actually I take that back. The proposal that we're putting back is actually to establish a forensic facility that is separate from the correctional facility. And it's gonna be a lot more costly. I don't know if it's gonna be more costly, but it would require thinking about how they would do that. So the language that we see from corrections as we work through this next week, you'll see they are not saying that it couldn't be on the grounds of a correctional facility where you have the secure perimeter, but that it should be a separate building that is not run by corrections. But there are some spaces, I think, within the correctional system that may or may not be being utilized to their fullest extent that could be converted to this. So as we see through this, we ask them to come back and tell us how you would implement this. This is not appropriating any money. It's saying, tell us what it would cost, because I think it is important to know what it's gonna cost before anything is agreed to. So that's the restoration services within the forensic facility being under the Secretary of Human Services. I'm not gonna go through sort of the constitutionality and legality stuff, because honestly, it's not our jurisdiction and it is something that the judiciary committee has spent a lot of time on and took a lot of testimony on. So let's move to, oh, I thought I did it, sorry. So I think it's important to understand, make sure we understand that this is a person charged with an offense punishable by a life sentence and has been held without bail, or if the person's not held without bail, they have a qualifying condition that upon the person's release would create a substantial risk of bodily injury to another. I think that is an important distinction. And we can ask Katie and Eric to really explain the legalities of that to us. But it is most likely that the people that our committee has jurisdiction for will fall into the second category. We heard testimony from Doctor. Ashe in his forty plus years, there was one person that he had that qualified up underneath the area of a life sentence, and that person has actually been served for

[Rep. Esme Cole (Member)]: the last twenty plus years. Good morning, Barbara.

[Rep. Brenda Steady (Member)]: Good morning. I've seen it at the table. I've seen

[Rep. Esme Cole (Member)]: it at the table.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: That's our visiting legislator seat.

[Rep. Barbara Rachelson (House Judiciary)]: That's interesting you have that.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Oh my god. We find it interesting as well. We're just going through version 3.1 of the bill you all have been working really hard on downstairs. So, and right now we're scheduling a joint hearing, Barbara, with corrections and institutions for Wednesday morning to have the full walkthrough. That's really good.

[Rep. Doug Bishop (Member)]: May I ask you a question, Madam Chair? Yes. Think this is a very basic question. I just wanna make sure I'm on the right page. When it refers to qualifying condition, and then I look at later in the document for definitions, qualifying conditions on page 16 refers to mental, congenital or traumatic, however developed circumstances. If we're talking about someone with intellectual or developmental disability, that would fall under the congenital.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: And that's where we're gonna be proposing some changes. So, yes. And actually, it's not only that because I think we had some discussion yesterday about one of the options that we want AHS to consider is the expansion of Act two forty eight. So that individuals with dementia and a brain injury, as well as people with IDD, would fall under Act two forty eight. And that would help to close a gap for people with dementia and people with brain injury who are, there's no place to remand them to, nobody's custody at this point in time.

[Rep. Brenda Steady (Member)]: Yeah. Will we be having testimony from the Secretary of Human Services?

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: We've already had all the human services. We had all the commissioners in here. No, the Secretary. No, they were acting on behalf of

[Rep. Brenda Steady (Member)]: the Secretary. Okay, so I can contact the secretary via email? If you want to. Yeah,

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: no, we had every commissioner of AHS in here who has an impact on this. We had Dale. We had DMH. I know,

[Rep. Brenda Steady (Member)]: I heard them all. I like to hear from the source. I'm one of them. I go to superintendent. I do this all the time. That's fine. Yeah,

[Rep. Barbara Rachelson (House Judiciary)]: go ahead, Barbara. So I just want to share that yesterday, the Department of Mental Health attorney testified in our committee that the agency of Human Service Secretary cannot be the person who, under current statute, who somebody is sent to the custody of. That's my question. They are proposing amendments, But I know your committee knows a lot more about whether or not is case.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: We can make that. I can tell you that we can make that so.

[Rep. Barbara Rachelson (House Judiciary)]: Yes, figured. We are outside our lane downstairs when I ask those questions. That was definitely what mental giving health us amendments to send it back to directions with AHS medical director headed in as So I just wanted to Yeah, know

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: and I guess the thing is having this discussion with corrections and institutions that they are definitely against that. And I think that right now, the way the statute reads, yes, there's only two commissioners that have civil custody essentially, or the possibility, and that's DMH and Dale. We can make it something else because we are

[Rep. Barbara Rachelson (House Judiciary)]: the ones who write the laws. And I did ask why not one of those two commissioners and was told, Well, it's a very diverse population, which I understand the needs are very different. But I still thought at least the Commissioner of Dale knows about her population, and at least the Commissioner of Mental Health knows about that population, where the Department of Corrections really doesn't know about any of that population. Correct. Mean,

[Rep. Esme Cole (Member)]: oversees the whole

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: agency of human services. No, exactly. I mean, I think that what we If we look at a process map, okay? So a process map at this very stage, okay, if somebody is going to be placed into a forensic facility, we write the laws. We can say that it'll be under the Secretary of Human Services. It's what happens during the operation and potential discharge from that facility that would then go to Dale or DMH. So I guess I would have a differing opinion about, yes, it's current law. The Commissioner of Mental Health is correct. That's current law. It is specifically because of the diversity of the population that they are trying to put into this facility that we think it should be AHS. However, we are gonna be proposing some changes around people with cognitive disabilities. And I guess I'm gonna start to use that term because then I don't have to say all three. Okay, so it's people with brain injury, people with dementia and people with developmental disabilities. Okay, so people with cognitive disabilities, we are gonna propose are not actually remanded, is the word that's being used here, to this facility. And so then it potentially could actually be the commissioner of the Department of Mental Health, because we could be You know what I'm saying?

