Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Yep. Turn off the speakers. Right. Welcome. It is Friday, January 23, and it we are we are in the senate economic development housing and general affairs in the Vermont State House. And it's Friday, so it's a housing day, and we are creating one of one of our greatest housing partners the Vermont Housing and Finance Agency and its executive director, president, queen of VHFA, Laura Collins. Laura, welcome. Good to have you back.

[Maura Collins (Executive Director, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: Thank you so much. As Senator said, I'm Laura Collins, executive director of the Vermont Housing Finance Agency. I am pulling up my slideshow, which is on the committee's web page. And they're passing notes in class, Senator?

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: No. They're passing medal. Okay. That David has had. Show the camera David, one of your beautiful medallions.

[Sen. David Weeks (Clerk)]: Oh I gave my last one.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Anyway he's had beautiful Vermont State House. That's a different project.

[Sen. David Weeks (Clerk)]: Sorry to interrupt.

[Maura Collins (Executive Director, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: You're not. That's a thing. You helped me because it bought me a little time to pull up my presentation.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: And you have, for those of you who like to make notes on your presentations, you have one at your desk. Okay.

[Maura Collins (Executive Director, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: So, it's in a second going to switch to the prettier mode. And so I'm here for the Vermont Housing Finance Agency, BHFA. We run a bunch of programs. My goal today is to tell you about what we've been up to, and I know that you got some testimony, there we go, recently also about VIDA and expanding their statute. I'm happy to answer questions there and give you some updates on some of the programs that this committee has thankfully supported for many years. In a few minutes, I'm also gonna be joined by my colleague, Deb Flannery, who is finishing up a meeting, but she may join me to answer some questions if we get into details. She replaced Seth Leonard, some of you knew. Yeah. So she oversees all of our house and development programs. So I can't start a presentation with you all without just reminding you what we need to be doing. I think Chad Simmons may have shown you a chart like this.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: He did, indeed. And I think many people have used this chart.

[Maura Collins (Executive Director, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: Yep. And so, just good news is we're all on the same page, that, we need a lot more homes. We need, a lot of them to be affordable. This is imprecise. I in my office, I have a mobile hanging where there's multiple arms because I like to often reference it with my team where I'm like, yeah. If we pull on one of these things, the other ones move. And so just remember that in a housing market, it's not pure and that if you build a lot of for sale homes, you will free up rentals. You know? If you build a lot of rentals, you will address the homeless population. If you, create housing at the lowest end, the the cheapest homes, you will create more move up opportunities and the like. So what this chart says, you've already heard, two thirds of what we need to build do need to be rentals. The remaining one third should be for sale homes. And three quarters of them have to be affordable should be affordable to people earning under 80%. We will talk about the housing needs of all Vermonters. Pretty much everyone has

[Sen. David Weeks (Clerk)]: a housing need, but it is most acute at the lowest income bands. So yeah, David? If I can. So affordable, in your mind, does affordable or an excellent point? Does affordable mean that there's an initial state injection of cash or a perpetual injection of cash?

[Maura Collins (Executive Director, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: Way I use the word doesn't assume the model of how we get there. All that I care about is that at the end of the day, the resident of the home ownership or rental unit is paying 30% of their income for their housing costs. That's what I care about. So, I'm lucky enough to live in an affordable home. I have not received the kind of government subsidies that we talk about in these programs. Although I do wanna point out, I received the nation's largest government subsidy that I bet you a lot of people in this building receive. Five times the size of the HUD budget is the mortgage interest deduction Correct. That many people do every year when they pull up their taxes. Correct. But I just I care about that end math. So the more income you have, the more you can afford.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: The lower income. And the frightening statistic now is the number of Vermonters who

[Sen. David Weeks (Clerk)]: are

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: paying substantially more than 30% of their income for either their rent or their mortgage because mortgages rent rates. So Half

[Maura Collins (Executive Director, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: of our renters are live in unaffordable housing. They're paying more than that 30% standard. And

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: a lot of them pay more half their income for rent. So Right. And so I think that that that also is a piece as we look at that mobile. That mobile for individuals and their individual budgets. More housing, less availability for everything else they may care about.

[Maura Collins (Executive Director, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: So I can't take my whole hour and talk about all the programs that have to do with housing and it's not needed because over the past week or two you've been hearing from the administrators of different programs. I put this chart up to show you that there are lots of agencies running lots of programs with lots of money. This is a report that comes out every year. I assume the 2025 version will be out any day now in the Department of Housing. What I wanna call out on this chart is this number right here. This is weird. If you went to that link at the top of this page, you would find, this report going back more than ten years, and you would see how the investments in housing in Vermont have changed over the years. You would not see a lot of charts where there's this row that says one time general funds. There'd be a couple years where you see that we did a housing bond in 2017, and it took a couple years to spend that money.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: 5 and $37,000,000 bond. Yep.

[Maura Collins (Executive Director, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: And then with ARPA funds and what's been happening, in the state budget the last few years, you would see this one time general funds that went to BHCB to support housing in the state. That's unusual. That was an influx that the legislature did. And what was the result of that? Well, Gus can come and show you the pictures and speak about all the projects exactly. I wanna tell you what I saw happened as a result of that. Is that because there was so much one time money, it allowed for BHFA to tap into using some of the money that we had access to in a new and expanded way. I'm not gonna remind you of the nerdy testimony about the difference between 4% tax credits and 9% tax credit. These are federal programs. What you need to know is this easy parts. Nine is more than double four, so it's more valuable. That's what you have to remember. And it's so valuable that the federal government limits how much each stake can have. And so we only can fund about four projects a year with that really valuable money. And they're the downtown ending homeless, remediating life, historic preservation, burned out block, you know, that we're bringing back. That's the kind of projects you think of. They get those 90% tax credits. Right here, Taylor Street, the transportation building in Montpelier, flood resistant we've seen yet right next to Riverside, but we did it so well. That's a 90% building. But these so these 4% tax credits, pretty much unlimited in Vermont. We're not we're we're we're not using all that we can. And but you get half as much money. So it's not it doesn't work as well. And how do you well, let's see. If it's unlimited, let's use it more. Even if it's half as much money. It's something. Let's use it. So how do you get these 4% tax credits? You as a developer will borrow half the cost of your project using a very specific resource. You're gonna borrow money from BHFA, and you're gonna use our private activity bonds, and at half your project uses those, you automatically get this 4% tax credit. And we pretty much this isn't no one's gonna ask us this. We pretty much have unlimited amount of private activity bonds. We aren't hitting the limit. So why wouldn't we trigger these tax credits and do this? So the this ugly table on the right is from my finance team because finance people aren't marketers, so they don't make things pretty. And you can see here that for many years, we this private activity bond cap that we were allocated, we used everything that we had.

