And this is a joint meeting between the Vermont House Human Services Committee and the House General Military and Housing Committee. And we are talking about housing, but in particular, what many folks identify as the third leg of the stool, which is the importance of providing those kinds of supports services to enable homeowners to remain housed or to be housed. Committee, this is a follow-up and a next step to a beautiful friendship. Let's see now. On Thursday, we met jointly with House General and were presented with a proposal, a broad proposal by the Agency of Human Services in terms of how to address the crisis in terms of housing homelessness as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. And between Thursday and today, the legislation was drafted to do part of that and put that into statutory language. And today, Katie is going to share with us language that focuses broadly on services. So to add that, and so that is what Representative Jessup was referencing in her introduction to the bill today on the floor. But it was very important to both House Appropriations and to House General and Military and Housing Committee that this committee look at the language and consider introducing an amendment to really flesh out what is the proposal from the administration. Katie, if you could go through that with us, we'd appreciate it. Sure. I'm going to try to share my screen here. Oops, it says host disabled participant screen sharing. Is that something you can help with? Yes, Katie. I just made it available. Great. Thank you. And as Katie is doing that, this is language that at one point was shared, has been shared with the department. And we will be asking them their views and things like that. Thank you. Good afternoon, Katie McLean, Office of Legislative Council. So there have been a few different versions of this language. But the concept is there are five different proposals outlined here. And instead of presenting them as individual separate proposals, they're being presented here as a package with one lump sum. And then there's the breakdown of how the money could be each of these different original policy proposals. So this would be an amendment to H966. And right as I was jumping on to share this document, I saw an email that came through that flags for us that when and if this amendment moves forward, we would have an amendment to section one of H966, which is a statement of purpose, which says how much H966 appropriates in total. And if this were added, that appropriation would have to be increased to reflect that. But in terms of the substance of this housing piece, in subsection A, it says that the sum of 16 million 61,600 is appropriated from the Corona virus relief fund to DCF to fund programs and services that support safe, stable housing opportunities for Vermont households experiencing homelessness as a result of the public health emergency and related administrative costs. The programs and services funded by the appropriation may include and this is where we lift list out, excuse me, each of the specific proposals. So first, expanding the Vermont rental subsidy program to provide homeless families with temporary rental assistance through December 30th as a bridge to public housing vouchers. Second, providing or arranging for housing navigation and case management services, such as the identifying housing barriers, needs and preferences, developing and implementing plans to find and secure housing, conducting outreach to potential landlords, assisting with relocation logistics, developing permanent housing support crisis plans, other services necessary for households to maintain permanent housing. Third, providing financial assistance to Vermont households who are living in motels to help them rapidly resolve their homelessness and enter into safe housing arrangements. Fourth, supplementing the GA hotel voucher program to address the immediate housing needs of households who are currently living in motels or hotels around the state and whose motel or hotel lodging is related to disruption and their previous housing situation as the result of COVID. And lastly, capitalizing a housing risk pool for landlords to encourage rentals to individuals experiencing homelessness or housing security, which would help landlords lessen their risk of exposure to financial loss through December 20th while renting to households that have poor or no rental housing history as a result of financial hardship due to the public health emergency. So that's what the money is to be spent on. And then if you remember from, well, Human Service Committee remembers from going through 965 that the way these provisions are structured is subsection A is how the money is appropriated. Subsection B is the rationale for the use of the money. So that's what we're moving into next, that the expenditure is necessary to secure safe, stable housing opportunities for Vermont households. It's experiencing homelessness, many of whom have been disproportionately impacted by unemployment, business closures or business interruptions as a result of the public health emergency. The number of families living in state supported motels or hotels grew from approximately 300 to 1400 over the course of two months. And the COVID pandemic has rendered housing and shelters incompatible with maintaining public health. Increase the number of housing homelessness and in need of housing supports to obtain or maintain safe, stable housing and create a demand for diverse social services to safely house these vulnerable Vermonters. And then we have a subsection C that the provision of housing programs and services is not compensable under the section to the extent that the same costs or expenses have been or will be covered by other federal funds. For example, FEMA