Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Welcome everybody back to Senate Economic Development Housing and General Affairs. We are now turning our attention to the landlord tenant bill, h seven seven two, and we're gonna hear from some terrific witnesses today. We're going to are we gonna start with Cameron? I don't think so. Do you want us to incorporate anything new on seven seven? Do no. Because we don't even have it then. Brenda, would you welcome us? Would you come join us? Brenda's not in the room yet. Where'd she go? She's there's no one.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: Where did Brenda go? She's right outside on

[Brenda Siegel (End Homelessness Vermont)]: the ground.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Would you be

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: kind enough to grab her? Thank She's on deck. Okay.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Brenda, have a seat. You're on deck.

[Brenda Siegel (End Homelessness Vermont)]: I need you to get my nap.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: We only have fifty five minutes. So we're going to hear first from Brenda, then Alex and Nadine. And then hopefully we'll be able to have some dialogue.

[Brenda Siegel (End Homelessness Vermont)]: Does Kira have your slide deck? Yes. And Zoe's gonna run from me. Oh, okay. It's 90 plus. K. Did you

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: let the? I'm training right now. Well.

[Brenda Siegel (End Homelessness Vermont)]: But I don't need them yet. Of Christmas. Yeah. Okay.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: We're live. Brenda, welcome. Introduce yourself. And let's It's good to have you.

[Brenda Siegel (End Homelessness Vermont)]: Well Thank you. So I tell you

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: to take my light

[Brenda Siegel (End Homelessness Vermont)]: from, it's in the front couch. Thank you. For the record, I am Brenda Siegel, the Executive Director of End Homelessness Vermont. We cannot support H-seven 72 as drafted. The update from judiciary is slightly better, but we still have major concerns. We want to not create a faster eviction process, but come up with better solutions. There aren't any disability protections in the bill. A rapid process with no disability protections means that people who live with disabilities, that may incur these types of problems, will be cut out. And something I want to share with you so that you'll see a little bit about where I'm coming from is our research.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Is that what Zoe is gonna be sharing with us?

[Brenda Siegel (End Homelessness Vermont)]: She is gonna help share this, yes. But since this is the first time I've been in here, I just wanna tell you, say a little bit about where I'm coming from, Vermont Homelessness Vermont. We are a statewide, as many of you know, lived experience led organization that works toward the goal of ending poverty and disability discrimination and homelessness in Vermont. We provide a data driven safety net to the safety net that is trauma informed and rooted in compassion, empathy, and housing first principles. Our primary clients are people living with disabilities, health conditions, and complex needs, and in a complex situation. We work both in permanent housing and with people experiencing homelessness. In 2025, we answered over 3,000 calls. We helped 600 people in an ongoing way and 300 people very hands on in both housing and homelessness. We have two departments, the Office of Housing Advocate, where we do all of our direct service and have four volunteer nurses and case management, as well as case managers, and an office of research and advocacy, which is what you'll see a little bit. We're in the middle of a longitudinal study, where we are working in our first two phases with people experiencing homelessness in the GA program. In our third phase, we will actually also be asking questions of people who have previous experience with homelessness and are now housed. Also, in 2025, we were able to get 80 people into permanent housing, with only two returning to homelessness, and one has already been rehoused since that time. That is 97.5% housing retention rate, I mean, it's very unusual. It's because we're able to stay working with people in the long term. And many of those folks are people who could have been or would have been in their previous tenancy problematic tenants that we've heard about here, but now are doing quite well because they have the right kind of support. I wanna go over a little bit of our research, and since I don't have enough of look in front of me, I cannot see well. We're gonna go to the We have this slide deck in

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: front of us. Bring it out. So the would that help you to see it now?

[Brenda Siegel (End Homelessness Vermont)]: I have an extra Yes.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Here. If you give it to me. Yeah.

[Brenda Siegel (End Homelessness Vermont)]: I'm unable to see electronics today. For those of don't know, I am losing my eyesight. So

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Yeah. So I thought this would be easier for you.

[Brenda Siegel (End Homelessness Vermont)]: That is definitely easier for me. So I just wanna give you a little bit of framing. This is again our second phase of our research. Methodology was that it was a survey conducted in emergency housing program to understand demographics, experiences, and needs of people utilizing emergency housing Vermont. The surveys occurred at selected hotels and motels across the state. It was entirely voluntary. We interviewed 200 people in 10 towns. If you can go to the next slide, Zoe. We interviewed 200 people in 10 towns and five counties. And as you can see from the age breakdown, there are quite a large number of people between the ages of 30 and nine, and then an alarming number were 60. So that is really the folks that we are talking about here. I do want to go to the next slide.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Well, just a second. One minute. When you're because you're I know you're very concerned about disability inclusions here. What percent of the people here were disabled?

[Brenda Siegel (End Homelessness Vermont)]: You'll see that in a little bit. Right. Okay. So if you go to the cause of loss of housing, is the next slide. And just so we can go over the what happens with evictions a little bit, I think it's really important to note, I didn't say this in the beginning, we had never met the majority of people that we interviewed before we interviewed for this phase. Some of these folks are now our clients, but previously they were not, and we're using the data from those interview questions. So there were 84 evictions in total. Almost all were not caused by the tenant. They reported losing, and the people who reported losing housing due to no cause evictions described several experiences, and that's where we get some of these things. So the no cause evictions themselves were 41. Condemned housing was 20. That's a large number we feel, and that that's 10%. Fleeing domestic violence And sorry. Just a pin on that

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: one too. Condemned housing because they the landlord was destroying the building Landlord is not was well, let me finish my question. Or were they landlords who decided they were done with rentals and were just selling the building and getting out?