[Rep. Barbara Rachelson (House Judiciary)]: Yes, right. And that also was something that was not in our lane, but they were presenting it as this is the facility that people will be going to. And I have feelings about that, but they're not necessarily house judiciary jurisdiction feelings about So again, it does seem like knowing that those two things were in lockstep, and that's why they were saying it had to be the corrections. I I

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: and Interesting. You know, if what we pass out of the general assembly assembly and what we pass out of our various committees is more in line with what corrections and institutions has, then it would not be the commissioner of corrections. And if our committee's input is taken, then it would be the commissioner of mental health. And that's where we would start. And we would see what happens from there in terms of the future. So, those are the kinds of changes that I think that we're gonna be

[Rep. Barbara Rachelson (House Judiciary)]: recommending. I will. Just wanted to let you sort of know what It's the greatest and greatest from your very helpful.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: And I think that we'll have legal counsel, make sure that we're understanding exactly. This very first part is something that we need to really understand what it means. Do you know what I'm talking about? Because we want to make sure it's not only people. People keep talking during testimony. It's people found not guilty by reason of insanity and people who are found incompetent to stand trial. It is not only those people who have the possibility of being in this facility. So I think that we need to really understand what that means before we start making judgments about that. So other things that and Laurie, I just want to check-in, are those So high school we don't know if they're I mean, we saw high school students, but I don't think they were these high school students. Just let me know. Yeah, maybe they're on the road. Okay. So, one of the things that we've had some discussion about is whether the well, the whole structure would be different, frankly, if it's not in a correctional facility. So we wouldn't be looking at WellPath as the provider. We would be looking at them developing a budget that would include a clinical director and people that would be outside of WellPath. So, yeah.

[Rep. Doug Bishop (Member)]: Can you say something more about how you're reading this brings in more than just those who are incompetent to stand trial and those who have been not guilty by reason of incentive.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: We're not gonna deal with people with mental health challenges here, but they have O and H, or non hospitalization. If a person is not held, I would point you to page one, line 17 through 20. Okay, so those are people who essentially are not, they don't necessarily have a life sentence. They're not necessarily being held without bail, but they have a qualifying condition, as you were referring to previously, that we are probably gonna change. And they would create a substantial risk to another person.

[Rep. Doug Bishop (Member)]: Did you say it's not they're they've been found not competent to stand trial?

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: This is what I'm not clear about. That's why we need to have Yeah. The attorneys explain that to us, Unless you have language from

[Rep. Barbara Rachelson (House Judiciary)]: It is and. You have to meet all of those conditions.

[Rep. Daniel Noyes (Clerk)]: Yeah. Some of them there's options, but it's all one through four. And so that was-

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: It's all one through four, but you don't have to be a person who's held without bail. Right. The part that I'm talking about. Everybody kept talking about, oh, you're being held without bail, and that's not accurate in the language.

[Rep. Barbara Rachelson (House Judiciary)]: All of them have not yet been charged, but they have not been convicted, which is something that I know our committee is looking at. The crimes have been narrowed down to the ones that Cabellet sends. There's no timeline for how Vermont currently does not have a timeline nor does the spell for how long restoration would be allowed. The numbers could Right, so you need to have

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: And the part that's a little confusing is you need one and two, and then you can't be number three. Okay? You do have to have number four. Do you see what I'm saying? It's a weird construct, the way Yeah, it actually should change. The order should change. Should say 12, three. I love that we always give drafting advice. Eric's probably not used to that, but Kate is totally I know, I just think it's funny. I'm glad that we do because it's not confusing for us. Exactly. Five Exactly. Years from now, people are

[Rep. Brenda Steady (Member)]: not gonna understand what was meant. Exactly. I

[Rep. Eric Maguire (Member)]: read it pretty straightforward, the sort of people this bill covers, is those that are involved in the criminal justice system of our state. They face or they are facing serious criminal charges. They have been determined to be incompetent to stand trial or I won't use a secondary word, or their procedures have been found not guilty by reason of insanity. That's what the So Two specific groups being served are individuals found not guilty by reasonable insanity for possible life sentencing eligible crimes and criminal defendants found not competent to stand trial. But

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: you can be held without bail, or you might not be held without bail. And all we're saying is that number three should be the last thing in the list. So you have to have one, two and four. But number three is no, you don't come into this facility if you're receiving treatment through an order of hospitalization or you're subject to an order of commitment to Dale, which I'm going to presume is Act two forty eight, the citation there. We're saying, Eric, is that the order of those should be reversed. What you said is that. Yeah. So I guess one of the things that I'm curious about, Barbara, because it doesn't say in section one, not guilty by reason of insanity.

[Rep. Barbara Rachelson (House Judiciary)]: Right, because two populations would be here. People who are not competent, it's determined that they're not competent And to stand restoration of competency services, the proposal was to deliver those services there. If somebody is also found not competent to stand, I mean, guilty by reason of insanity Does that

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: come later in the bill? Section three. Yeah. Okay. Thank you.

[Rep. Barbara Rachelson (House Judiciary)]: But they're also housed there until they're considered not Not dangerous. Okay.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: All right. So the first part, it's been a while since I read this. Clunky. Yeah, it's a little clunky. So the first part is all about the non competency and then restoring competency, and then we deal with the not guilty by reason of insanity. Okay.

[Rep. Eric Maguire (Member)]: Yeah, but again, the non competency piece and competency restoration strictly pertains to the, to at the time, we're considering you and competent to stand trial. The competency restoration pertains strictly to that, whether or not competency can be restored, so they can be deemed fit to sand child or not. It has nothing to do with other people's disabilities and restoring their competencies and specifically pertains to that?

[Rep. Barbara Rachelson (House Judiciary)]: Yes and no, we've sort of heard both. We heard I mean, it's primarily risk. Not like what can we do to make this person the best person they can be? It's all about

[Rep. Eric Maguire (Member)]: trial. Yes, restoring their competency on whether or not they can stand trial, or competency may not be restored to where they cannot stand trial, which could then generate the not guilty by reason for insanity This and petition is why I really, really recommend that we reach on out and take testimony nationally from the experts in this field, the experts that are running these, how other states had implemented in statutes instead of possibly leaning back to where basing things off of maybe not all of the information.

[Rep. Barbara Rachelson (House Judiciary)]: Yes, and definitely some of these things lie in the face of what is considered best practice, and that's been sort of my biggest concern, is that. We were told that the Yale Center for Psychiatry and Forensic Care is one of the experts, and one of their staff happens to be the medical director at the Howard Center, and she testified to an art committee yesterday. But she had a good range of information about how these programs are delivered in other states. I've been trying to do my own research, which I'm happy to share. A lot of it's been in the psychiatry journals, where community based and again, some of these are locked facilities. This is coming to our committee because of both community safety and of victim notification, and those have tended to sort of lead the conversation. And if those are your very, very well, even if community safety is your primary concern, the rates of people having good treatment options has been higher in community programs that specialize, and there's continuity of care.