funds. So that is the language that's currently, this is the most recent version of this housing proposal. And that's it. Madam Chair, your microphone is off. Thank you. Thank you, Katie. And let me ask if someone, if anyone has questions right now for content and then I will, in terms of what is in the bill and what is it, what is in the proposed amendment. And after that I will ask either. I will ask Ken and Sean to speak. Representative Wood. Representative Wood. And then after representative Wood, I have a representative Calacchi, representative Wood. Thank you, Madam Chair. Yes. I think this is a question for Katie because it's, it's about format and relationship to the original bill. I'm just curious about, there's a provision in the, in the main bill that indicates that any funds not spent by December 20th would be returned. And would funds under this amendment also, would that provision be applicable to funds under this amendment? Yes. Okay. And then I have other content questions, but I think I'll wait till after the commissioner and deputy commissioner speak. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you. Representative Calacchi, a question about the language in the bill. Yes, it's also about the timing. Thank you, chair. Katie in the other bill in the housing component, we had reports due back mid August for decisions by the agency of human services to reallocate if necessary by September 1st. So shouldn't that similar language be in this amendment of the bill? I think it's a policy choice for the committees to make. That certainly could be added. We would have a subsection D to have similar reporting requirements. If that is what the committees chose. Okay. Thank you. From either house general or human services, or there any further questions. Thank you. Representative, I can't raise my hand. I'm a co-host. So they're not allowing me to raise my hand. Just on page two, I think line 20. There's a reference to families, the number of families living in state supported motels. And I'm just, we've been referring to these as households. There you go. Great. Thank you. Thank you. And I guess I, and then I'll just pre-ask question. To the commissioner about the, the numbers on line 21 or to explain, because to me 1400. Households can still include 2000 people because of children and others. And I just want to clarify that these numbers are. Are currently accurate. Thank you. Thank you. One last go through. Does anyone else have questions for Katie at this moment? Okay. Thank you. Is it the commissioner or the deputy commissioner who is going to talk about this. Can you commissioner, you seem to have unmuted yourself. Thank you representative few for the record. Thank you very much. I'll be brief and then turn it over to Sean Brown, but I do want to state we really appreciate the work that has been done on this bill. We appreciate the opportunity to review the language representative Stevens made the one particular comment that I was also going to make seeing this draft. We support this proposal. We, it is very consistent with the agency of human services. And so that is again, greatly appreciated. Glad to turn it over to Sean to, if it's helpful, again, we want to be responsive to what the committee is looking for here. If you want him to go through this to explain more what we're doing, we can do that or alternatively can respond to questions. Thank you. Thank you commissioner. I will. On some level leave it to the committee, but first, I do think we would appreciate hearing from Sean because it is our understanding that this is consistent with what was presented in the slide deck on Thursday in terms of the administration's proposal. And if this focuses on that, those aspects that can be paid for with COVID-19 funds. Thank you for the record, Sean Brown, deputy commissioner for department for children and families, economic services division. I too want to thank both committees and ledge council and joint fiscal for the work on this bill last week and this week. We do support the language on the new proposed language. We think it works better than our original submission. So thank you. We are looking for just over $16 million. We are continuing to house in response to representative Stevens, a large number of households. I don't have today's numbers. I haven't looked at the report yet. Unfortunately, I've been running all over northern part of the state today. So it's first time I've been in my office as was now. You know, we are doing the work to implement this plan. So if approved and supported by the legislature, we'll be prepared to move it forward because time will be of the essence. We appreciate the question regarding timing and whether some sort of mechanism should be added regarding where we're at with the spending at the end of August or September. We certainly appreciate the need to make sure we have some accountability in terms of where we are with spending and we would support some sort of reporting out mechanism. So if that's where the committees policy committees would like us to go, we would certainly be amenable to that. We would certainly have a better idea where we are at with spending as we implement this plan through July and August so that we would have a better sense of our, our spending patterns at that point and what our projected spend is and that we would be hopefully be able to be willing and able to report that back to the legislatures for your review and we'll be able to do that. So I'm, you know, we do have, we're able to get a hold of Josh Davis from GroundWorks, who's an incredible partner, housing partner of the departments to answer any questions as well regarding services. I believe he's available today and on the call, but I'm not positive. Someone is trying to get in who is called