[Brenda Siegel (End Homelessness Vermont)]: So condemned housing is that someone came in and said that said you cannot rent here anymore because this house is no longer healthy or safe. Okay, so

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: it's condemned for health reasons.

[Brenda Siegel (End Homelessness Vermont)]: Yeah, but it's called condemned. Okay. And so that, it was 20 people that we interviewed. Got it. Usually those are immediate. They immediately end up experiencing homelessness and there's no obligation on the tenant current, on the landlord currently to house them, even if they had not been upkeeping the apartment. We all I wanna skip to could not afford rent, and then you'll see a few down, non payment of rent. They're two different things because some people leave when their rent gets raised, so they could not afford rent, is captured in those 20 individuals or households, and non payment of rent was categorized that way because they were evicted for not paying rent. So that would be great.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: That would be a cause. Yeah. Right.

[Brenda Siegel (End Homelessness Vermont)]: So, the family eviction, which I think is still in this current draft, so I do wanna talk about that. Family eviction was 11 people, that's 11 times in which somebody who was living somewhere with a family member evicted them. And I think that currently, there are still protections under the law if you're living with a family member, but there this bill would allow a faster eviction process.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: I'm sorry. Let me just understand that this is not whole families evicted. This is a family member evicted from a family house. Right. Okay.

[Brenda Siegel (End Homelessness Vermont)]: Yep. And then you see retaliatory eviction as five. That, I just wanna qualify that, well, that could be that the person reported that that it was retaliation.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: So sorry. You skipped nonpayment of rent. Well, how does that differ from could not afford rent?

[Brenda Siegel (End Homelessness Vermont)]: Oh, no. I didn't skip it. The of rent is, I was talking about that before. Nonpayment of rent is that they were evicted for nonpayment of rent. Okay. Could not afford rent is that they probably had a no cause eviction, but it was because they had to they could the rent wasn't

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Or was the rent increased? Right. They couldn't afford the increase.

[Brenda Siegel (End Homelessness Vermont)]: Right, they couldn't afford the increase. And then, you One thing that we found really alarming in this section was that no matter how someone left their housing, no matter what the eviction was, in forty seven of the people that we interviewed, they had significant health or safety issues in their house that were not caused by them, that were caused by their landlord. And so, they did not feel that they had the protection they needed to be able to address that issue.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Sorry, just, this is a very, it's an interesting chart.

[Brenda Siegel (End Homelessness Vermont)]: It is, this research is incredibly interesting. Thank you. And I love talking about it. No.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: It's very helpful. The retaliatory eviction, how do you know it's a retaliatory action? And how has legal aid helped in this? I mean, how how are we knowing this is retaliatory?

[Brenda Siegel (End Homelessness Vermont)]: So this is research. So this is what where it did stand by survey, and we asked several questions of people that would to kind of verify whatever, the advice of a public health researcher, to verify what would be the right way to ask this question. And I think I just qualified retaliatory eviction with that could be that somebody self reported that it was retaliation. It could be that they felt retaliated against or because they were a person of color. It could be that they felt retaliated against the It's how they fell. I mean, if then Well, no. Some could be retaliatory too. They could be that they they did report health or safety issue and then were evicted for no cause shortly after. And and it's very hard to prove retaliatory eviction. That's Those are reals. Yeah, it's not a real even in the current language, it's just not a very strong way for people to protect themselves. And and Keep going. Yeah. Keeping going. Moving along. We are going to go to

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: And then flood and fire, we Yeah. Yeah.

[Brenda Siegel (End Homelessness Vermont)]: This was right it was September 2023 to February 2024. So so it was right when after the flood in July. So we did see floods.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: So what was the date in '23? September 2023.

[Brenda Siegel (End Homelessness Vermont)]: And it says that in the front too.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Yeah, yeah, no, I'm just looking at it.

[Brenda Siegel (End Homelessness Vermont)]: Yeah, if you go to Health of Participants, Zoe. By the way, Zoe Flagway, for the record, works for Ram Homestead, Vermont for this day as your last day. Oh, no. Sorry.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: And so this before we go by where people come from speaking.

[Brenda Siegel (End Homelessness Vermont)]: Oh, do you want to know? Do you wanna

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: talk about where he's coming from? No. It's just it it real quickly. It's you were trying to get at who were Vermonters, who were, and where Yes, were they there's

[Brenda Siegel (End Homelessness Vermont)]: a lot of questions about that. So, on the Where People Come From slide, what it says is that 103 and of the people that we interviewed had lived in Vermont their entire life. Thirty three, ten years or more, if you look at the length, and then it's compared to length of time in GA and the state last housed. The 192 were last housed permanently in Vermont. And so that's really important because of all the things we hear in the news. I agree.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Yeah. So why I'm stopping.

[Brenda Siegel (End Homelessness Vermont)]: So I'm

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: happy to come in

[Brenda Siegel (End Homelessness Vermont)]: someday when you have extra free time and tell you all my research. So, on the health and safety, health of participants,

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: here we are. Okay.