[Rep. Eric Maguire (Member)]: I can share, I'm happy to put my folder of resources on Google Drive. I appreciate that. We're speaking about forensics facility. What separates a forensics facility from any other mental health or correctional facilities? They're dual governance. And the dual governance separates distinctly clinical authority from custodial authority. Custodial authority is the responsibility of your correctional system. Clinical authority is the responsibility and governance of your mental health. It's a completely, you must separate, why? Because you don't want the clinical authority, they need to have their own separate governance. What drives forensics, not custodial authority. That's where the concerns I'm running into with this bill.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: I think everybody's in agreement with you. I don't think anybody disagrees with that. Go ahead.

[Rep. Esme Cole (Member)]: And to extend on that a little bit and what you mentioned, Barbara, about the national experts and their testimony in your committee yesterday, in order to follow through and to provide that clinical authority, one recommendation that the National Efforts made was to create a billing code for providing intensive forensic level competency restoration services so that maybe even the DAs could use that billing code to provide services if it would be adequate, of course,

[Rep. Barbara Rachelson (House Judiciary)]: training and everything. Doctor. Raven talked about the continuity of care is really important with these populations and getting, when the forensic assessment is done, having that also include what treatment is needed and what the aftercare plan is. Because people are going to eventually, many of them, go back to their communities and who want to make sure they're getting what they need and there's protection for the community. Orders of non hospitalization aren't working. People are out and about and They could work, frankly,

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: if the Department of Mental Health were providing the oversight that is necessary. The services in place. Exactly. I think that there's a difference between things not working and the ability. So I think that we have mechanisms.

[Rep. Barbara Rachelson (House Judiciary)]: You have the power in this committee to do that. Actually,

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: it's next door in the healthcare committee, but I think that we might be taking some initiative on that. That's great. Because what we heard from the Department of Mental Health is that once their mental health is stable, they have nothing to do with them. And I'm like, okay, that's not really good enough because you have them in a confined space. You essentially are having control over whether they take their medications or not, or whether they participate in therapy or not. Once they are in the community, and so they could be determined to be not dangerous at that point in time. Once they're in the community, they very well could. People have free will. They could stop taking their medication, stop doing the very things that made them stable. The Department of Mental Health needs to maintain residential as well as therapeutic supervision over those individuals in the community, not just saying we did our job and off you go. Hope. And that's where I hope that we land on this. It's not

[Rep. Barbara Rachelson (House Judiciary)]: what the Department of Mental Health wants. I'm being I totally know that because I have questioned them quite a bit The on our other thing that is important is the Indiana Supreme Court case, which I'm sure

[Rep. Esme Cole (Member)]: Yes, White, 1972. Right, and I'm sure when you

[Rep. Barbara Rachelson (House Judiciary)]: get your walkthrough, Eric will talk about that, because holding people who are not convicted for extended periods of time does bump into other issues. And I know the institutions committee has been looking at that. So guess Doctor. Raven, who's the person that you spoke to that testified? Yes. I

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: think that I might ask Laurie to It looks like she was the first one in the morning, so it should be easy to find. So that we can pop it up this afternoon and listen to your Okay. Thank you. All right. Thank you so much. I really appreciate you popping in.

[Rep. Barbara Rachelson (House Judiciary)]: I'm so thrilled. It's hard when it's so divided up and it's worth the university. Yeah. Anyway, thank you. And if I can, I will make these resources available? It's something- Thank you. I've heard a big deal about, and you guys are so on it. I'm really, really good. Okay.

[Rep. Daniel Noyes (Clerk)]: We always turn to this.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: We try. Okay, so I'm excited to welcome to the House Human Services Committee folks from Randolph Union High School and their advisors. We'll do, And why don't we do this? First off, we'll go around the room and introduce ourselves, and then you'll introduce yourselves. And the witness chair is there, but more than one person can sit there and you can pull chairs around if more than one person wants to talk at the same time. So my name is Theresa Wood. I live in Waterbury, and I also serve Bolton, Gills Gore, and Huntington. Hi, I'm Rey Garofano, and I live in Essex, and I also serve at Esme Cole,

[Rep. Esme Cole (Member)]: and I represent Hartford.

[Rep. Zon Eastes (Member)]: Good morning. My name is Zon Eastes.

[Rep. Zon Eastes (Member)]: I live in Guilford, and I also represent Vernon. Hello. I'm Doug Bishop, a representative from Colchester.

[Rep. Brenda Steady (Member)]: Brenda Steady. East Milton, Westford.

[Rep. Eric Maguire (Member)]: Hi. Good morning. Eric Maguire, I represent Rockland City.

[Rep. Daniel Noyes (Clerk)]: Good morning. I'm Daniel Noyes. I represent Wilkite, Hyde Park, Johnson, and Belvedere.

[Rep. Jubilee McGill (Member)]: And represent McGill. Hey, folks. I am so sorry I am not there. I had an appointment and I am in my car now on my way to the State House. But very happy to have you here. And I am Jubilee McGill, and I represent Bridgeport, Middlebury, New Haven, and Weybridge.

[Rep. Esme Cole (Member)]: Great. And Lori. Lori, Morris Committee Assistant.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: We'll go all the way around the room.

[Brett Ketra (UVM intern to Rep. Noyes)]: Brett Ketra, I'm UBM student interning for Representative Noyes. I'm Beverly Tatz.

[Beverly Tatz (Director of Project-Based Learning, RUHS)]: I am director of project based learning and a lead in economic justice subject at The United States.

[Ted Kellman (Teacher, RUHS)]: Ted Kellman. I'm a social studies teacher and also co lead partner of economic justice class.

[Taya Brown (Student, RUHS)]: Taya Brown, I am a student of the economic justice studio and I'm advocating for neurodivergence and other forms of

[Rep. Brenda Steady (Member)]: disability and Hi, my name is Shannon Duke. I did an interview with these wonderful people

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: to get my side of things.

[Rep. Esme Cole (Member)]: I was the one who.

[Unidentified Student (Randolph Union High School)]: I'm a student in the economic justice PBL. I'm a senior.

[Jack Mason (Student, RUHS)]: I'm Jack Mason, I'm also a student in the economic justice PBL. I'm also

[Unidentified Student (Randolph Union High School)]: a senior. I'm George Rosalvo, I'm also a student in the PBL.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Great. Well, thank you all for being here. We really appreciate it. First off, I need to know what PBL stands for. Oh, okay. You said it earlier.