iPad. So I'm happy to introduce, we can't enter people who say iPad unless we know who they are. So that may be him. Okay. Okay. So we're certainly happy to answer any questions from any, the members of the committee. We do believe this bill reflects the proposal that, that we reviewed last Thursday, the housing, re-housing plan. And so I'm, we're happy to answer any questions. Representative Wood. Thank you, Madam chair. I have a couple of questions. When it refers to bridge money. Or rental subsidies, often people wait quite a period of time before they have between application and actual awarding of rental subsidies. And. What will happen to people or what can we do to ensure that there won't be a gap between when this assistance, rental assistance ends and when somebody is approved for an ongoing rental subsidy. So normally that work starts three or four months before the original subsidy is set to expire. They, that those families have been or individual households have been receiving ongoing support services. And as they're nearing like the eight or nine month mark on, on the original like state subsidy, if we're referring to the Vermont rental subsidy, the connection is made with that, with the housing authority that has the most appropriate federal voucher for the, that family situation. And then the work begins so that at the 12, at the end of the 12 month mark, those families just smoothly transition from one program to the other without a break. And subsidy. And many times they stay in the same housing they're in. Most of the time. Sometimes families do want to move. If they have the ability to locate a different apartment, but for the most part that work in the coordination between the housing authority and the case management. Begin that transition in terms of getting the application in the preference and then making sure any documentation that needs to be submitted to support the federal application is provided in time to transition that family out. And so to do that work, it's normally a three to four month period. And the way the wording reads, it doesn't necessarily refer to people who already have subsidies. It's, it's referring to people who the way I read it is referring to people who don't do not currently have subsidies because they're homeless. Although I guess that it is possible for somebody to have been eligible for a subsidy and not utilized it yet. So are you saying that if, let's just say if, there is a gap between when somebody is formally approved for a rental subsidy, whether it's a state or federal rental subsidy, that if that happens, let's just say, for example, that happens sometime in January, that they get formal approval is the, it will the department for children and families extend the support for that individual until that formal subsidy is approved. Yeah, so our plan, this is only funding in this bill for the, using the CRF fund. Our plan does contemplate providing a full 12 month rental subsidy to these families. And so they would continue on the state subsidy for up to 12 months. All that work is being done to transition them to a federal subsidy. And so that's what we're going to do. We're going to move them to a federal. Some families may move to a federal voucher very quickly. And others may stay on the program for the full 12 months. Okay. Thank you. And then. If I can, if I can reinforce the fact that this is COVID-19 money. Stuff that will be. For the surge or for the transition. And. And then that is the final presentation we got last Thursday. This is on some level, just a piece of the presentation. Yes. Yes. Yes. I understand that, madam chair. Thank you. And I'm just. And this may have been last week, but a lot of things have happened between last week and now. I do know approximately what proportion of the total funds will go into each one of these categories or. We're proposing of the COVID relief fund. We're proposing in the grand total of just over 16 million, about 1.25 million for family housing rental assistance. Five million for a housing and case management navigation and case management and retention services. 3.78 million for a rapid resolution fund. And then 250,000 for, for the risk, the landlord risk pool. And all total is just over $16 million. Thank you very much. Representative Wood. I think the. The thought in not. Breaking it out in this proposal. In this proposed amendment is to on some level have it. And I'm just going to, I'm just going to, I'm just going to, I'm just going to, I'm just going to mirror the, the concept of the provider stabilization fund, which is to give some flexibility. To the agency to perhaps. As needs change to maybe make other decisions. And so not to lock them into. Particular. Pieces. Yes, madam chair. I appreciate that flexibility as well. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I was just wondering what the plan was realizing that that could change in the next six months. Representative Calacchi and then representative McFawn. Thank you chair. I'm in total support of this. I just two questions. The 16 million is additional dollars. To what's already been suggested in the bill. We're amending. Is that correct? It's not coming out and reallocating the. It's not coming out. It's not coming out. It's not coming out and reallocating the. The deputy commissioner or for the representative. From appropriations who was sitting here. Yes. Madam chair, if I could answer that the answer is yes, this is additional money. So currently we have a running tally in the bill that we just took up on the floor of H nine 66. Which is somewhere in the vicinity of. The commission. The commission. So that bill would then be approximately a hundred and 11 million dollars. With this amendment. And for what it's worth, there are, there is as