[Sen. David Weeks (Clerk)]: I thought

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: you said there was no cap. That that it Well was on

[Maura Collins (Executive Director, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: the So so let me explain that. The state has a cap of how much it does. Then there are several there's four agencies who get into a room and we negotiate how much we all need. And that's the bond bank, and they spend their money on roads and bridges and infrastructure and schools and all that through municipalities. VIDA spends their part on economic development and their lending. VSAC, student assistance center, used to spend theirs a lot on higher ed lending. But we know that in 2010, the federal government took that back, and it really dropped how much they need to use that resource. Now they still do use it, and I can't speak to how much they

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: need and what they do

[Maura Collins (Executive Director, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: with it. You're welcome to invite them to come do that. But but they don't need a lot anymore because the feds kinda took over that. So BHFA started getting more and more of this resource allocated to us, so much so that we couldn't spend it all, which is why I say it's kind of unlimited. Because the state is giving us so much, I can't spend it. Because it's it's loan dollars. So what I'm telling you is, like, I can offer a developer it's usually done as a construction loan. Like, I can give you a six and a half percent construction loan, and they'd be like, thanks, but I need a 3% construction loan in order to make my numbers work. And say, oh, I can't do that. That's not what this does.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: It doesn't allow you to lower the amount of the loan.

[Maura Collins (Executive Director, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: We can't lower the interest rate. We have to pay Or bond or pay.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: We have to pay it for. Right.

[Maura Collins (Executive Director, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: I heard that first. Sorry. Yeah. I must have spoken. It's not a

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: No. No. It's it's our understanding. So it's 4% interest. It's not four percent

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Of the tax credit. Right. Right. Sorry.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: You go ahead and you it would make sense that you could do it at two or three or whatever you want.

[Maura Collins (Executive Director, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: So what you see here with these negative numbers, this is how much of this private activity volume gap that VHFA was awarded by the state. The other agencies got some other amounts. I don't know. But we got big numbers, and we did not spend $31,000,000 of it in 2013. We did not spend $60,000,000 in 2014. It we

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: How much would it have cost us to draw down $60,000,000?

[Maura Collins (Executive Director, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: That's a good question that I hurts my brain to I'd have to take that away. Before coach. So my point is, is that from 2013 to 2021, we lost $300,000,000 that we could have used in this state but didn't because the interest rates were too high and so the developers had no use for our money and they couldn't make the math work. But then we seem to have figured out what worked. See, 2022 to 2024, all of a sudden, it's like, oh, the lights turned on and we figured out how to make it work. Well, what happened? Well, you all started investing massive amounts of DHCb, and that makes the project budget work. And the reason is is that these tax credits that get triggered by using this money can only pay for 35% of the pie of the the development costs. It can be for 35%. Does the development up? Infrastructure or no? It often yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So so if the tax credits can pay for 35% of the pie chart, that's what I'm showing here, my names, then you have to have federal HUD money to pay for some of it. Maybe you get rural development money. Maybe you get you know, we've heard about the VCDP, the Vermont Community Development Program. VHCB has state money from the property transfer tax. You fill in the rest

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: of your pie that way.

[Maura Collins (Executive Director, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: We could not new construction was so expensive, you couldn't fill the pie with all that money. It's only when you all were investing in VHCb with this extra money that it was enough that we could make new construction work this way. Previously, we only used it on presentation. So

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: I understand what you're saying. What would be compelling for me, and I took a quick peek at your future slides, I don't see it, but tell me if you're gonna get there. Can you also show housing construction volumes overlaid in these periods? Because if you can also demonstrate that we saw housing reduction skyrocket, especially with affordable housing during the time when we were able to draw down, use these capacity, maybe weren't for the previous ten years, that'd be, much more persuasive.

[Maura Collins (Executive Director, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: That's a very good point, and that's gonna get complicated by the rising cost.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: Right. I

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: would say that the cost per unit also becomes right.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: So the challenge is both workforce and cost. They

[Sen. David Weeks (Clerk)]: Are you anticipating a friendly competition with school construction costs being added to the to the

[Maura Collins (Executive Director, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: I'm not. We are able to roll over our allocations for three years after we're given them. So is sitting on hundreds of millions of dollars today that I don't anticipate using. So I'm not feeling Good. Any of

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: it right now. Speaking of not feeling competitive, you kind of you talked about a very interesting meeting that happens, right, where four different lenders divvy up these tax credits for four different very important uses. And we have a proposal from VIDA to start incorporating housing. Is is that part that's part of this comp that that's part of would be part of that four people need. And I guess I'm wondering what if we allow Vida to do it if it's a if it's a split commercial residential or something.

[Maura Collins (Executive Director, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: Like, what if They're well, they already can do that. They can So they can already do that. They can fund a a building if I think it's 40% of the building is housing.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Oh. But they they they lend a lot less money. I mean, this is don't necessarily view this as serious competition for you.

[Maura Collins (Executive Director, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: No. No. I don't see this so I'm not I don't think they use they don't use my understanding is they finance most of their work with other resources and not private activity bonds. And so, again, I I stand by mistake. Like, I don't feel That's for okay. This resource. That's not a reason to

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: not do this. Okay. I I mean, when you said it, who sits around that table, I'm like, oh, good. So the infrastructure people can talk to the

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Yeah.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Yeah. Economic people. So so that's It's actually cooperative. The e board makes the decision.

[Maura Collins (Executive Director, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: I wanna be very clear. Okay. If the four of us are not making any decisions, we are not that Yeah. People. We do advise and recommend Right. Collaboratively work together, and every year, it's honestly done over email. We don't

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: even need that host, even an overstatement. My dear, let's keep it.