[Rep. Brenda Steady (Member)]: Okay. All right. Should have

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: put that down. All right. I should ask Laurie. Our committee assistant is a foremost social studies teacher.

[Rep. Esme Cole (Member)]: She knows all about project based learning.

[Rep. Daniel Noyes (Clerk)]: Probably even more acronyms.

[Rep. Esme Cole (Member)]: So

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: welcome. There's many of you, whoever wants to sit in the witness chair sort of front and center and people can gather around or if you have space or specific

[Rep. Daniel Noyes (Clerk)]: Students, why don't you why don't you guys around Shannon?

[Rep. Esme Cole (Member)]: There you go. Put Shannon in the center. Can

[Rep. Daniel Noyes (Clerk)]: I ask just a couple procedural questions? Absolutely. B, So I think originally sort of got in touch with Jubilee because of this interview that these students produced. Have you all had a chance to hear that piece?

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: No, actually no.

[Rep. Daniel Noyes (Clerk)]: I was gonna suggest, Rutland, if we start off by just playing you that it's about a three or four minute piece that's put together. And then we wanted to have Shannon just kind of elaborate on some of her experiences.

[Rep. Brenda Steady (Member)]: And cool. And one other procedural question. Am I allowed to take photos?

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Long as they're okay with it, yes. I'm fine.

[Rep. Brenda Steady (Member)]: Yeah, my droop's okay.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Yeah, you're on YouTube for posterity. You'll be

[Rep. Daniel Noyes (Clerk)]: able to

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: the links out with your friends and family out there and folks at school. Okay, so we're gonna hear first the interview.

[Rep. Brenda Steady (Member)]: I did the transit for music work. Sorry. That's okay. Thank you so Here at Economic PBO.

[Rep. Daniel Noyes (Clerk)]: How's the volume, if I'm just playing off my laptop? That's fine. You.

[Rep. Brenda Steady (Member)]: Here at the Economic Justice PBL, sat down with Shannon, a longtime community member, to address the housing crisis in Vermont. She has experienced the 200% statewide increase in homelessness since 2020 on a personal level. I grew up here. Mean I went to this high school. I went to the elementary school when it sat where Du Bois and King is. To be honest, I left high school my senior year, went to get my GED, and then went on to go to college. These past three years I've experienced something I've never experienced and that's being homeless. Price of rent is much. That's what's keeping us homeless. We don't have enough jobs to go around. This is our third winter that we've we have struggled like crazy to find a place. There's not enough housing. It's too expensive. And it's not flexible. And I've got four cats and the apartments don't allow pets. Well, as a same homeless person as any, they're not giving up their pets. They'll live in their car before they get. And even to get an apartment, we take everything, and we not have anything left to buy food, buy gas for the truck, buy pet food, our food. In the end, we're broke every month. By the fifth of the month, we're broke. This community lacks resources for hundreds of people. Go Montpelier, they have a place that you can go where you can take a shower. You can get something to eat. You can charge your cell phone. You can do if you're doing schoolwork or business, you can sit there all day long. They open up at 08:00 in the morning and don't close until six. They should have a place where people can go where they can take a shower, wash their clothes. You have to get a pot, warm up water on your stove, and then do a sponge bath because you don't have the other options. And even though I've lived in this community my whole life, I don't feel a part of it. I kind of feel a lot of money outside looking in because the feeling I get is my voice doesn't matter. I'm just one little voice. There's so many things that could be done. Yeah. Just excuse my French. If somebody would get off their ass and take a look at the homeless and the community, you can look at a person and not know it. I've lost a lot of my possessions which sucked. Things I wanted to keep that possibly would come back in life later in life. Yeah. I had to let them go. And I've had some places I put it in storage and then mice find it. And even to get an apartment, we take everything and we not have anything left to buy food, buy gas for the truck, buy pet's food, buy our food. In the end, we're broke every month. By the fifth of the month, we're broke. There's $1,218,100 dollars a month. I'm like you need to bring that down. Plus security deposit. That's the hardest part of getting a place. First month's rent and security deposit.

[Rep. Barbara Rachelson (House Judiciary)]: And of course, if

[Rep. Brenda Steady (Member)]: you have animals, then they want another deposit. If they will let you have them. They have houses that are empty. Fix them or sell them cheap to like a couple with children and let them fix it up as they go. Just make sure it's habitable. And then from there on in, let them do it. Because then one, it takes the cost and the money out of the community, saves the money. And the people living in the house feel like a sense of accomplishment. Was produced by the Economic Justice PBO by Radial Video Magazine.

[Nate Brown (Student, RUHS)]: My name is Nate Brown. I did the music and I set up the interview.

[Rep. Brenda Steady (Member)]: This interview is edited by George Rosalbo, Miles Hajarian, Jack Mason. Thank you to Casey Reybold at Capstone for connecting us with Shannon.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Thank you. That was very helpful and meaningful, and thank you for sharing your story, honestly. It can help. It's hard to do, especially when you're in a room full of people you just barely met. And we appreciate the students taking on this project and thinking about this from an economic justice perspective and understanding that. So floor is yours. We'd love to hear if you have other comments that you'd like to make. Well, to cover something like I was saying in the interview, it's

[Rep. Brenda Steady (Member)]: I've never been homeless a day in my life, until now.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Are you still homeless? Yep.

[Rep. Brenda Steady (Member)]: This September will be our fourth year. And we're stuck. We were lucky when we got somebody to let us set up our camper on their property. We just have to pay a small amount to be there, and we actually have real electricity instead of having to buy gas all the time for a generator. And then there's buying propane to keep you warm. It'd been more than one day in the winter when we went cold. And we were hiding under the blankets with each other and the dog and the cats, and everybody was under the blankets. And if it wasn't for Capstone in Randolph, we would have froze, because we couldn't constantly afford that. And being homeless is not something I like to admit. I get judged because, Oh, I must be a drug dealer, or I must be an addict, or have severe mental illness. Yes, I have mental illness, but it's being taken care of. I mean, I was abused as a kid, and I tried very hard to make it on our own. And we live in a 27 foot camper, which is not in the greatest of shape, but it's livable. My husband and I both are disabled, So therefore, he can't work at all. And I'm limited. So I'm working with higher ability to maybe help me get into a part time job. Like I said, I quit high school in my senior year, got my GED in May, had my daughter when I was 19, and then went to college when I was about 22, 23. It was Woodbury College, but it was here. And I graduated with an associate's and a bachelor's in paralegal studies. And lies the problem of small towns don't usually have paralegals do their work. They like to do it themselves. So I was like, Okay, what happens now? And as I was looking, I got diagnosed with migraines. And my migraines would go days where I just can function. So there's my disability story, plus my back is shot. I can look in my own community and see buildings just sitting. I mean, we have a large building that sits very empty. It's been empty a long time. Why can't they do something with it? You know, make Like here in Montpelier, they have the house that you can take showers, can get a meal or cook your own meal, charge your cell phone, just socialize and not feel like you're on your own. I feel like I'm on my own. My husband and I are on our own. We have our daughter, and that's it. Like I said, I've lived in that community my whole life, and I feel like I'm on the outside working in.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: You said you were connected with Capstone, and I'm just wondering if they have tried to help you find something that you are able to afford. Well, she's tried.