we, you may have heard a commerce amendment coming. So it will grow still further. Thank you. My one, I think my one. Question. Is the. Capitalizing the risk pool. Because with all the timing of this. We're trying to move households and we're doing all of this and we're trying to get new. I don't know how we're going to know. If the landlords need this risk pool by December. It seems. And if that is not used. That gets returned. So. This is the one part of the bill that I just don't. Actually see how we're going to. The timing of it seems off to use by December 30th. And by its definition, a risk pool. It is that a risk pool that it may be spent and it may not, depending on. Circumstances that could or could not happen in the future. We do know that there are landlords who have been reluctant. To work with many of the households and populations. We're serving in the program now. Due to problematic. Rental histories of their properties. And knowing that there is this fund available. To provide some sort of level of financial. Or, you know, Support to mitigate the risk that they're undertaking. For renting to folks who have a troubled rental history. You know, we may spend it. We may not, but it would certainly. Support moving this plan. For by bringing more public and private landlords into have been reluctant in the past to engage with us. And so we would get a good sense probably by September, the end of August, September, whether we will need this fund or not. I don't have the, I don't have the amendment in front of me because we're talking about a bill. We're talking about a human services. Potential amendment or members of human services, possible amendment. Okay. The risk pool. Concept in that amendment. Sorry, could you repeat your question? Is the, um, represent Kalaki brought up a question about risk pool. Is that in this amendment? Yes, it is. It's under number five. Under number five. And so I believe that. We have not put dollars. That is one reason why there is a total figure. As opposed to breaking it down. So that if it is you, if it's not. Then that might be for something else. Great. Thank you. It's clear. Uh, representative McFawn. And then representative Hango. And you represent. Oh, sorry, Redmond. I don't know who was. Sorry. Thank you, Madam chair. I'm a little bit concerned about this bridge. Funding. I understand it's 12 months. That the person will be supported. I'm concerned about it. My experience with the Vermont housing authority. Is they do not have. Any. Available vouchers. Um, Almost all the time. The only way that one comes due is if somebody leaves the program. My question is, do you know if there are new housing vouchers that have been allocated to the state of Vermont? So that that's not the situation. Um, our understanding regarding the availability of vouchers in the future to support this plan. Fall into two categories. The first is that they have a turnover rate of vouchers becoming available due to. Um, households leaving the program. Of approximately 30 to 50 a month. And then there are. Various. Different types of vouchers. Available to support different populations of families and individuals. Um, and some of those is our understanding our conversations with them. Um, I would encourage you to bring, uh, to talk directly with the housing authorities. My understanding is they have received additional resources to put new vouchers. Out into Vermont's. Communities. Um, I appreciate that. Um, I'm very, very surprised. That, um, There are 30 vouchers a month. Um, because of the turnover rate that are available. My experience. My own personal experience. Is it. That's not. That doesn't happen. But. You're no better than I do. You're welcome. I'm representing Redmond. Um, represent Redmond representative Ango and then represent Calacchi. I see your hand up again. Which is fun. Thank you, Madam chair. Um, I am really heartened by this, um, proposal. Um, this was for me, this leg of the stool was kind of the, the dangling, you know, finger nail that is like bothering you. And you just aren't quite sure. You're going to get it off clean. And I, I really feel like, um, This, this is, this just warms my heart that we have this piece. It's going to be tough to spend it in the time that we have, but I really appreciate the thoughtfulness and intentionality. And I also want to just really call out our, um, Our colleague on appropriations for, um, really holding all these pieces and helping us find a way. So I'm, I'm thrilled. Thank you. Thank you. Represent Redmond representative Ango. I apologize for the background noise. Thank you, Madam chair. I just wanted to be clear, um, with representative Calacchi bringing up the, uh, 250,000 for, um, the risk pool that the numbers talked about by Sean Brown, um, are not spelled out in this amendment so that they, so they are fluid. Is that correct? Am I to understand that? Thank you. Uh, representative McFawn. No. I see that, uh, are there any, uh, questions right now? I think I saw that, um, Mr. Davis appeared, but I don't see him now. I'm here. Oh, you are. Yes, I am. Oh, there you are. You're on screen too. So I had to lose screen one. Um, welcome. Uh, I'm representative amp you. Thank you for joining this joint legislative committee meeting with, um, house general and house human services. Um, we have asked you to come. Um, my understanding is that you have, um, seen and, um, not only the amendment, but maybe just in general, you have worked with the department, um, around housing and what, uh, the, as oftentimes referred to as the third stool of housing, successful housing, which is services and, um, Uh, half of us are the committee on human services. So we thought it would be helpful if you, um, explained a bit about what, what, from your perspective is