[Brenda Siegel (End Homelessness Vermont)]: So, what I think is really important about this, this is why you're gonna hear this a little bit in my comments, this is what I'm the most concerned about in this current version and the previous version of the bill. When we look, when we interviewed people to find out their health makeup and whether or not they had significant mental illness or struggled with significant mental illness, seventy six point four percent reported having a health condition, and for mental illness, ninety two point five percent. Now, what's important about ninety two point five percent is that when you see anxiety and depression, some of this is situational depression and situational anxiety. That is how they reported it. We asked the question in multiple ways. We asked if they had any mental illness, if they were ever diagnosed with any mental illness, and then we also asked them about specific conditions, because we wanted to make sure that they're asking them to repeat separate ways. And then for physical health, the thing that is missing from here is we did not ask when the person had first experienced the physical health condition. So, we don't know if it was during their experience of homelessness or previous to it, but what we do know is that many people reported in how they lost their homes that their reason for not being able to pay their rent, or their reason for being evicted, was damage to the property when their wheelchair, when they suddenly were disabled and their wheelchair was hitting the doors, and then it was very hard for them to get back in. And we know that several people said that their reason for eviction was health or safety, like a sudden health issue or a sudden loss of a family member, things like that, that they suddenly lost their job as it was like that. So those are just things that I think are important to know to frame. And one last thing, forgot about it. Learning disability.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Is

[Brenda Siegel (End Homelessness Vermont)]: is, we think, critically important when you're thinking about addiction and alarming to us in our research. Nine point five percent of the people we interviewed had some trouble or could not read or write. So, five percent could not read or write, and four point five percent had trouble reading or writing. And that means when there's a requirement to respond, there's an expectation to understand a notice, any of those things without disability protection, leaves people who cannot read or write to end up evicted. And in those cases, in our full report when it's ready, it's still with the public health researcher right now to be reviewed, but when it's ready, we talk about, in those cases, the people also describe how they became homeless, and almost always, they were evicted in an illegal manner, like just told they had to leave, given a note, sent a text message that somebody else read to them and they believed they had to because they didn't know about it. So, that's something that I think is really important for that correlation.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: I just want to

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: pause you and say thank you for collecting this information as carefully and sensitively as possible. Was gonna say we haven't seen this good of a information since your last report from the Motel program. Know, mean, it's very, very well to be going in and asking folks these questions and doing it sensitively and getting some of this information as hard as it is

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: to And discuss some honest answers. I mean, how many people want to admit they can't read?

[Brenda Siegel (End Homelessness Vermont)]: Right. Right. And I think that there's a lot of difficult to get this information because people feel that and no matter what, it it impacts their housing when you ask these questions of them. Well, and it impacts the notice because part of

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: what we talk about in this bill is how they appreciate and understand the notice they're being given and or the issue that's Right. Been Right. Okay. Keep going.

[Brenda Siegel (End Homelessness Vermont)]: So, I wanted to tell you a few things about processes. You've heard a little bit about this committee, I won't I'm that dumb identified. Sorry, Zoey. Done with substance abuse. No. I could I could go through the whole thing, but it will take us all day. So, and so I so if you're No. Appreciate more and you have an extra hour No, no worries. To come in. So,

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: I think once this work is done, I would encourage you, the next chair of this committee, to start with this at the beginning of the year when we have our point in time do all this together.

[Brenda Siegel (End Homelessness Vermont)]: Our full report, well, hopefully, it's written, it's drafted. The public health researchers have said, I had no idea how long it takes to review these things. It's been a very long time. And I really wanna be able to get it out because it gives you really rich information. Yeah.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: No, no, very much.

[Brenda Siegel (End Homelessness Vermont)]: Just to set level set expectations, we do not put in raw data because there is too much personally identifying information in the raw data. Our next phase, we're gonna do it slightly Right. So, I want to talk a little bit about the HOT process. You heard a little bit about that from Jets, which is how people get a form of rental arrears repaid. Because it impacts how quickly you can get that done, and you need the longest possible time. So when someone is not able to afford rent, they apply for what's called the HOT grant. There's also versions of this that can be done.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: And what does that stand?

[Brenda Siegel (End Homelessness Vermont)]: Housing Opportunity Program. What our office is out of OA? Yeah,

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: OAO. Yes. OAO.