[Rep. Brenda Steady (Member)]: Casey Reybold has worked her little butt off, trying to help us get applications into here, get applications into there, and they have two to three year waiting lists. So, and that's, you know, Section 8. Mhmm. It did not have a certificate for, like ourselves, to find an apartment that has a Section 8 attached to it.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Oh, I'm just going to mention something that you might not be aware of. In Waterbury, is I know you don't want to necessarily move from Randell. There is a new building that is income based that is accepting applications right now.

[Rep. Brenda Steady (Member)]: Debbie. Something to check. Right, so

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: check-in with your capstone worker and they're accepting applications right now. They just put out a call for applications. So I don't know about the pet thing. That's going to Yeah, be the the pet

[Rep. Brenda Steady (Member)]: thing is my last summer, we spent staying underneath the underpass up here across from the cemetery. And there were others. We became a little homeless group.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Group, yep, I remember seeing campers there. Yep. And

[Rep. Brenda Steady (Member)]: for people who are homeless, who maybe have mental illness, maybe not, their pets are their lifeline. The pet is there when you pry. It's there when you feel stressed. I can take

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: my dog for a walk and feel better. Yeah.

[Rep. Brenda Steady (Member)]: Yeah. Or I can sit there and hang out with my cat and watch TV, and cat is all snuggly and wants to and that bring my heart rate down, bring my blood pressure down.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: They give you unconditional love, special. They,

[Rep. Brenda Steady (Member)]: they, and I don't The only unconditional love I feel right now is from my husband, my animals, and my daughter. My social circle is about that big. I do do martial arts on Wednesday night. Don't have to pay. My martial arts teacher does not charge. He teaches kids from four years old and all the way up. Can I just interject something?

[Rep. Esme Cole (Member)]: Sure. I used to be one of his students.

[Rep. Brenda Steady (Member)]: Oh, nice.

[Rep. Esme Cole (Member)]: So I think we knew each other from that.

[Rep. Brenda Steady (Member)]: And I do archery on Thursday nights. And they gave us a, since we're low income, so low income, they just let us come. Nice. So I kind of got that kind of started.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: So but still I'm reaching out to try to I'm trying to do something. Connect with other people. Yeah. Yeah. That's important.

[Rep. Doug Bishop (Member)]: And I really appreciate that you've connected with the students and that you've

[Unidentified Student (Randolph Union High School) #2]: reached out.

[Rep. Doug Bishop (Member)]: I'm sure it's not easy to open up to No. Folks at Capstone or to us, but that your your willingness to support these students in in their learning Yes. Is great. I'm curious from the students' perspective, are there things that you maybe started looking at these issues and thought one thing and maybe learned something different or something that was new to you in this process?

[Unidentified Student (Randolph Union High School)]: Yeah, I mean, we learned a lot about the funding that goes towards unhoused people and the problem in Vermont. And we learned that, you know, like 200 to 400,000,000 went into this since 2019. And I thought a lot about that And where did that money priority go necessarily? Did it go towards? After talking a lot to her, there's a lot of these bigger communities with a lot of help, but where does that necessarily go to the smaller communities as well? You think the vast majority goes to the hubs like Burlington or Montpelier or Essex where you say that there's all these opportunities for housing and section eight housing. Do you think smaller communities are under prioritized and that leads to the 300% increase since 2019?

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: I think that's a good question. So there's a bill that we worked on here in our committee, H-nine 38, that is actually downstairs in the Senate Health and Welfare Committee that is all about housing and homelessness and trying to prioritize a there really isn't a system the way we would like you want to think about a system. The resources that you're talking about was all really during COVID time. And really, the vast majority of that was spent on hotels to keep people safe in individual rooms during hotels. And so we are trying to wean ourselves off from the use of those hotels as being kind of the source of shelter for people and trying to move to a place where an individual or a family could have better case management services to help them find housing. And because of the cutbacks on the federal level for rental subsidies, we instituted in this bill a state run rental subsidy program. So there is, I guess I would say, some hope on the horizon that things can change. And when you were talking about more rural communities, we actually had a big conversation about that here, in particular during sort of the extreme cold weather shelters when places opened up, the money did go to the sort of primary larger communities. And we had a discussion about how do we get those resources to the smaller communities like Randolph or up in the Northeast Kingdom or in other places. So we were very much aware that those smaller communities, you might say, weren't getting their fair share in the current resources. So I'm glad you brought that up because that definitely was something that we talked about. But if you maintain your interest in this topic, H-nine 38, to follow the progress of that over the next two weeks, because we will need to be taking action if that bill is going to pass. We've passed it out of the House. It's in the Senate right now, and they're working on it. And so this is sort of our major effort to create a more logical system. And it has over $82,000,000 associated with that bill to help people who are homeless. So it is interesting what you've learned. As students, how did you decide to sort of tackle the issue of housing and homelessness? I mean, how did that rise to your consciousness?

[Unidentified Student (Randolph Union High School) #3]: Well, it was one of the larger topics at the beginning of the year that we talked about. And then we got into contact with Casey at Capstone through Bev and Tev. And she had the idea with us to interview some unhoused people. One of our other projects was working with the tech center at our high school to provide hot meals during the wintertime at the food shelf. So we did four hot meals every week of February.

[Rep. Brenda Steady (Member)]: Great. Good.