services that are important and that are embedded in this. Absolutely. And thank you so much for having me. I'm seeing some familiar faces. Representative Stevens. I was in your committee not long ago. Thank you for having me back. Hopefully I did something right to get invited back. I'm also seeing, uh, Ken chats. It's good to see your face. Um, So friendly crowd here. Thanks for having me. Of course. I'm Josh Davis, executive director of ground works collaborative in Burrattle borough. And we are just a little bit of context information before I get into services specifically. We are an organization of dedicated people working passionately each day to meet people's basic needs with dignity. Uh, what we have for our services include a 30 bed year round shelter, 33 bed, seasonal overflow shelter, a day shelter, a food shelf. We provide case management and representative payee services. In short, if I were to sum that up, it is food, shelter, and supportive services that are at the core of what we do. This number may have changed in the past couple of days. I'm waiting for updated data. But as of the end of last week, we were serving about 135 adults. And we were able to do that. We were able to do that. We were able to do that. But as of the end of last week, we were serving about 135 adults. And 16 children and four different motels in the Brattle borough area. This has been a big push for us because it's about four times the amount of people that we typically support in the seasonal overflow shelter. And I would also like to underscore, I know we're talking about housing today, but just that we're supporting about 1300 people and 965 households with emergency food. And that is about twice the number of households that we would typically have visiting our food shelf in a month. And also, of course, we're not having visits. We're delivering that food and in large partnership with volunteers throughout the community. So it's been an incredible effort from groundwork staff. I have to give them a shout out, nothing short of extraordinary of the work that they've done, putting themselves and their families at risk to show up each day as I think a really essential worker. So kudos to our staff and also kudos to shelter staff at the state. I also want to say that we're thrilled. I am thrilled that what has emerged through this pandemic is not to return to normal. And so the normal that I'm referring to is a broken housing system that relies heavily on year round and emergency seasonal shelters for people who have nowhere else to go. The goal now is to make significant investments to functionally end homelessness. And I know that what has come out as talk about ending family homelessness, but I would like to say that we don't need to stop at family homelessness. So thank you on this committee, these two committees for your willingness to lead and invest and vastly improving our system of care for people experiencing homelessness. It's truly remarkable and I'm extremely grateful for you leading the charge there. So again, I'm glad that I'm here talking about the right things. I was understood that I was going to talk about housing recovery plan. And as you illustrated, it's the third and often least talked about leg of the stool in the housing metaphor. So I think housing navigation on the surface could be easily interpreted as somebody looking for vacant units in the newspaper and filling out applications, housing navigation. What's the big challenge there? However, the work that we do and other providers do throughout the state is much more complex. And so I wanted to unpack what that means to us just a little bit. In order to even begin the process, you need to get the client's engagement to unearth information and core issues. This is something that people are nervous about participating in, especially the folks that we work with that have a history of substance use and mental health issues. I hope that you've heard a lot about the coordinated process and understand what a game changer that has been for our work in terms of allowing for better local coordination, equitable resource distribution, as well as provider accountability. In that process, there's an assessment that we work with clients to fill out. And there are about 19 points of really intense questions that help us determine somebody's housing need on that tool. And based on that housing need, we're asking people to trust us with very personal, often deeply shameful information to score them. It requires a relationship. It requires trust. It requires a deft hand for people to avoid attaching to that score as though that is their worth. But to see this as part of a process that will help them unlock housing resources. So this work, we have to balance between time to cultivate a relationship, time to set up an appointment, time for people to sit down, get to know us to trust us to fill out this paperwork, as well as doing that as quickly as possible. So our case managers and our team really have to balance that sense of urgency to get people back into housing. But we also want to build the relationship as we go. And that process pragmatically what we do is we gather reference letters. We come up with identification documents that oftentimes we have to go back to the hospital where that person was born to track those down. We have to understand and plan around past housing barriers that have occurred. We have to make repayment plans as well as filling out significant application forms to get people just in the queue. So not the promise of housing, but the promise that a promise of housing is potentially coming. And people who are not hanging on by many threads, that is often a very big point that is misunderstood that once you fill out a housing application, you are automatically