[Sen. David Weeks (Clerk)]: But it was good good

[Maura Collins (Executive Director, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: Yeah.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Visual. Mhmm.

[Maura Collins (Executive Director, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: So, the next few slides will fly through. It just shows who are we talking about, who are we serving. I wanna be clear that, you know, a lot of Vermonters, their median income is close to $80,000, but for renters, it's closer to $45,000. For our tenants in this tax credit housing and all that, they're earning more like $18,000. And so you can see the racial breakdown of our tenants in tax credit housing compared to all renters. 11% of Vermont's renters are racial minorities. 14% of our tax credit renters who told us their race are minorities. And you can see here that the people who we serve are very low income. You know, we peak out serving people who are earning between 5 and 15,000, not, not over 35,000. Age and disability status is just who we're serving. You're welcome to go and look at that. Federal tax credits have been around since 1987. We've done a great job of using and spending them. I've talked about them before. You all don't have a lot to touch with those, but in 2000, this body was brilliant enough to create a state tax credit program to mirror the federal program. You were twenty five years ahead of your time because right now when I go to conferences, everyone the big topic is we're gonna start a state tax credit program because it's been working since 1987. I'm like, we realized that in 2000 and did that. And so we have about 2,000,000 a year to help support the development of affordable rental housing. We have over $3,000,000 a year to develop affordable for sale housing. Some of that goes to replace manufactured homes. You've heard from Champlain Housing Trust about that program. And we run a state homeownership tax credit program. One of the conversations I've having over the last year, and it's ramped up by within the last

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: six months, is how to how to create a prefab supply chain across the country and bring down a cost and the travel time of manufactured housing. Are you part of those conversations? Or are we how are we doing on, you know, a national prefabricated

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: supply chain?

[Maura Collins (Executive Director, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: Not I I don't foresee that that's where the first wins will be nationally. I think it's gonna be regionally state level. There's New England states are talking together. Individual states that are bigger than us can get their own thing going. Right. I'm not gonna hold my breath for something national right now. Okay. We I

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: mean, we we don't have the lumber. Right? Like, we we it is a national supply chain anyway. Mhmm. So there's a there's a a, you know, somebody who went to UVM and is working on this supply chain Yeah. Hub in Kansas City, which used to be America's supply chain hub because that's where all the trains meet. So, you know, I just I hope we're getting serious because I don't know who in New England would be that hub now.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: But Rachel makes some sense for transportation. The rail the rail well, it does it it it does because all these units have to be transported. And so, yes, to the

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Well, the units don't need to be transported. The pieces. Like, you could have a template and get the prefabricated pieces. Correct. And we've talked about that quite

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: a bit, and you were gonna do some additional work this summer which we did not finance but I believe a lot of that work is continuing without state financial support.

[Maura Collins (Executive Director, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: Correct. And so the Homes For All program has been looking at how to do this. The state housing authority has the manufactured home infill program that I believe they'd wanna expand and has been a wild success. And so there are models of this. The materials and supply chain issues are are ones that a lot of people are working on. I just I haven't seen something on my side that's gonna happen soon. In addition to the tax credits that I said were created in 2000, which was rental housing, and then you can also build for sale homes. In 2014, the legislature expanded the state tax credit program, and they allowed VHFA to sell some of these tax credits to fund a DPA, down payment assistance program. It's been around for eleven years now. And so this is what I'm going be talking about. I'm speaking about ways and means later today. I'm asking for this to be included in the miscellaneous tax bill. I'm hopeful that maybe it would be in a

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: committee bill. I see it in less than an hour in our housing our our draft. Very app. High level. How's it go?

[Maura Collins (Executive Director, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: So I'll let me explain it so that when you see it, you know what this is talking about. So BHFA sells tax credits to banks because banks have to pay taxes on their deposits. If they have a million dollars of deposits that they're sitting on, they pay what's called a bank franchise fee, and they pay that. They don't wanna pay that tax, and so they buy these tax credits instead, and that way they don't have to pay so much in taxes in that way. So they get good readers' card and all that. What VHFA does is we take that million dollars plus each year, and we make 0% deferred loans. It's like a silent second on your mortgage. You get a VHFA mortgage. You're a first time home buyer. We're gonna give you up to $10,000 to help with your down payment. That means your mortgage is $10,000 less. Your mortgage payment is lower. Your loan to value can be changed. So you can you see it can be paid for down payment and closing costs. You don't make any payments on that the whole time you own the house. But when you refinance, meaning you get rid of your VH pay mortgage because you have enough equity to get a regular mortgage, You do pay it back to BHA, and we lend it back out. Or if you sell your house, you pay it back. So we don't lose the money. We it's still an asset for the state.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: And it's a revolving That's What goes out comes back in eventually.

[Maura Collins (Executive Director, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: Exactly. Yeah. You've heard about the first time home buyer grant program for first time home buyers where their parents didn't own a home. That's different. That's for a generation. Exactly. This is just first time home buyers. Yeah. These are the people we, have been able to help with this program. The middle column says that these people have got BHFA's down payment assistance. The other people have a BHFA mortgage. They're low income, all that, but they don't have down payment assistance. You can see that who we're serving with the DPA is lower income, they're buying cheaper homes, they're they're putting less down, they have lower closing costs, lower credit scores, younger, and the like.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: It has to be first time.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: It does. It has to be first time. And we've had many colleagues actually in this filming who have been able to take advantage of this. Yes. Particularly entry level

[Sen. David Weeks (Clerk)]: Vermont. Yes. State

[Maura Collins (Executive Director, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: But it then from there, health care and all that. So it's it's very outsized, I'll say.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: David, you had a question?

[Sen. David Weeks (Clerk)]: Yeah. Just curiosity. So first time homebuyers, what do we get back from this investment? What does the state get back from this investment?

[Maura Collins (Executive Director, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: I'm gonna tell you that. Okay. Yeah, but it's in like three slides. So if that's He is

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: a patient person, but this is a very useful slide. I am not sure I've ever seen that full amount on the first time homeowners, DPA. Thanks.