[Rep. Doug Bishop (Member)]: I think something you've also hit upon is the way that government operates that I'm not sure is fully understood by people, and I'm not sure I had a full understanding till I came here two years ago, is how much of what is done by state government is done through partners in the community, capstones. So whether it's housing and homelessness, mental health, home health care, whatever it may be, there are lots of things that we rely upon partners. And there aren't always those network of partners in every community. And Capstone is based, I believe, Pillar, but they spread out some. Other organizations have areas that they try to capture within the service area, but it's not always a complete net that's cast. And that's a challenge. As Chair Wood said, part of this bill, I think was a recognition that maybe a municipality in some smaller towns during that extreme cold weather periods could do something. They may have something in mind that they can do because they might not have a local resource that's operating full time in helping people. Representative Steady? I

[Rep. Brenda Steady (Member)]: don't know about pets, but have you worked on getting your dog as a service animal? Because I know a lot of income based living seniors that I know personally, and they're allowed to have a service animal. Have you worked with your doctor and told him your circumstances? My doctor said I could have him as an emotional support animal. She's already put it in my chart, but some people do not consider emotional support animal a service animal.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Are you checking? Downstreet does.

[Rep. Brenda Steady (Member)]: A lot of places where I live, and nine times out of 10, they're not going to allow me to have him if he's a pitbull. Oh, damn, insurance. No. Well, I

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Yeah. But

[Rep. Brenda Steady (Member)]: I love pitbulls and I love all animals, but I mean, when I adopted him, I had a place to live and everything, and she said I could have him, and I adopted him. The dog and I have something in common, we come from a checkered past. He was abused, I was abused, we're good. So it's I wanna tell you how lucky your dog is, Doug. He's very lucky. Was

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: a bait dog for pit fighting.

[Rep. Brenda Steady (Member)]: Oh, poor puppy. You don't get me crying because I'm a wicked dog. Oh, me too. I'm a wicked cat person. Mean Me too. Yeah. I'm one cat short of the crazy cat lady. I'm the

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: crazy dog. I ask you what the oh, okay. So if you have five, then you're I have four cats.

[Rep. Brenda Steady (Member)]: And I have my dog who is an 84

[Rep. Barbara Rachelson (House Judiciary)]: pound dog having a crazy dog.

[Rep. Doug Bishop (Member)]: But if you get a fifth cat then six is the number

[Rep. Esme Cole (Member)]: for cats.

[Unidentified Student (Randolph Union High School) #2]: Oh yeah, it's

[Rep. Brenda Steady (Member)]: adjustable. It is adjustable, it's like a potato chip, now you have one. I always grew up with animals, and animals were my thing. I had sex dogs to cats. Well, I was a kid growing up, we had a lot of cats. Because we lived next to the river, had rats.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: That's a good I'm interested in hearing from the students. I understand you gave a presentation recently

[Unidentified Student (Randolph Union High School) #2]: at gathering a workshop on the issues with housing and homelessness. So how that It go for went well. We mostly just played the piece we played for you earlier and Jubilee was there, just how we got connected with this. For a while we had like we had done some other interviews with people in our town, but not really any unhoused people. And we were trying to think about how we want to like put our interviews into like something presentable. You can like do interview, but whether you like put it on paper or podcast or like online, we didn't really have a clear plan. So housing conference was kind of a good place to like take the we had like it was probably like forty-fifty minutes of the whole interview. We condensed it and then just shared it with the at the housing conference, which I think was good success for our class because we had been wanting to actually show our work somehow.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Yeah, it was a great opportunity to do that. And Representative McGill came back and said, we have to have these people in committee. So she was impressed with your work. How was it working as a team? So the four of you, I don't know if there was anybody else, but the four of you were working on this together and it seemed like different people took on different roles. So how was that working as a team?

[Unidentified Student (Randolph Union High School)]: Yeah, I think it was really beneficial to have each other. A lot of what our class is is communicating, having ideas coming together. So through that, I think we fostered all of the different components to this. We did a lot of music for this as well. We made it personal. We reached out to people in the community. And I think that on house forum was the stepping stones to make this real and to make a change and to tell a story and to provide because we did a lot of different interviews at the start of the year and didn't really go anywhere. And now, it feels amazing to actually be able to do that and provide help and have It feels super meaningful to have a class like that in school where you're always focused on science or some of the core curriculums. And now this is more community based, that's the whole point of this class, and I really felt it this year.

[Rep. Daniel Noyes (Clerk)]: Out of all the schoolwork you do ends up being heard by state legislators. Yeah, Exactly.

[Rep. Esme Cole (Member)]: You guys want

[Rep. Doug Bishop (Member)]: me Do to do you

[Rep. Brenda Steady (Member)]: want to share a little bit about overall, I've seen you guys really hustle and try to provide for your community and what we're seeing in terms of not just elevating voices in need, but do you wanna share what other things that you tackled this year?

[Rep. Esme Cole (Member)]: We did a We called it Randolph Refuel as like a

[Rep. Brenda Steady (Member)]: play on words. We got the RTCC, Randolph Technical Career Center food truck, and we got the culinary students to help us out with providing hot meals for people at the food shop for like four weeks. I went to one

[Rep. Esme Cole (Member)]: of them, but I don't think

[Rep. Brenda Steady (Member)]: I saw very many people come in. I saw people come in, but there wasn't any like long lines. I was expecting long lines.

[Rep. Doug Bishop (Member)]: I think we served

[Rep. Daniel Noyes (Clerk)]: more than 200 meals over the course of the You guys also did kind of a side project.

[Unidentified Student (Randolph Union High School) #3]: Oh yeah, did a clothing drive as well. And we had a table full of winter clothes available for people to have while we were serving food.

[Rep. Brenda Steady (Member)]: So how did that work? Did you reach out to the community to ask for donations of clothing?

[Unidentified Student (Randolph Union High School) #3]: Another project that we have is a thrift store in our school, but it's all free. So students or teachers at the school can donate clothes there and Then it's available for anyone who needs anything. So we borrowed some winter clothes from there and also had a few posts on the Forge Forum and stuff asking for more winter clothes donations.

[Rep. Esme Cole (Member)]: Go ahead, Oh, no, go ahead. Well, I should say

[Rep. Daniel Noyes (Clerk)]: just to contextualize that a little bit and maybe one of the students wants to speak to this. One of the things we've talked a lot about in this class is the stigma that is attached to socioeconomic class and often that stigma gets attached to like a condition like being unhoused, but also to accessing many of the supports and resources that might help people. So I think that with a lot of these projects, like one of the things that was really at the center of your guys thinking about how do you want to approach it was thinking about how can we reduce that stigma. And I also know, I I wanted to flag and maybe someone wants to return to this that we had been looking at H nine thirty eight actually just before we even came here and also had questionsconcerns around kind of related to that theme. Kaye, I know that was something that you had some things to say. Do you wanna talk about that right now?