get housing. And so helping people navigate the ups and downs of getting back into housing. At the same time, we're talking about the services to individuals, but there's also the landlord side of the equation. I'd like to highlight. We often talk about the low vacancy rate in Vermont. A very real impact of this is that for every apartment that's available, there are a stack of applicants. And more often than not, the people that we support do not automatically rise to the top of that stack. So our relationship as an agency with landlords are key. And this underscores the importance of the landlord liaison project. So we commit to landlords to being available when needed within 24 hours of being called by the landlord. Every person with significant barriers that we've housed recently has been accepted in large parts because of that commitment of ongoing case management. Support and the promise that we will come and step in and help remedy a situation just as quickly as possible. Our ability to find housing for people who are not eligible. Our ability to find housing for people in this community. Now and in the future is largely determined by our ability to maintain strong relationships with landlords. And it's no secret that this is a small town and word gets around quickly as to whether or not you're trustworthy as an agency. If you say you're going to show up within 24 hours, you need to show up within 24 hours or word gets out. And that support team, the supportive service workers are called upon to do the craziest thing. And it's not uncommon in our past for them to have a hazmat suit on to literally go in and help clean up an apartment. And we go above and beyond within safety and protocol to make sure that units are ready for the next person. If somebody is leaving or they are in good shape for clients that we serve. So about currently 80% of the people that we serve have high housing needs according to our current coordinated entry assessments. And I would just like to point out that there isn't a lot of research out there about how to effectively work with people who are experiencing homelessness along with multiple morbidity. So come combinations of substance use disorder, mental and physical health challenges. But what we do know is that services is a key to success. And we must address the barriers that exist for each individual in order to ensure long term success and stability. So I think that's one of the things that we can do. And I was in representative Stevens committee. I read this list off. So if you've already heard this, please bear with me. But I think it really illustrates. And almost a high coup and extended high coup way. What does providing supportive services look like? And so one of our staff members came up with this list. A bullet points, which is support folks. Care about them. Use a person centered approach. And that's a key to success. So take that opportunity to look at conversations. Meet needs. Buy tobacco. Don't call the police for social work issues. Work with all the landlords. Answer when they call at 7pm at night. Get clinical staff on site. Never give up on folks. Avoid punitive measures. Adopt restorative practices. And promote harm reduction. So with that, I will pause. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I'm more than happy to go into detail about anything that I've mentioned thus far. Josh, thank you. Let me. See if anyone. Has any questions. Representing red men. Not a question, just a deep appreciation for the work that you do. And thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I represent McFawn. Thank you, Madam chair. It's not a question either, but I wanted to thank the commissioner and the deputy commissioner and all your staff. That worked on this bill. And this amendment particularly. You're a tremendous help to both of these committees. As we move forward to help those people that are. Who are struggling with the COVID-19. Problem that we have. And helping them with the housing problems. Which we know. It's one of the most important things that we can do. Let's get housing first. Thank you very much for your help. And representative. You made a cut in. Absolutely. I'd also like to. To reiterate that. I want to thank. Thank you. Thank you for the comment. I do know what. Representative from very town said this. Since we started taking testimony on this back in the end of March. It's been clear. It's been made clear to us. And we were reminded every time we had testimony on it, that the capital expenditures that we put forward. Are important, but won't be as important or won't. Won't be that thing that we need it to be. Unless there is this third leg. And to hear it explicated and to hear the support from the agency is really heartening. It's always difficult to see that things get done so smoothly when we're in a crisis situation, but I'm awfully glad that we're getting things done smoothly in a crisis situation here. And we'll leave our annual battles over what we think is enough for another time. But I just really want to appreciate, some appreciations to Commissioner Shass and Deputy Commissioner Brown and their whole team for doing this. And for the providers and for the partner organizations like Jeff's that are reliant on doing this right. So thank you everybody for your help on this. And thanks to the committee for hosting us. This is good to see us working together again. It is. We have a comment or question from Representative Greg War. Just a comment. I would just like to echo the member from Marytown and from Richmond, both great points. And I also am very thankful for those who presented to us today and the efforts that are going into this very important issue. Thank you. Thank you, Representative Greg War. Committee I think are, let me ask