[Brenda Siegel (End Homelessness Vermont)]: As long as they have not applied for one in the last twelve months, that could be an option for them. It might cover some of the rent, but the process is not quick. Here's a real life example of how it works. We have a client named Teddy who agreed to let us tell his story. We worked with him for a little over a year, and finally we were able to support him in finding housing. About six months after he entered housing, he lost his job by no fault of his own, and they were slaying people off. He was furiously trying to get finding a job, but fell behind in rent. We worked with him and SEPTA to make a plan, and also he had to have established the new job before we could get support from the HOT funds. So that had to already be done. We were able to make a payment plan with SEVCA, and the landlord, and our client, and he was able to catch up in full, and is still safely housed today. The process in total took three months, repayment of the rent took about four months. And that was a rather quick one, actually. Then I wanna talk for a second about how eviction works for people living with disabilities. We have another client, Darren, who was evicted for damaging the apartment. The truth is, his apartment was not truly accessible, so his wheelchair was running into walls. He used to be a, he has MS and ended up, stopped outside twice. He, unable to eat, bathe, use a bathroom, and almost freeze him to death. He used to be a security guard here at the steakhouse and a bus driver until he experienced a disability. This almost prevented him from getting approved for Section eight, but through an appeal with the Rutland Housing Authority, we were able to get him into low income housing there, and he is safely there and doing really well today. This bill would have made his life much more challenging, not less, because it would have been very hard for him to protect himself. He did go to court. They made an agreement with the landlord that said that the landlord wouldn't give him bad reference. The landlord continued to give him a bad reference at every single time. So he lived outside to address that and put himself at risk, and then still ended up with the same outcome. He had little recourse until he had a huge team around him, about five supports that all still work with him today, and there are just not adequate protections for people with disabilities the bill, and that seems to a great concern. And I want to talk about how eviction works for people in poverty. This one's a little closer to home. In my life, I lost my housing and all my belongings two times in my life, and moved six times before my child was 11, and several times floated from temporary situation to temporary situation. When we finally got housed one of those times, it was with another slumlord, and we lived there for four years. Throughout that time, my landlord came and left without notice, without knocking. I was a young single woman. I had a baby, and I was alone, and regularly I would be stepping out of the shower and hear his voice calling me from downstairs. If I complained about this, he would threaten to essentially falsely accuse me of things to the housing authority, where my housing voucher was, so that I would then lose my power, and he knew that I did not have power to change this. I needed to keep a roof over my head and my son, Ajna's, so I just dealt with it. The house had black mold in it. There were rats in the kitchen. They were coming through a hole behind my stove that he would not fix. At one point, the upstairs bathroom started pouring into the kitchen, and that happened for months. Eventually, I withheld rent. My landlord evicted me or tried. He also went to the housing authority and made up of several lies about me as a tenant, and essentially it was an attestation. Luckily, I had a very wonderful case manager who understood what was happening, and I was protected that way. And I was raised with privilege and lived a lifestyle where I understood my tenant rights. That is not true for a lot of my clients. I got ahold of legal services, which took a long time. They helped me write a response, which took a long time. Eventually, I won and in pre trial negotiations, did not have to return the rent, and the landlord had to give me $500 additional leave, but I did have to leave. Once I finally found a stable setting with a decent landlord, I remained housed. That's where I live today. That's been, my son's 24, that's only thirteen years. So, these are my high level concerns. There's no disability protection from the bill. There are several areas where it'd be critical to add them, and I have a chart.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Did you propose some in the House?

[Brenda Siegel (End Homelessness Vermont)]: Yeah. So I kept saying this in the House, but there's still

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: But no did you provide some suggestions to Cameron and to Mark?

[Brenda Siegel (End Homelessness Vermont)]: I was not to Cameron, but in in I did in house judiciary. In house general, there I there wasn't really a lot of openness to change those type of things. And so in house judiciary

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: So So house judiciary considered some of these?

[Brenda Siegel (End Homelessness Vermont)]: They didn't consider the actual changes. He told me they told me that I needed to bring these back up down to the senate.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Okay. So I think what we would be interested in seeing is is any recommendations you would.

[Brenda Siegel (End Homelessness Vermont)]: Have a chart that I will submit. Right now it's set up for judiciary, it's signed in judiciary.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: It did involve the eviction process, because then it belongs to judge.

[Brenda Siegel (End Homelessness Vermont)]: It involved, the chart has gone several different, it has a huge chart that included everything from the previous bill and the chart that included this one.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: If you just finish up, because we have two more raises.

[Brenda Siegel (End Homelessness Vermont)]: Mhmm. I just wanna make sure that you understand the high level of concern and then you will have a chart in the end. Right.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: So, okay. And thank you for sharing your first question. Yeah, no. There

[Brenda Siegel (End Homelessness Vermont)]: are several areas where we could add them, and that will show up in my chart. In the homelessness response bill, it states in multiple sections that to the extent of somebody's ability, or so long as it is not caused by somebody's disability, and those are the kinds of language changes that can be made to add protection. We need to understand that when you put disability protection in a bill under this current federal administration, it's incredibly important, because we don't know that disability protections in the federal government will stay, and so we need to explicitly outline them in every bill that we see.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Disability Rights support, however, in this state, is going nowhere.

[Brenda Siegel (End Homelessness Vermont)]: Right, but the other thing I wanna say that talk about a little bit here, and I'm just going through because I know we were in a hurry, and I'll send the whole written comment. But no matter what state system we're a part of, disability protections are lacking in our state. I am gonna say this from just this experience of even being in this building, losing my eyesight. I regularly am told no when I ask for an accommodation and I have to fight for it. And that, and I am someone who you all know to be an incredible an incredible good advocate. And so when we talk about disability protection, it has to be explicitly in a bill for people to really ensure that they are able to get it.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: Especially if anything was fast moving for somebody, that's the real danger is, I was talking to the Los Angeles legal aid who have an eviction diversion program, and they said, the thing we need to talk about with you first and foremost is that most people will never get to take advantage of any rights they have if they're told, you know, you have to be out in a certain period of time, and they just think it's easier to do that than to get help.