[Maura Collins (Executive Director, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: Now the dilemma I meant. So we had, since 2014, we could sell these tax credits. This fiscal year was the last year we could sell them. We sold them. This is great. And the idea is, was, is that now we just live off the repayments. Right? Because every some of these people who bought their home in 2015 have refinanced. They've moved. They've died. Like, things happen. And so they pay us back, and we will have money to to continue that course, revolving loan fund. But look at the this is a national chart on the left showing that the total movers is dropping to never before seen lows. If you read the book Stuck by Yami Applebaum, I really recommend it. It makes you think that all of our nation's ills is because we have become a less mobile nation and that our economic vitality was really fueled by a unique American model of mobility where you could move to industry, cities, wherever, and now people are restocked. So

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Well, I mean, this is just reflective of our loss of churn and how it's affecting this part Loss of All purpose. Yeah. Turn. Loss of return. People moving. So for People moving. So the churn of those of us who are older, wanna move, downsize. There are no downsizing homes to move to. So you're stuck. You're sick. You're in still in that house with too many bedrooms, too few people, and the younger families that may wanna move into it can't afford it. You can't afford to move out because there's no place to move. And the younger people who want to move and have a first time home can't afford to. So the green

[Maura Collins (Executive Director, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: bars on the right show you that for the first many years of this program, in this that when people had a loan, by the time they were two years into their loan, 6% of these people paid us back. They may have made our DPA to avoid EMI for our mortgage insurance, and and they may this may have been just a quick thing. And you can see that the longer they have their mortgage, just look at the green bar. The longer you have your mortgage, year two, three, four, five, more of them are getting repaid to us. So by the fifth year, people had their loan, you know, 13 some odd percent of them had paid back. But now look at the orange bar. In the last couple years, we're not seeing that same kind of churn. Here's another way of saying the same information. The line graph here shows you what average interest rates have been each year. So when interest rates dropped in 2021 to below three, The green bar shows you the repayments to BHFA to loan out. We had over $800,000 to loan out, and we had a million $1,100,000 of tax credits we sold. So unlike appropriations where it's like you get it, you spend it in a year, there's, you know, this we have the ability to kinda hold the loan fund. We hold the money and we give it out people apply for mortgages. This is not an application to BHPAG. The program's either open or it's But you can't prioritize by income and who's most worthy and all that because it's a part of the mortgage process. Why do we want it a part of the mortgage process? Because you all don't pay a dime in admin fees. Mhmm. It's a part of all the signatures, all the stuff that happens is done as a part of your mortgage. And so be this doesn't cost the state anything to run this.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: I I guess, senator Weeks, I would say after sort of the arc of this week, this is the science of affordability. Like, the governor could talk about what it looks like to to make things more affordable, but this is what affordability looks like. For lack thereof.

[Maura Collins (Executive Director, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: If you

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: can't afford a home, if you can't afford childcare. So this is the science of making it affordable.

[Maura Collins (Executive Director, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: I would say this slide answers your question, which is we've helped over 2,100 people over the last eleven years. Most of those people still live in that house. So for this committee in this building, I would say, meaning they are still paying Vermont taxes, working in jobs, spending money. They are here. They have not moved. I know that. They still have that mortgage with

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: their primary mortgage.

[Maura Collins (Executive Director, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: And I know what they bought their home for because it's a BHFA mortgage. Right. And I can tell you that of those people, the equity, their home prices have shot up over the years, and they have amassed over $78,000 of equity on average per household. Another 500 loans have paid us back because they refi ed or moved or something happened. That gave us $3,000,000 that we lent back out. And those people walked away with an average of $50,000 of equity that they had access to because of this program. So what I'm saying is is that by the state selling these tax credits for the last eleven years, which is a revolving loan fund, which the state still has access to, it still exists, it's just all deployed right now, and we're kinda out of we're not exactly out of money, but we're getting low and I'm gonna run out of money. Because of that, because it let people buy a home for cheaper and they could save on their mortgage and do all that, they were able to buy a home, their earn equity, and over a $137,000,000 of wealth was generated for those 2,100 households. This is my estimate based on what home prices are like.

[Sen. David Weeks (Clerk)]: May I ask you a question? Yeah.

[Sen. Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: And that is, as you look at the increase in equity, is that inflation adjusted?

[Maura Collins (Executive Director, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: No, what we've done is we take the, you bought the house for 200,000 in whatever year, and then we look at what home prices are selling in St. Albans now, and we assume that yours went up at the same rate, so 200,000, and that homes in St. Albans went up by 30% Mhmm. We're assuming now your home is 200,000 plus the 30%. So not inflation adjusted, but it is it's market adjusted. It's market adjusted. Inflation is lower, though, than home price appreciation, which is why I just wouldn't use the word. It's Mhmm. It is housing inflation adjusted. Yes. It's not CPI. I think of inflation as CPI.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Right. But it's not. It's housing value adjust. Yes.

[Sen. Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: Well, I think of for an individual, I think wealth. What's their financial status at this point compared to their financial status when they started, wherever it is they started, and by inflation adjusted to real money, you have a more valid assessment. A person could have double the value of a home as part of their wealth, but they haven't actually made any progress at all. Inflation is greater than that, and that to me isn't a more valid basis to judge.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: I'm confused.

[Sen. Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: To the extent to which it actually succeeded in doing what you wanted it to do.

[Maura Collins (Executive Director, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: Are you talking about a different value than the wealth of home ownership?

[Sen. David Weeks (Clerk)]: Are you

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: talking about value?

[Sen. Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: The value of home, cash value. How what's your net worth? Housing is part of your net worth. Ownership. Ownership. That part that you own is also part of your net But the real question is, are they ahead or not? And if inflation is moving faster than the increase in the value of their home, they're actually not.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: I don't think that's the case anywhere.