first before the Human Services Committee begins to get into some discussion and things like that. Are there any other questions or comments related to this? My goal before we leave today is for the Human Services Committee to have a decision as to who was willing to add their name to the amendment that Katie walked us through, which currently says, offered by X. And so we have that. And then we have Representative Kalaki brought up a question around the Human Services Committee. A report back. I now don't have the other, I do not have in front of me what the language was in terms of the section of the appropriations bill and whether or not that is something that is important to add to that. Chair, I would withdraw that because in this amendment as it currently is, it's none of it's allocated so that agency can reallocate the money. In the other bill, there were dollar amounts allocated for each component and we needed that to align it but right now the agency can align it. So I think to keep it simple is good. I think that would overcomplicate it because all I wanted to do ultimately was have the agency be able to reallocate if they needed to. So I would say my question is irrelevant now. I appreciate that Representative Kalaki. That said, there may be interest in at some point in time a report back on what happened who was how successful in terms of the rehousing and ultimately where were the resources but whether that needs to be a separate report or whether that's gonna be part and parcel of what is being tracked in terms of the COVID-19 dollars have not a clue. Any thoughts, committee? Sean or Ken, is there going to be some sort of reporting back I don't know, state government-wise entirely in terms of the use of the COVID-19 funds? As Sean indicated, we'll certainly be monitoring our use of COVID-19 funds in any event. We'll be doing that very regularly to make sure we're how we're doing, we're obviously aware of the limitations of the use of the funds in terms of having to spend them by the end of December as do appreciate and reiterate that the chairs point that having the flexibility in this language does allow us to move things around as we see fit. And then consistent with what Sean shared earlier, we're glad to provide updates and information to you. I should say the department will be as time goes on to give you progress reports and updates. In fact, as to how we're doing and we can do that informally or if you did decide to ask us to do it formally we'd be glad to do that too. It's really up to you, but there's no question we'll be monitoring it closely. It's really important to us to make sure we're as effective as possible to address this situation within this timeframe that we do have the COVID-19 fund available to us. Thank you, thank you. Representative Hango, I see has your hand up. Representative Hango, you're muted. Yes, thank you very much. I apologize for that. I'm not sure if your original question a couple of minutes ago was going towards who's sponsoring this amendment. I just wanted to throw it out there. I don't even know if this is a possibility but that it be or it could be a joint committee amendment. Thank you, Representative Hango. Thank you. I probably should have been clearer. This is my understanding is something for the Human Services Committee to be introducing. And so my question was really whether to members of the Human Services Committee if they all wanted to be on it because this is the first time that they have seen it entirely. And now I see Representative Bromstead and Representative McFawn and Representative Redmond. Thank you. Has leaned in and I don't know if that means he wants to say anything or not. No, he's leaning back. Okay, so Representative Hango, your hand is still up. Did you want to add something? Okay, I'm going to jump to Representative Gregoire because his internet is more precarious than some other individuals. Representative Gregoire, yeah. Oh, I only raised my hand because you asked if we wanted to be on the amendment and I do. Oh, okay. Okay, thank you. Representative Bromstead. Thank you, Madam Chair. I wanted to go back to the sort of auditing function and to hearing something back from folks as to how this, what has worked well, what maybe not. I mean, we probably will never have this kind of funding again, especially from the federal government, but it is important. One of the things that when we did childcare, we did talk about that audit function being so important and to make sure, and so I appreciate the commissioner's comments here that to make sure that anyone who funds from the CRF grant or funds, it makes sure that they are keeping good track so that we can go back and look and see what works well, what maybe worked so so, and what we just never want to repeat again. And because this opportunity may not present itself again and with our smaller pots of money, it'll be really important that they be targeted. And this is, for me, feels like such a great project. I'm so glad that we were able to add that in because this is the piece that's the people piece that wraps around what's so important in order to help folks have success. So I just offer that. And I would love to be a co-sponsor to the bill. Madam Chair, is it fair to say that what you are proposing is that there be added to the amendment language similar to what was in the history bill that has to do with some kind of report around the usage and success. And I might say not January 1st, but February or March or something like that. Yes, exactly. I think we did do something like that in a recent bill. I can't remember exactly which one, but we moved the date even a back a little bit. So I'm happy to help with that. What I might ask Katie to do is because I don't have the original appropriations