[Brenda Siegel (End Homelessness Vermont)]: Right. And I think I want, I think I want to just any, let you ask any questions you have about that piece, and then see the rest in my written comments. Because as I look at what I have left, I think that you all can easily understand them. I have some very clear recommendations, and I wanna make sure that people can ask me about anything that having to do with disability.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: And I think we're gonna save questions till the end when we have to refer to everybody. Okay. Okay? Great. Brenda, thank you. Thank you. And you will get your comments to Kiara. Yes. They're peers, so that we have you as

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: a I federal do like Sorry. Yeah. I will say, I'm even experiencing that it's hard for advocates or even legislators not on, like, a committee of jurisdiction to get Legion Council's time and attention. They're extremely busy. So I've tried to start saying out loud in the committees I'm on that that I will take your language and request it be throughout happily send it to me. Okay. Send it to it to Kesha

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: and Kesha, Kira, Wendy will get it

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: to because the chair has to keep our pet. Right. Right.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: You. Thank you. So much. Thank you, Brenda. And thank you also for that's a great light.

[Brenda Siegel (End Homelessness Vermont)]: Yeah. Vermont Vision for the Blind is actually one of the

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: best services we have for the community. It is. So so thank you, and thank you for the survey. Alex, we're gonna invite you up, and then we're having a dean. So we've sadly, our time on Fridays is very tight. Thank you. And I have some handouts on you all for what

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: is posted on the No.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: We already have everything from you that's already Okay.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: Well, we got some unnecessary to print these. We don't need these. Okay. We have this. Alright. Okay. Wonderful. Save it for another committee. Okay. Thank you, madam chair. Theology. We have

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: a fabulous committee assistant. Absolutely. And I have ten minutes because then

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: I've gotta have negates. Okay. Right. Sounds great. Thank you so much for the opportunity to speak with you all today.

[Alex Gramalis (ACLU of Vermont)]: My name is Alex Gramalis. For The Record, I am a policy advocate with the ACLU of Vermont. We are an organization that works to protect the civil rights and liberties of people across the state. We're the state affiliate to the national ACLU. Not every affiliate works on issues related to homelessness and housing. We do because they are such massive issues facing our state, and experiencing unsheltered homelessness is one of the primary pathways that a person's life and their rights can be placed in jeopardy. And so I'm going to spend a little bit of time this morning talking about why we care about this bill. I will offer some feedback on the bill and recommendations if time allows. Great.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: And and this doesn't need to be the end. You've also given us your testimony. We have we have some of them and also your gear. Absolutely. Yes. You would like me

[Alex Gramalis (ACLU of Vermont)]: to come back. Our time,

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: as you know, is very tight. All our bills have to be up and they need to. Thank you. Appreciate that. Yeah. No. It's not our making, but there we are. So why do

[Alex Gramalis (ACLU of Vermont)]: we care about this bill? We care about this bill because we believe that the changes proposed by h seven seventy two will increase the speed and volume of evictions and as a result on homelessness. We care about this bill because we believe that tenant rights matter. This bill would undo forty years of tenant protections. So I wanna start just by providing some context to you all about the current challenges facing Vermont. I'm sure many of you are well aware of these, but it's important to recognize. Eviction support needs have increased substantially over the last seven years. Landlords in Vermont and across the country have much higher rates to access legal counsel than tenants, somewhere between 70 to 80% landlords compared to 15 to 20% of tenants. And in 2025, half of all eviction cases in Vermont were resolved in under ninety days. We think this bill fails to strike a balance not only because of the proposed law changes themselves, but because it does not examine these laws within the context of Vermont's current reality today. Vermont's current reality today is pretty grim. There is a lack of tenant access to council, as I've identified. We have the fourth lowest vacancy rate in the country, which limits tenants' ability to find alternative housing. Tenants have had their rent raised on average by 35% since the pandemic, and I just wanna say a note about that. We know that this legislature has put a lot of effort for property tax buydowns, which would have gone up 40% and would have significantly burdened homeowners. There was no action taken for tenants on this issue. We are experiencing extreme rates of homelessness in our state. Somewhere between 4,000 to 5,000 people are experiencing homelessness today, and our community shelter capacity is for about six ninety spaces. Motels, as proposed by the Milk Earnest and Home and Welfare, would be reduced to 700 for easier route. We're experiencing a loss of vouchers, and we're experiencing a loss of tenant discrimination protections. All of this combined means that if a person is evicted today, especially for issues like nonpayment of rent, they will not be able to find an apartment, a shelter bed, or a voucher. Our current system offers nowhere for people to go if you don't have natural supports in the community. This bill seeks to give landlords an expedited timeline for many reasons, including nonpayment or breach of lease. We believe that this is a strategy that ignores the financial reality of our statewide affordability crisis and its impact on tenants' ability to afford rent, which has, again, increased substantially. I've included some data on these points for you all in the slide deck.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: I won't go through that

[Alex Gramalis (ACLU of Vermont)]: for No worries. The sake of if it's helpful, if you have questions, please reach out. I have talked a little bit about Vermont. Oh, and I actually, one more thing that I did want to mention, importantly, we do not think that this bill will practically solve the issue that it intends to, which is lengthy eviction processes. Legislative studies have found that the largest factor leading to long evictions is a lack of judges, not statutory timelines. And so if you look at the report that came out in 2025 on the line, again, it said that the single greatest obstacle, the timely disposition was judge vacancy. They experienced a year long period of seven vacancies between 2022 to 2023, which caused subsequent backlogs. I've talked a little bit about Vermont's context, and now I would like to talk a little bit about what the research says. And the research is abundantly clear. Evictions cause homelessness. I have some highlighted studies here for your consideration. Please note that these studies are high quality in nature. They're either quantitative and have causal findings, which is really helpful to us, or are very high quality qualitative studies. If you want to highlight one piece of information here, one of these studies did a cost benefit analysis of evictions. What they found is that the cost to the state for eviction was $8,000 75% of that cost was attributed to increases in homeless shelter use. And so again, there's a very strong connection, even outside of an individual outcome level, but on a systemic level, for how evictions impact our communities. Evictions also have broader destabilizing impacts in economic security. One way to think of this is akin to a criminal record, which we know causes collateral consequences that follow a person well after a charge or conviction occurs and create barriers, if not outright exclusion, to housing, employment, and benefits. Evictions work in a similar way, and I wanna highlight a little bit about what the research says on this topic. And from the get go, I just wanna say that what this research highlights is not that tenants are bad or landlords are bad. These are

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: just the power dynamics at play.