[Rep. Brenda Steady (Member)]: Yeah. I think so. So act seven seventy two, I understand that that's been passed already in the senate. In the house. In the house.

[Rep. Daniel Noyes (Clerk)]: I think you may actually be thinking about nine thirty eight with what you have. Yeah, we looked at both of those bills.

[Rep. Esme Cole (Member)]: Yeah, nine thirty eight. And there's some like potentially ableist like.

[Rep. Brenda Steady (Member)]: Oh, that was seven seventy seven. Because there's a

[Rep. Esme Cole (Member)]: bit of terminology and motives that violate the Americans with Disabilities Act. We

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: agree. Yes. That bill did not come out of our committee. No. Whatever. So it

[Rep. Esme Cole (Member)]: was voted against it, but not enough.

[Rep. Brenda Steady (Member)]: So I guess I'm like one more person voting against it.

[Rep. Esme Cole (Member)]: Good. Grass is stable. It's like putting them into like specially qualified kind of like Do you have

[Rep. Brenda Steady (Member)]: the thing on hand so I can read it up?

[Rep. Doug Bishop (Member)]: I can show it up.

[Rep. Daniel Noyes (Clerk)]: Can just hand that to Teya.

[Rep. Esme Cole (Member)]: There you go. They're putting requirements on conditions for accessing shelters where you have a treatment plan or whatever. Was $9.38. Yeah, so that's $9.38. Okay. I'm getting my bills mixed up. That's good. And that is ableist because as think as Shannon had said, there's a lot of stigma around having drug conditions. Not every homeless person is

[Rep. Brenda Steady (Member)]: a drug addict and not every drug addict is a homeless person.

[Rep. Esme Cole (Member)]: It puts a lot more stigma on disabled people, especially people that aren't like, you you can look at them and not know that they're disabled until they tell you or you figure that out yourself. And we're supposed to be, I feel like in a way, we are supposed to be making sure that they belong, that the disabled population and the

[Rep. Brenda Steady (Member)]: neurotypical population

[Rep. Esme Cole (Member)]: belong with one another and coexist. And having, sorry, it's a little bit awkward. Having conditions for, like, homelessness. Excuse

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: me, excuse me. We have somebody testifying.

[Rep. Brenda Steady (Member)]: Mention what people need before they Sorry,

[Rep. Esme Cole (Member)]: I bought them all. Let's listen

[Rep. Brenda Steady (Member)]: to their feedback. So that the issue around you would mention it. It was a nice thing, I went and watched You mentioned that we all talked about this where you had mentioned that that was for people being healthy, right? They need a place to stay. Yeah, they Having

[Rep. Esme Cole (Member)]: a lot of people that are going under addiction or things like that, they have to be able to get sober at some point and they need that support from other people, whether those other people are addicts or not. And then having then having it and like a lot of those people are homeless, but that they didn't choose to do that. So like,

[Rep. Brenda Steady (Member)]: if this is all making sense.

[Rep. Esme Cole (Member)]: Homeless people who are addicts or in similar situations, financially unstable, mentally unstable, physically unstable, no offense.

[Rep. Brenda Steady (Member)]: God, I said physically unstable, that's Anyway,

[Rep. Esme Cole (Member)]: any kind of instability, they should be able to access what they need. And that's in some cases like a place to save when they can't afford it or all that stuff. So like putting them in like special, specially whatever. Special requirements or conditions. Special requirements or conditions, I feel like is potentially ableist. In school, a lot of kids, like me, I'm neurodivergent, I'm autistic, I think. They have accommodations. They have accommodations, so they can like, if they have to do a test and they can't do it in the classroom for one reason or another, they can go down to another room and

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: work on it

[Rep. Esme Cole (Member)]: there, for example. I feel like maybe instead of having special, having that kind of, again, that kind of terminology and motive that I feel could potentially be ableist and possibly a lot that could possibly be stigmatizing for them. What about accommodations? So, the other people, if they're in

[Rep. Brenda Steady (Member)]: a group home

[Rep. Esme Cole (Member)]: and there's one or two more people that typical, they can know,

[Rep. Brenda Steady (Member)]: hey, this person has abominations. So apologies for that.

[Rep. Daniel Noyes (Clerk)]: I'm curious for your perspective on this too, I think when we did the interview last month, you were talking about some of the ways that conditions or requirements to access shelter or to access subsidized housing, so that's lead to people like making the choice to stay outside or stay in a Can less you talk about that a little bit? Like did you find personally or have you talked to people who have found that yeah, like in order to stay at a shelter, you need to do X, Y, Z and that that kind of creates a reason why people choose not to access shelter?

[Rep. Brenda Steady (Member)]: My husband and I came to a point when we called to see if we could get into somewhere for the winter. They would allow my dog, an 84 pound pit bull, into their hotel, but they wouldn't accept my chance. I couldn't fathom it. I'm like, You're gonna allow a big dog into your hotel, but you're

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: not gonna allow cats. Come on.

[Rep. Brenda Steady (Member)]: And that prevented us from we made the choice because we were not abandoning our pets. Like I said before, our pets are everything. My daughter helps take care of those pets, too, because she's technically supporting two families, her own and us. She will buy pet food for them, dog food, whatever needs to be done. I don't ask her. But I feel terribly guilty of taking money away from her family. It's

[Rep. Daniel Noyes (Clerk)]: only her and

[Rep. Brenda Steady (Member)]: her boyfriend, but still, of taking money away from her. Oh, mom, don't worry about it, we'll be fine. And I feel guilty. And I bet you a lot of people choose for whatever reason to not go into a shelter or something. And people are going to say, Well, they chose to be that way. I didn't choose, I made my priorities. My mind is, I've got my animals, took them into my life, I am not responsible for that, One way, shape or another. And there's a lot of shame, a lot of guilt for being homeless. I tell people we're homeless, and they look at me like, I just grew another head. And they judge me like that. Do you think I chose to be this way? Oh, hell no. I'd love to be into an apartment or something. But, campers are not built. It's gonna be in the wintertime. Vermont, then. Not in Vermont. And we even did consider, you know, since we have a camper, we could go south, but then that takes us away from our daughter. And she's the only one that got left, as my great aunt died last year. A woman who raised me like her own child. She bent over backwards to help us, too. Even when we had an apartment, because we paid almost all of our money to have it, she would help us all the time. Did you lose your apartment because essentially, were the rents raised or was- She sold the property, and then told us when she was three quarters of the way through the process. So we didn't get our thirty days to get out.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: And so people and the other people weren't going to rent or they raised the rent or

[Rep. Brenda Steady (Member)]: She sold her property to somebody else, And somebody else did not want us. So we got out in, like, ten days. I mean, had to go hunt for a camper, make sure we had a truck to pull it, and gave up so much stuff. I lost all my law books from college. I wanted to keep those. Lost my daughter's baby book. I can't replace that. Ta da da. Alright. I'm sorry. And

[Rep. Daniel Noyes (Clerk)]: Yeah, I think that Sorry, I don't

[Rep. Brenda Steady (Member)]: wanna- You're fine. I'm about to lose it, so.