[Sen. Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: Well, don't know it's the case. Haven't seen any numbers that would tell me that comparison.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: But I would argue that sadly, home values have so eclipsed. Yeah. The increase in inflation that maybe it's even more problematic. And

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: that's part of the reason people are mad about their property tax bills is because home values are so high.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Exactly. And that is why it's not just those school costs, it's what your house is now valued at, which is really people are gobsmacked by. And that is the affordability gap for many people if they own a house. When

[Sen. Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: when you purchase it, you're gonna have very different results in Vermont.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: No. I I'm I'm a little bit exempted that, and it's just it's astonishing. But, I'm going to Thomas for his question.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: So pick up on both that conversation thread and also Senator Weeks' question earlier, I had not had this impression that you had shown this draft about Americans moving, not moving nearly as much anymore. So I think you asked, why do we want to foster from a state point of view down payment assistance for first time homeowners? I've always had the impression that it's to get to build those roots in the community. So they set their families, their careers up, and then they're they're sort of tied to Vermont. But with that stuck comment and seeing that people are moving less, I almost am starting to question, is that the policy where we should be putting our energies behind, or is it better to do your other good work, which is fine density affordable housing, which has more and not even just affordable, but higher density housing, where it's apartments and flats which allows more flexibility. Because every time you buy or sell a home, you're paying an engineer, your lawyers, inspectors, bankers, real estate So a lot of those transaction fees are getting built into the cost of our housing transactions. I'm just starting to question the value of the down payment assistance if we don't really have a problem as much as we had in previous years getting people to get rid of their communities.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: But, Thomas, this is one tool. I think we have to use all our tools. Also, people feel it.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: But I I

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: I also think that you think that graph is dangerous if you're not understanding what's behind it.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: Yeah.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: But but when I go to your first point, it's as important for people to be buying and investing in certain areas. I think that value is still very much in place. And then sorry, Kesha. Well And the people David, that's

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: The people moving within their county generally meant that they were buying something. Not moving is different than not moving from one thing you own to another thing you own.

[Sen. David Weeks (Clerk)]: But should we be fostering

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: if there's value in mobility? You're less

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: mobile. There's not just viable. I would say there's not value in anything in a vacuum. This is a Exactly. Yes. That's May I We're not we don't just want mobility. We want people to be in the third home.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: So let's let Laura answer those.

[Maura Collins (Executive Director, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: Apologies on looking at my ways and means testimony. I was gonna go more into depth on this program for them, but so the difference in the wealth gap of owners and renters, I think, is important. We're trying to help create wealth of households. And so the median net worth of homeowners is $400,000 nationally. And for renters, it's $10,400. So less than half of renters own appreciating assets. Because you get appreciating assets that's not a home. Let's be honest. But less than half do compared to 78% of homeowners when you exclude their home. So appreciating assets, people think of as homes, but let's take homes out of the equation. A homeowner, 78% of them have an appreciating asset and less than half of renters do. And then that's only going to grow when you look at the equity that people have in homes. There is no way anyone's gonna see this chart, but you will have to trust me that what I have here is a Fred St. Louis Federal Reserve chart that shows that in 1996, there was about $4,000,000,000 of owners' equity in real estate. And in 2025, the number looks to be 36,000 billion. Billions.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: It went from 4

[Maura Collins (Executive Director, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: to 36,000 of billions. So so What

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: you just said isn't surprising. So you have more home equity when you own the home. My point is you have more options when you don't own the home. You have more mobility options, and options have value. You have less options which improve them.

[Maura Collins (Executive Director, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: I do not want to go to the ER.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: We are almost dead last in economic mobilization. There is a reason for that. This program is solely for people to go from becoming a renter to buying their first home because we all benefit when people go from buying their first home to building enough wealth and equity to move where they are best suited. Right. That is our problem in Vermont. People who bought their first home have not been able to leave it when they need to be closer to medical care, when interest rates are so high that they can't find anything else to afford at the interest rates that they currently have. So people are not stuck. People are stuck for many reasons, but the people we're trying to get unstuck are renters who have no wealth and no ability to make the down payment. That means the difference between paying probably the same amount or more in rent versus paying towards building wealth and building roots in the community.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: Given I got more to say.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Yeah. No. No. And we're gonna have all that discussion.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Given our real estate law, and that's in school right now.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: So I'd like to move to David. David had a question.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: Thank you, Matt. Just that analogy.

[Sen. David Weeks (Clerk)]: So now that we're on the slide, what does the state get back from this investment for first time I

[Maura Collins (Executive Director, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: think that they get 2,100 households who have over $137,000,000 of equity that they can tap for what they need. They may not tap it and use it for stability to have equity and have a better credit rating and just know that on hard times, they'll be okay. They may get a home equity loan and send kids to college. They may go back to school themselves. They may invest in a business. They have wealth that they own, and the state has not lost money on the investment. We have not given them $10,000 and they've moved to Kansas, and we'll never see it again.

[Sen. David Weeks (Clerk)]: I anticipated all those So my question is why as a state can we leverage this tool for our own benefit to prioritize the workers that we're giving this to? For example, the Claire Foundation, we see all the data on the missing workers. Why can't these two programs be dovetailed together to tailor behavior towards rewarding those who give back to the community or pick up careers which, or careers which we actually do.

[Maura Collins (Executive Director, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: So you're saying to target it to certain employers or reach to the state or industries or something like that. Yeah. You would, I would ask, need to expand the program open it up in that way. When the legislature created it, it was for first time home buyers to give them that leg leg up. It's been eleven years, things change. If you wanna expand the program and have the first time program continue, and then have a industry based, geography based, you know, tell me what based, we can start talking with lenders about how to administer.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: And and we did that, in all fairness, with first generation. So we have done this. We have done where we supported trying to break the cycles of poverty by having a first generation

[Maura Collins (Executive Director, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: type. You have the $25,000 of a grant for that one. But we can imagine that a grant significant.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: I don't know if you have these. So when we first created the first time homebuyer tax credit in 2014, we were able to see every year the average age and the average income at least, probably ahead of other stats of the people who took advantage of program. Average age was 31, average income was 60,000. Here it is.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Something like that. Oh my

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: god. Okay. So Yeah. That's perfect. So, you know, without trying to mic micromanage on the front end, we've seen that it's been successful in helping exactly who we want to help. And once somebody first of all, I've been through this program and it's not just a it's not just an amount of money. It usually comes with counseling and support and access to lenders and the things that don't just make you a first time home buyer, but make you a successful first time home

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: buyer and reduce your didn't No.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: I'm I'm just saying fabulous public this, like, I can't think of any small amount of money we invest per person that we get back in this program. That's more effective. That's more effective at Great. At like, this is like the Move to Vermont program, but better. It

[Sen. David Weeks (Clerk)]: is. Yeah. Nurses Exactly. Teachers, etcetera. I mean, we could

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: They can access that now, but they can't access it too much more.