[Alex Gramalis (ACLU of Vermont)]: They need each other. Yes. We do need each each you. I appreciate that. And so we know that larger landlords and property management companies are better navigated and equipped to navigate the court system, and oftentimes can use eviction processes even when the goal isn't to displace the tenant. If you look at all of the studies, what you'll find is that eviction filings typically double eviction orders, and that is for a few reasons. It could be that the goal was not to actually evict the tenant, and it mostly, primarily, is because that tenant will flee before an eviction process is completed. Research indicates that landlords increasingly rely on tenant screening practices to avoid renting to tenants with any climate eviction record, and that's because the research also shows us that oftentimes landlords will essentially conflate any kind of a mark of being involved in an eviction process with an eviction order, even if that wasn't the outcome. The accessibility of these records and landlords' reliance on them effectively chills tenant action. And I know Brenda spoke to this really eloquently in her presentation, and that that is a reality that's borne out in the data. If you withhold rent and use the court system to enforce your rights, you risk being labeled as a troublemaker or a difficult tenant, and this will impact your long term ability to access housing and housing stability. This can leave tenants perpetually undesirable to prospective landlords, excluded from the rental market and pushed into neighborhoods of last resort. Research suggests that tenants' understanding of their rights and what the legal system entails is often misaligned with the formal rules of the system. All this is to say that this is really complicated.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: And I'm gonna give you another minute because then we're gonna give fair time to negate you to. Okay. We'll another minute. And I just you, I take it, have testified in senate judiciary.

[Alex Gramalis (ACLU of Vermont)]: We have not been able to testify yet. We have reached out. So I will apologize.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: It's just our time frame. No.

[Alex Gramalis (ACLU of Vermont)]: About time. It's quite alright. So I will I will skip ahead. On the floor at 11:30, so that's our show. Sure. No worries. And so I just wanna say that evictions are important. They have lasting consequences. Yes. We believe that not all evictions are unnecessary, of course. But what ends up happening is when you expand the types of evictions, we're gonna have more evictions going through our court system, and that clogs the system for really necessary evictions that need to happen on a faster timeline. I wanna talk just one really quickly. This I need you to be done. Just summarize if you care. Sure. Absolutely. So we believe that H seven seventy two undermines fundamental protections. We believe that the proposed benefits to tenants are not true benefits. We believe that this allows all eviction proceedings to move forward without reliable notice. It limits tenants' ability to resolve issues before losing their homes. It adds multiple new grounds for eviction. It expands vague and overly broad grounds for eviction. It implies unlawful occupant policies, policies related to people who are not tenants and do not have rights to a unit, to tenant eviction proceedings. It allows landlords to unconstitutionally obtain criminal no trespass orders for tenants' guests for highly discretionary reasons, such as breaking any lease terms without the and

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: easy to finish. Sure. Thank you

[Alex Gramalis (ACLU of Vermont)]: so much for your time.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Thank you. Thank you for this very fulsome report, which we have, and thank you very much. Now we're going to turn to Nadine because we have just sadly a very few minutes left. It happens all about 11:25. Alex, thank you. Thank you. Nadine, welcome. Good

[Nadine Seabeck (Attorney)]: morning, Madam Chair. How are you today?

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: I think we're all relatively well. That's great. I think the upright plane is rest, so we're, well, we're not upright at the moment, but we're here. Hi, welcome.

[Nadine Seabeck (Attorney)]: I'm ready if you're ready. All right. I'm ready. Good morning, Madam Chair, members of the committee. For the record, my name is Nadine Seabeck. I'm an attorney. I've been practicing. I have a solo practice. I've been practicing for over thirty years, and my only area of practice is landlord tenant law in the state of Vermont. I represent landlords. The vast majority of my practice is for subsidized housing providers. And I'm sure you're familiar with a lot of them, Champlain Housing Trust, Vermont State Housing Authority, Rural Edge, Burlington Housing Authority, and several others. I also represent several small landlords, large landlords, mobile home parks, and housing cooperatives. And I'm here today to give you some perspe my perspective on July. And I'm not here today to get into the weeds of the bill, but just to focus on a few areas that I would like to comment on. To give you some idea of the amount of cases that I have and tenants that I've worked with and landlords over last year, I checked my records and I filed approximately four twenty five cases with the courts. I do cover the entire state of Vermont except for Essex County. I think that's the only county I do not cover, But four twenty five cases. I've also settled without having to file several 100 cases the way the law works in Vermont for nonpayment. If you're able to pay your back rent and the court costs before the case is over, you get to stay. Vermont also allows you to serve first versus filing first with the court. I use that procedure quite often. That's my primary focus. This gives the tenants the opportunity to reach out to me. We try to resolve the cases before I even have to file. If I have to file the case, it just costs the tenants another $317.93 in court fees, which if they're behind on their rent, they really don't have. I see that Angela Zaikowski, I believe, is in the back there. She has done an amazing job of going through the bill, I believe, in judiciary and with your own committee. So a few areas that I wanted to focus on are the one that, well, let me just back up a little bit. And I know I'm trying to zip through this because I know you're really tight on time.