[Rep. Daniel Noyes (Clerk)]: Yeah, I mean, it's heartbreaking. I think that one of the things we just really ask the community to consider as you're voting or as you're looking at future bills around this is that I think that there is often We're talking about this idea of stigma and that public policies that are theoretically designed to help people often, I think, create barriers to access and reinforce or deepen these stigmas. And at least in my view, don't know if you guys would agree with this, that it sometimes seems like it starts with this assumption that people who are unhoused don't work the same way that the rest of us do. And I think that when we think about the pet requirements, how many people in this room have pets would willingly get rid of them so that you can move? Like, that's not a reasonable thing to ask people to do. And I think, thinking what you were saying about, that there's, you've considered leaving to go somewhere where it's former, but your family and your support network and your community is in Randolph. And so whether it's moving to the South or even to Waterbury, right? Like when we don't make these services accessible in every community, you're setting up this expectation that people need to give up things that are important to them. I think that any of us would recognize are important just on a human level. And so I think that from all of the interviews and research we've been doing, it really feels like a consistent theme is that means testing programs or putting conditions on programs or failing to think about the diverse experiences that people have in different kinds of communities or with different kinds of bodies or minds or whatever is going to inevitably end up kind of undermining the efficacy of those programs.

[Rep. Brenda Steady (Member)]: It's dehumanizing. I mean, if my dad watches this, I don't believe Do I wanna say what it It's up to you, Ben. Oh, God. I have witnessed

[Rep. Esme Cole (Member)]: driving like,

[Rep. Brenda Steady (Member)]: I'm in the car driving past and they're driving past homeless people and not even I

[Rep. Esme Cole (Member)]: don't even like, people that are holding up signs like, I need cash for food, and they're just standing out on the interstate or on near like the highway and it's like, get a job or like whatever, like thinking that they're

[Rep. Daniel Noyes (Clerk)]: You said that's something that people would say about people in that situation.

[Rep. Esme Cole (Member)]: Yeah, like get a job or whatever. And it's like, they didn't choose to do that. They didn't choose to stand out in the street and they're not drug addicts. They're probably just people like, and especially like, it's especially when they're, when those people are immigrants and there's a lot of stigma around like illegal immigrants and things like that. And what if, so what if they're, what if they're illegal? What if they're illegal immigrants? What if they're just homeless? If they want to be homeless? They want to live. And no matter how many people give them cash, I feel like what outweighs that is probably the sheer amount of people. There are probably more people that don't do anything or just tell them like, don't get a job or honk at them or give them a middle finger and are like, no, I'm not helping you. Like, there's probably more people out there now, especially the current administration, that are doing that than actually helping them and realizing these are people too. We are not the only people.

[Rep. Brenda Steady (Member)]: And to see them standing out there when it's 20 below, you think they are standing out there for their health? Even me being homeless, me being really short on cash, if I see someone standing out there, if I've got a little bit of cash, I give it to them. I don't care how they use it. It's up to them, not me. Or if they're standing out there with their dog or something. If I've got a little extra dog food, or I might go to the store and buy the cheapest dog food you can find, and I'll give them that, because I know what it's like. And the humiliation they must feel, having to stand out there with a little sign, and having everybody going by, you know

[Rep. Esme Cole (Member)]: Every single freaking, don't even know if I wanna say it, those followers honking or giving the middle finger. There's probably quite a few people that are giving

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: them a real finger. I'm like,

[Rep. Esme Cole (Member)]: that's that's sad. That's humiliating. That can, like, That can make somebody angry. That can bring them down. Well, and

[Rep. Brenda Steady (Member)]: you bring up a good point, right? Whose lives are more valuable? Who deserves housing? Right. And we don't weigh off. Yes. I have to go with my therapist on this. Do I deserve this? I've gotten to a point where I'm like,

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: whatever. I think that you all sort of bring us back to the reality day in and day out that we all, at one point or another, have judged other people according to our own values and that we need to be careful because we haven't walked in that person's shoes, and their story is unique to them. Each one of us sitting around the table or sitting in this room, our story is unique to us. And no one looking from the outside in really knows that story. And we shouldn't make judgments about people's stories or assertions about what they should be doing or what they shouldn't be doing. And I think that's something that you all have learned through this process, I'm sure. And it's something that we have to make sure that we do here in this building as well. And it's hard. We have to check ourselves every day to make sure that we're not doing that. It's kind of human nature sometimes to do the very things that you were just talking about, Tay. And we try to be better as humans and to help each other. And I think that you are doing an amazing job shining a light on that. And I hope you do encourage people to come and look us up on YouTube under House Human Services on YouTube, and you can share this with other people. They'll be able to see. Send you all that link. Oh, okay, great. Thank you, Jubilee. And I just want to say thank you for spending the time coming here this morning. And as your advisor said, not every high school project gets to a legislative and testified before a relevant human services or relevant legislative committee. I do wanna point out in September, that it's not just people with disabilities who have to have a plan, it's everybody. So trying not to segregate out people with disabilities, because as you said, everybody And it's really about trying to personalize what would be helpful for that individual. So we really, really thank you for And being here this I believe that representative Steady has paid for snack or something. Treats. Sweet treats down in the cafeteria, did you say? So if you wanna get there before the rush gets there, she has treated you all to some sweet treats down there. So thank you all for being here so much and thank you Jubilee for Thank you so much.

[Rep. Esme Cole (Member)]: I'm so surprised at how enlightening this was. Thanks

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: you all so much.