[Sen. David Weeks (Clerk)]: Everybody can access it, so it's it's nothing unique. They won't be

[Maura Collins (Executive Director, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: able to access it.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: Yeah, for some homebuyers, but you're contemplating expanding the scope to target the Well insurance

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: that's narrowing scope.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: That's narrowing the scope.

[Sen. David Weeks (Clerk)]: It's narrowing but it's focusing for the benefit of the state what what we need.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: I would argue this benefit.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: It's generally for first time homebuyers, you're talking about expanding it to also be applicable to certain industries that need. I don't see that as narrowing at all. That's what I

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: think It is applicable to them now. If you're saying at the conclusion

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: So what I think, I'm very gonna say, is to not just first time alzheimer's, but instead of people that have already bought a home, but wanna buy a different home, and they're I

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: think That's a different program. Let's a different program. Let's not give you a

[Maura Collins (Executive Director, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: sample of it.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Laura has ten more

[Maura Collins (Executive Director, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: minutes. This is

[Sen. David Weeks (Clerk)]: Thank you, mom.

[Maura Collins (Executive Director, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: By the way, I

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: think the governor cuts funding for APEC, which was our way of helping health care professionals. Yeah, yes. I believe that. So let's take that up next. Okay.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Keep going. Whoops, we disliked it. Yeah, I know.

[Maura Collins (Executive Director, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: If I, I'm just gonna say, I appreciate what senator Chittenden is saying though about the benefits of rental programs, and I wanna say as a mother of three children, I don't have a favorite. And so I do not want anyone in this room to misconstrue. I'm not picking this program above others. I started talking about tax credits and all that. I'm just saying this one to I buried the leak here. We have sold the credits, and now we are we cannot sell the credits anymore. We just are at the whim of the repayments. Right. And as I showed here, the repayments are coming in at a trickle, and we will be curtailing the we curtailed the program last summer. We lowered the asset limit that people could have. We want people to move into a home and have some assets so that when their boiler breaks, they don't immediately go into arrears on their mortgage. But we don't want them to be sitting on $50,000 that they could've used on their down payment assistance and take in the state's money when they had the money in the bank. So we have an asset limit of how much can you have in the bank, and we lowered that by $10,000 so that they don't have so much more from 30 to 20,000 that we allow. Now we've been helping around a 150 households a year. We're going to probably serve 40 ish this next year.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Unless we take that.

[Maura Collins (Executive Director, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: And so we will be curtailing the program to such an extent that we will have to I don't yet know how I'm gonna manage it. It's gonna be drastic. It we may just close the program for a year until the repayments come, and then we have enough pool. Lenders do not like it when you open and close programs and change the rules every six months and all that. They need to have stability. And so we are requesting $350,000 in state tax credits. We'd like to be able to sell for five more years and then, again, allow it to sunset because I hope that by then we would have enough of the revolving loan fund to keep the program open and Okay.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: But I think we have it in a draft form as $2.50 for

[Maura Collins (Executive Director, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: And it has been it has been $2.50 in the past. Got it. I'm going to three fifty because we designed two fifty back when we were giving them $5,000 to help, and now 10,000 is more appropriate because of the increase in home prices.

[Sen. David Weeks (Clerk)]: Got it. Was this already laid into the governor's house?

[Maura Collins (Executive Director, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: No. Okay. It's not in this budget.

[Sen. David Weeks (Clerk)]: Okay. Yeah.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: And your thinking is when interest rates drop, which they are likely to do so because they're very high, people will start refinancing, paying back into this fund. So you just need to survive until

[Maura Collins (Executive Director, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: That and Yeah. Time, people have to move eventually. Yeah. And they just Well, people die. Things change. Yeah. I mean, lots of things happen. So I mean, that's So As

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: I look at Woodstock, that's what's that's where the churn is, sadly. Not they're not moving. There's no place to move to as an older person.

[Maura Collins (Executive Director, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: And So I would very much appreciate if this committee can and would include three fifty. I wanna touch very briefly in my last

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: few And just to follow-up on your slides for ways of need, would you send those us as well? Although everybody knows they can access them. Yeah. We have them. If you can send them tomorrow, that'd be great. So

[Maura Collins (Executive Director, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: we have been running a middle income homeownership development program. All gave us money. We have awarded it. You can see here that, homes have been built. Many more are under construction. What I the report I pulled from is frankly, several months old because that's what I had available at midnight last night when I was writing but so these are not exactly up to date today. Like, for instance, I knew Bay Ridge was occupied, but in the last report I got, it said it was still under construction. I happen to know we all went to the ribbon cutting.

[Sen. David Weeks (Clerk)]: Yeah. So, So it's all about new construction?

[Maura Collins (Executive Director, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: This is a new construction program. All the rehabs of existing structures would count, but it would be

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: a new unit. New construction, in an old Right.

[Maura Collins (Executive Director, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: Yes. So we have had some, there was some withdrawals of the funds that we've awarded, and so we have some money that we can reallocate. You all also gave us $16,000,000 last year to reopen this program and or the rental revolving loan fund I'm gonna speak about. These are two middle income programs. One creates for sale homes, one rental. We gave a $16,000,000 that we could put toward either of those programs. We have not reopened those programs because the homeownership and rental programs were pilots, never done before. We were modeling after some national models, but we hadn't done it. We have learned so much. It has been a wonderful adventure to be on. And so we want to incorporate that learning into the programs and make sure we're well documented and communicating what we expect before we open up the program. We hope to be doing that in the next several months. And so we are moving forward with that. Because we're talking about

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: middle income just wanna clarify. There's no additional

[Maura Collins (Executive Director, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: Not asking for any money at this moment. No. I would not I won't be very I would not show up and ask for more money if I haven't spent the 16,000,000.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: I've got less time. Yep.

[Maura Collins (Executive Director, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: There is no money asked for those programs. We I am getting in, but but is the

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: is there a pipeline bigger than the amount you currently sell?