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

[Nadine Seabeck (Attorney)]: Doctor. It's all about the tools. I don't see this particular bill as changing the process, the eviction process, for nonpayment of rent and for regular cause, noise, things like that, housekeeping, other sorts of violations. The only change I see is for the, say, violence or criminal activity, a shortened process for that, which I do support. You had some great testimony from Jean Rutland last week from Wind and Windsor Housing Trust. And believe me, I speak with residents who live on either side or in the same building with, tenants that are just, creating a lot of havoc, drug activity, things like that, trying to explain to them how I'm working as hard and fast as I can for their landlord to get their offending neighbors out. So, I thought Gene's testimony was, extremely well presented, and it's not uncommon. I can tell you that since COVID, violence, drug activity, things of that nature have skyrocketed. And again, I've been doing this for over thirty years. I am on the front lines, and I'm just saddened by the amount of violence and drug activity out there. There have to be some protections and tools in place for the neighbors, and especially for the property managers and the landlords. I do appreciate in the bill the adding of landlords agents for some protections. Can tell you that in the last, boy, violence against property managers is on the rise. Last year, I had a property manager. Her office was in a multi unit building here in Burlington. The tenant came in, punched her in the face, and then took her computer and a printer, smashed it to the ground. She was traumatized by that event. And again, this is not uncommon. I work with a lot of subsidized housing providers, and I can tell you, especially in the subsidized housing world, that danger and violence against property managers and other residents is a real concern. So I can tell you I've had property managers, and I think maybe Chris Donnelly or someone I think testified about turnover with property managers. And this is why because they don't feel safe. And I can tell you that, I've had property managers leave with PTSD, and they just don't feel safe working, in some of these buildings. So, I thank you. And if we can get a protection in there for landlords' agents, I would really appreciate that. The other thing I wanted to focus on, and just a quick comment, there's a process, there will always be a process for tenants, landlords, etcetera. The only way eviction goes through is if a landlord terminates, brings a case, and a judge will make a ruling. So if the tenant has violated the terms of the lease, the judge will decide either way. So this bill isn't taking away any of the process, it's just changing a few things. That's how I see it. And I've been through, I used to work with Richard Williams with Vermont State Housing Authority legislative changes twenty five, thirty years ago. So, I've seen the vast majority of these changes with the landlord tenant bills over the years. I've been involved with pretty much all of them, and Angela has been with me for the last twenty something years. So, we've seen the changes. I think now is a good time for the change. One other thing I wanted to mention is that the trespass provision. I have advocating for some change in getting some trespass language because, and I know it's been referred to as the Decker Towers issue. I can tell you that I was with Burlington Housing. We evicted a lot of people. Everyone here knows it was a really bad situation. It was all over the press. Yes, we had a public hearing on

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: it when Kesha was chair.

[Brenda Siegel (End Homelessness Vermont)]: Right. Can I just ask, though, so Oh, sure?

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: A no trespass will always have to be different than an eviction. A no trespass would be related to someone who's not a leaseholder or not, in some way verified residence of a property, you can't no trespass a tenant. I hope that's not the case of the bill coming to us.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Is that fully true, Nadine? Because what about a tenant who has

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: a, a domestic violence situation? That's a different process. That's the only way I could see moving the bill forward, so I'd love to have Okay.

[Nadine Seabeck (Attorney)]: Right, so with the trespass, my focus would be on the tenant who was evicted. In that scenario, if there's a court order, and that particular tenant is evicted, that tenant and whoever members of the household, etcetera, should not be allowed back onto the property. What has been common for years, and this is not the Decker Towers just brought it all to a head, but this has been going on for years. Tenants who are evicted by court order will move in with a neighbor. The neighbor feels bad for them, they'll let them move in, and then I get the call, Oh, well, so and so, we just evicted, just moved in with a neighbor. Well, now you need to go deal with the neighbor and say, so and so can't live with you. Most properties have a guest policy of fourteen days, so that's going to buy some time. A lot of times they move out, sometimes they don't, then I have to evict the offending neighbor that let them move in. But it sends the building into a, I call it a tizzy because the neighbors are like, You just evicted this person. Why do they get to stay here? Why are they still living in the building? I don't feel safe. I want them out. So, would propose that there'd be some sort of statutory provision that if you were evicted by court order, which it's very hard to show, it's very easy to show, I'm sorry, that you have a court order, a writ, it's been executed by the sheriff, there's all sorts of paperwork. This person cannot be on the property, period. That's it. It's just too common and happens all the time. So, I would ask for some sort of trespass language, because right now, under the current trespass law, which is a Vermont Supreme Court case, is that if another resident invites a tenant, or I'm sorry, if another resident invites someone into the property,

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: then that's it. You can't trespass that person from the property. I believe we have that language in the bill at the moment. Is that right, counsel?