[Maura Collins (Executive Director, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: I would I I believe that developers would tell us yes. Yeah.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Think almost intuitively would know that.

[Maura Collins (Executive Director, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: So I Yep. This program was called the missing middle homeownership Program, and then the planners told us that that term was owned by them because that's a type of housing structure Chris Cochran will tell you. So the governor changed it to middle income. I'm now getting in trouble as I speak in committees about this because people wanna be very clear, and I wanna support them that this is not exactly middle income. The income limits at a 150% AMI, area median income that we can go up to means that we're really talking over a $150,000 for most counties, and that is just the top 20% of Vermont.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: But are they trying to say they have a definition of middle income?

[Maura Collins (Executive Director, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: Well, the median is the middle.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Median is the middle.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: I I actually there's so much discussion and policy debate right now about how I mean, I don't disagree with PHCB. Right? I mean, I just disagreed with PHCB. If this is the cost to pay all your bills on time, but this is how much everyone's making, That doesn't just make you automatically middle income. It's not like wealthy people are the only one should be able to pay their bills on time.

[Maura Collins (Executive Director, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: I completely understand that. But when I'm asked Yeah. What everyone's incomes are, I just wanna say, the median is the middle. And so people are But that's not being middle income.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: This is where It's not middle in terms of what you can afford, but it is a median.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: But actually, that's the problem with moving away from the term missing middle. We have a missing middle class. And so if there is a missing middle, then that's why no one can afford homes that are much higher priced than they used to be. Yeah. The cost of purchasing a home has gone up so much more than the middle whoever the middle of the middle class is that that they can't afford it.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Correct. We have all sorts of examples around this table of children who are in exactly that spot.

[Maura Collins (Executive Director, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: So So this program allows us to serve people up to 150% of median. You all took testimony from I believe. I know it's been a discussion. I think they were in testifying Yeah. About expanding their statute. So I just wanted to show that through this program, and I'm gonna say the next one is the rental revolving loan fund. We are allowed to go up to a 150% of median. And so I want you to know who we're already serving. And then the question becomes, I think there is a part of the market that's above that that VHFA is probably not gonna get into. Sure. So there are statutes saying, like, if VHFA passes on it, you know, could VITA get into it? Right. I don't anticipate that VHPA is going to start creating homes and lending and doing these above a 150 percent median, because the weighted average of these 150 percents across these counties by population is a 169,000. Back to the envelope math, 30% of that monthly is 4,200 that they can afford for housing costs. You gotta take out taxes and insurance. That leaves some amount left for your mortgage. Therefore, an affordable mortgage would be about 590,000. Everyone has to put down a down payment usually. So I'm thinking it's a home, you know, just over 600,000. And most of the homes that sold in Vermont cost less than this. But I am not saying that we don't need more of them. Like, just because we had 6,500 homes that sold, we used to have 8,000 homes selling every year. Right. And we used to create thousands of homes that we bring online. So I'm not saying that the market is solved. Right. I'm just saying that this is who we're serving, and I'm running out of time. So I wanna point out that on the we do have a thought we had oh, here. Rental revolving loan fund chart. We had about $10,000,000 for a rental middle income program. You can see here some stats about who got it. I want you to know that this program has moved slowly, somewhat by design. In statute, you asked us to prioritize new and emerging developers and and rural areas and folks that need a little more hand holding, and we did that. And, like, for instance, a lot of these folks are getting technical assistance along with it. It taking a little longer. They have day jobs. This is more of a program being used by some folks that are doing this somewhere as a side puzzle and all that and trying to build up the capacity. So that we have that money out there. Sorry. And these are the income levels, my slides are out of order, who we can serve with that program. Sorry, these are home prices. Can you ignore that I just said that? Me talk because I'm still on point. The rental evolving loan fund I just explained to you. These are the incomes of Vermonters. Know, 78,000 is the median. Owners make more. Renters make less. Because 73 percent of us own our homes, it means that if you survey everyone and 73% of people are skewed towards higher incomes, your median is gonna be a little higher. So when we all talk about what's the median income, it's a little inflated to talk about that for renters already because they have been underrepresented in the sample size. And so Mhmm. This same chart, I just wanna point out that a typical renter usually earns about 80% of median. Because the median has been so skewed by all these homeowners who answered the question, what's your income? Okay? So when you look at these incomes, this is closer to what we think a typical renter earns. Meaning that the weighted average of 80% of median is $90,000 a year. Okay? Although, I just showed you their actual the median of renters is 45,000, but who we serve goes to 90,000. They can afford about $2,200 a month. That's a household. Right? Yeah. Yeah. So that's two incomes possibly. Yeah. Our household size are very small though, but so renters are even smaller, wanna point out, but yes. So they can afford about my $200 a month. I'm not gonna say what rentals are in every community in the state, but that is not far off from what we see as a rental market. I wanna point out, these people probably are not buying a house though. Okay? Look at the bottom here. An affordable mortgage, when you do that math, they're they have to find homes at 350,000 and Zillow and realtor.com will tell you good luck. And they

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: have to save. Yes.