[Nadine Seabeck (Attorney)]: Great. Would, boy, that would be a great tool, because then we would have some way to enforce the law. We would have some way to either have the police department or the sheriff's department remove the evicted person and keep them off the property And in any type of case, there's just why do they need to be back there? Why do they need to go back to the property? So I would advocate for that. I know we're coming up on time, so I do want to finish with, I wanna tell you a story, and I reached out to a bunch of my landlords to see if I could find somebody who could testify. So instead, I'm gonna tell you a story. It's, I have a client, a client, been a client for over twenty five years, never has to evict anybody. I think I did an eviction form twenty five years ago. Last year, he called me up because he had a nonpayment case. He had rented to a young couple. He doesn't have access to computers and all that. So unfortunately, these tenants had been previously evicted. He felt bad for them. They had a small child, and they were expecting one child on the way. He owns a duplex, that was his only rental property. He lived in one side, he rented out the other. Before I continue, I just want to say that there are good tenants and bad tenants. Are good landlords and bad landlords. I just want to make sure the landlords are represented because they're needed in the state. And really, I just, in some of the ways the landlords are being portrayed in the various hearings in the House and the Senate, I'm very dismayed by that. So I just want to get this story across because I think it's that important that you hear about some of the good landlords out there.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: So This building, my dear, this building

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: is full of landlords, and we hope they're all good landlords. Oh, yeah. There's there's

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: a lot of good landlords Yeah, have a lot of landlords in the legislature.

[Brenda Siegel (End Homelessness Vermont)]: Okay,

[Nadine Seabeck (Attorney)]: thank you, Madam Chair.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: And we hope they're all good.

[Nadine Seabeck (Attorney)]: Right? So, he owns this duplex, it's his only rental property. He lives on social security, and the rental income from the other unit helps to pay his mortgage. Soon after the tenants moved in, they fell behind in their rent. He tried to work with them, they fell further and further behind. He had no choice but to start eviction proceedings. I sent out a notice for him. The tenants were served back in August, the case was filed with the court. He would regularly write me letters, because he was not good with a computer, and stopped by my office and plead for me to get these tenants out. He couldn't pay his mortgage, he couldn't pay the bills, the heat was included. He was doing everything he could to survive. This is a client that it broke my heart. He wasn't taking showers because he didn't want to use the water because he had to pay for the water. The tenants were going through a lot of water, he wasn't eating, etc. So, we had an escrow hearing at the court back in October. An agreement was reached with the tenants to move. At this hearing, Legal Services Vermont is present to represent, we have Judge Tours started over ten years ago, a landlord tenant clinic, and attorneys are there to help represent the tenants. We did reach an agreement. The agreement was that my client agreed to waive all the rent that was owed at that time, which was over $12,000 They agreed to be out by November 3. This is not an uncommon settlement tactic. The landlords just want their property back and they forgo the rent. The landlord took possession of the property on eleventhree. The tenants were evicted when sheriff went, the tenants had cranked the heat up to over 90. Again, the heat was included with this rent, cranked up the heat, and it looked like they had tampered with the oil tank as the seals were cut off. Very This distressing for my client. Again, he fell behind in his mortgage and he was afraid he was going to be evicted from the property. This eviction broke him mentally and financially. And forgive me, I'm gonna get a little choked up here. He took his life, the day before Thanksgiving. So these are very serious situations, and it breaks my heart. So, I work with a lot of amazing landlords that go out of their way to work with tenants. I work with tenants as much as I can, but I need the tools to be able to get them out. I get the whole, there's no vacancy, there's homelessness, I get it because unfortunately, my job, I make a lot of them homeless, and I get it, I really do. But I have landlords who care. My clients care. Champlain Housing Trust, my big clients care, they care a lot. Their goal is to provide safe, affordable housing. And that's what they're doing. If you can't comply with the rules, if you can't pay the rent, if you're driving your neighbors crazy, or you're acting with drugs or violence, I'm sorry, you need to go. Other people are waiting to get into these units, tenants who want the housing and who will comply with the rules. So, I'm sorry to end on such a sad note, I was debating whether I was going to tell this story, But I think it's very important that landlords are also pushed to the edge, that they should have some compassion as well. And I was in court with him, and the tenants are there in the room and they brought their toddler, and since then, they had a newborn with them. But they did not treat

[Brenda Siegel (End Homelessness Vermont)]: my client very

[Nadine Seabeck (Attorney)]: well. And it was a horrific ending. All my years of doing this has been the only occasion, but there have been plenty of other cases where my clients have been pushed to the brink.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Nadine, thank you. We are being called to the floor. You for sharing that story, Brenda. Thank you for sharing yours. Alex, thank you. I am sorry. We have incredible housing people here in this room today. I just wanna acknowledge we have Kathy Byer and Nadine Zekowski and Jean and Chris. And I'm so grateful to you all for weighing in on this bill and hopefully making a better bill. We are working as hard as we can on it in both committees. So thank you all for your input. It means a great deal to us.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: And I just don't want anyone to think anyone in this room or who's testified or us ourselves are unsympathetic to any of these situations. Right. I mean, have emergency Absolutely rooms full of people who get injured. Know, we have to recognize that people having episodes of violence and wherever they go, wherever they are, that's a state problem to deal with. If we don't get this right, we have more situations like So there

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: thank you all. We need to go. Thank you, Nadine. Thank you.

[Brenda Siegel (End Homelessness Vermont)]: Thank you. Brenda.