[Maura Collins (Executive Director, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: So my point is is that if you wanna hit the middle income for renters and and get to the population that you're talking about, you're stretching they kinda live in this 80% world. So you're kinda stretching into the 120% AMI world. These folks can afford 3,300 a month in rent. Like, now you're talking you get a couple workers living together and all that. They they can afford a bit more. That's more of the population, I believe, that you're speaking to. And so my last slide just talks about who are we serving and who are we not to answer the question about BETA and all that, is that what we do best, I wanna be very clear, is affordable housing. That's what we've been doing for fifty years. Like, the under 80% AMI. We I could talk your ear off of tax credits. Do you need perpetual mortgage or something? It could be. Doesn't have to be. I'm just saying, like, the the government subsidized affordable housing, that's what we have the most experience with, as well as our mortgage program that predominantly serves people between 80 and a 100% AMI. Okay? In the last few years, we've been called to service to do more middle income programs, which I just showed you. New, emerging, and I'm proud of what we've done. And we've stretched. We think that since most renters come in around 80% AMI, that it makes sense to stretch available programs and stock up to one twenty ish. And for homeowners, most of them are earning under a 120% AMI. And so stretching to a 120, maybe a 150, which is what the legislature has chosen, like, that makes sense. We are probably not. We are not. I'm not gonna say probably. We're not gonna be proposing programs to you all. We're trying to find funding for over these limits. We have enough work to do. If I could go back to my very first slide of where the need is, I wanna focus on the three quarters of housing needs that are under 80% AMI. 80% AMI. And so I I'm we're gonna keep Yep. Spending the money and running the programs and doing things. I wanna focus, though, on one twenty and below. Maybe one fifty and below. And so if other folks see market needs and gaps above that, then Right. Yeah. I do wanna point out that when you are talking about renters hold on. Where's my one fifty chart? We're talking about what you can afford at a 150,000, and you're talking that over 150,000, you can afford $4 a month. I don't see rentals out there priced that high, so I don't know that there's a big market there at that point. But maybe in the homeownership side, I just my last point is, please make sure we're not inflating the market because I do have developers right now who are very unhappy with us because they are telling us that for their projects to pencil, they need to earn, like, I'm gonna make up numbers, 2,000 a month in rent. And we say that's fine. We're gonna cap your rent at median income. And just hearing that term and knowing we're an affordable housing lender, they're like, well, wait. You're stopping me. The statute says I can go higher. You know, that's not okay. But when I show them that rents in their area and what they're asking for is $2,000 a month, and rents in their area are actually like 1,700 to 2,000. So I could get on board with that as a lender. But that median income is $2,900 a month or $2,700 a month. I'm not gonna make a loan where you're gonna create a unit that's inflating the market because I don't think it's gonna get occupied, and now as a lender, you're not gonna pay me back. It's not good business sense. And some of the I'm oversimplifying, some of the complaints around the rental revolving loan fund is but I'm allowed to go to one fifty. And I say, yes, but you're not allowed to inflate the market, and you're not allowed to make me make a bad loan. Right. And so I'm not gonna let you have a rent that's well into the 3 thousands just because statute says you can if the market study doesn't prove it and if common sense doesn't allow. As a lender, it doesn't make good business sense. And I hope I'm not pressured into making bad loans because then the kind of testimony I bring to you is gonna be the stuff I've never talked about, which is, oh, beach face and dire financial straits, and we're a quasi state, and that could impact the state budget. You don't want that kind testimony from me. I've never had to do it. We're highly rated. Don't worry about it. But I don't wanna get to that position. So when we have some discretion and some prudence in what we're working with developers and municipalities on, I want you to know that we are facing in these pilot programs some tension right now as we're working through these pilot details. And I'm okay with that. And anyone who wants to sit down and talk math, that's my jam. And I think it is a

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: compelling case. Yep. Thank you. Kesha, and then we're gonna take a break.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Well and and maybe, Maura wants to introduce Deb as well as not for what's next.

[Maura Collins (Executive Director, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: Mora filled the hairstyle. That surprises anyone. And

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: I, like, I love nothing more than arguing with Mora Collins. So I'm, you know, a

[Maura Collins (Executive Director, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: bad romantic session. Should we should do

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: last session? Because I find it so fruitful. We you know that my driving force at least the last year has been to bring down the cost per unit so that we are all, you know, getting more value out of the dollars that we spend. And and what's so challenging is so I feel like so much of what we are talking about here can be differentiated between when we are creating a unit of housing and when we are helping someone afford an existing home. Right? Like, we're just not creating enough homes for people. We know that. And we're not gonna be able to do that unless, know, unless we build more densely. We're not gonna create 7,000 single family homes in the state that costs way too much right now. You know as well as I do that, you know, Bay Ridge was was hit in the press for having a cost of $550,000 per unit. You have been talking to them about, you know, cost savings and how much more housing we can build if we are paying attention to the cost per unit. But it also strikes me that that would have been a much higher cost per unit if we weren't doing 94 units. That was hard fought to get 94 units. Right. And I have sat in your office with housing partners and said, when we are making these loans or when you're offering state funds, how do we start to say, you have to maintain this density? Because otherwise, the cost per unit is going to continue to rise and rise, and you know my hypothesis that we have a higher cost per unit than other similar states because we keep letting projects get cut in half or to a quarter of what was originally proposed.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: So I I would just like to stop us there. We have five minute break right now coming up. We will have you back before you turn into a pumpkin.

[Maura Collins (Executive Director, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: Yeah, can I introduce Deb?

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Yeah, because I think that's a big conversation and I think we should have for you to have that.

[Maura Collins (Executive Director, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: Yeah, so Deb Flannery is the author and source of all the numbers I just said. And so she She doesn't know all the numbers. No. She so

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: Not the boring planet.

[Maura Collins (Executive Director, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: She she runs our housing development and asset management programs, the home ownership, overseeing that development, as well as the rental programs, and has we are now the fourth housing finance agency that she has worked at. You know, we're a very unique type of entity. That is not because she moves around a lot, it's because she has over twenty five years experience in this field and is an expert on home ownership and rental. She's brilliant, and she is going to be available to you all because I'm gonna be taking a medical leave, and so I'm gonna make sure you all have her contact information. And she runs these programs that I show up and do this about. So she's busy chained to her desk and hasn't been able to get out of the office much in the past year. She has replaced Seth Leonard, who this committee has seen before, and brings a tremendous amount of information. I don't have too much.

[Deb Flannery (VHFA Housing Development & Asset Management)]: No, that's good. I hope you'll all feel welcome once you have my contact information and if you have questions. My motto has been let's take it from the abstract to the concrete because a lot of these things are swirling in sort

[Maura Collins (Executive Director, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: of an abstract notion, and I

[Deb Flannery (VHFA Housing Development & Asset Management)]: think when you really do the math, like Maura said, I'm also a math nerd, you start to see the picture a little more clearly and then we can have a more complete conversation about exactly what we wanna do about things that we're hearing from people, whether we're on the right path or we're not. And I think there's a lot of sort of abstract comments being made about some of these programs and the way we're administering them. I'd love to engage in those conversations with all of you as you're hearing things or have questions and concerns.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Great, thank you so much, Deb. Thank you, Maura. More to follow, Maura.

[Maura Collins (Executive Director, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: Good luck. Thank you. And we're gonna go off

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: live