bill in front of me to know what it says around something else but to maybe make it consistent so that it's not too different reports or something like that. Absolutely. Representative McFawn, I see your hand up. Thank you, Madam Chair. I want to echo Representative Unsted's wish to have that report. I think it's important. The other thing that I was going to suggest on your other question about being on the amendment, I'm wondering if there's anybody on the committee that doesn't want to be on the amendment. Yeah, but. And if not, let's just do it. Yeah. Thank you, Representative McFawn. I was trying to take the more positive approach. I've not seen anyone not say they didn't, I've not seen anyone indicate that they don't want to be but they can email me. I want to be on it. Yes, I. Thank you. Yeah. And Representative Wood had said that as well and she also has her hand up to say anything. Nope, just to say that I wanted to be on the amendment and to thank everybody for their work on it. So I just, I want to thank, so committee, if there is someone who does not want to be on the amendment to please let me know in the next 10 minutes so that we can pass it on to Katie. The amendment would have a couple of changes. I understand Katie said something about you have to do something in the beginning to change some numbers. And I'm a people person, not a number person, but, and then, and my understanding is this was also suggested by the administration and pointed out here was to where it says households, where it says families to say households. And my understanding that was also a suggestion that came from the commissioner and that there would be a piece around a report back or a report to the legislature or to the two. Well, however the report is to the other folks we'll figure this out so that it's consistent, whether it's to the legislature or whether it's to three committees, us, housing and appropriations, I don't know, however that is. Is there anything else in terms of from what people are thinking is missing in terms of the language or what we want to get across? Katie, do you have what you need from us? I believe so. I think there's still some conversations about the logistics moving forward, but I think for this piece of language I have what I need. Okay, good. Representative Jessup, you have raised your hand. Just a quick question for the Ledge Council. Katie, at the bottom of page 27, starting on line three, if this amendment is rolled into section 11, wouldn't that reporting requirement cover it? So it says honor before July 31st and September 1, 2020, each agency or department administering a grant program pursuant to this act shall provide information to the legislative committee of jurisdiction, including, and then it does list only appropriations there. So maybe that does need to go elsewhere because I do know that we next go to appropriations and I do expect they will. There's very much of feeling that they want a report. So maybe we could potentially consider expanding that to add human services or other committees in such a way that makes sense. Sure, I haven't been working on H966 besides this discrete piece of language, but I can take a look at it. I know Maria had suggested that we add this out as an 11A. So I'll have to take a look at how section 11 works. Okay, however it works for you. Thank you. So committee, the goal is that this will be in the calendar. This is the goal. This will be in the calendar so that all members can see it. So what that might mean is some of these specifics around language, I can send it out to you, but you may have five minutes to respond. And if you are comfortable letting me with lots of advice from legislative council and appropriations and representative Stevens so that we're all on the same, the three committees are sort of dancing together. If you're comfortable with that rather than waiting for all 11 of you to get back. Is that okay? Thank you. Committee, thank you very much. Josh, thank you for joining and educating house human services. This is a repeat I understand from house general, but sometimes it's important to hear things more than once. And commissioner and deputy commissioner, thank you very much. Thank you for working. This was a good collaborative effort to try to move forward something that is challenging. So thank you very much. Thank you both committees. If the house human services committee could be on for a short committee discussion around what might be possible next week. Others of you are welcome to stay, but we're changing subject. I was just gonna say that house general, you are free to go. We will have something on Tuesday. Apparently we got a bill about a sports betting study. So that's now for something completely different, which is the story of our committee. So have a good weekend. We'll see on the floor. We'll see where we see it. And then we'll be back in committee next time. Thank you human services committee. This was great. We really appreciate your time. Chair, Steven, I'm a little confused. Does our committee get this amendment and we have to meet beforehand? No. This is our amendment. Right. We don't have to, the house general military doesn't have to review the amendment and say we voted 11 to 04 or nothing like that. No, if anybody would be the appropriations committee. I mean, it's there. It's the appropriations committee bill overall. So. Okay. And if that changes, if we get told something different tomorrow morning, sure, I'll let you know. All right. I just wanted to say quick thank you to representative Stevens for today's floor discussion. You were incredible. It went on a long time and you hung in there. And I just wanted to say how grateful I was for that work. Thank you. Thank you. It's good work for everybody. Thank you. So. See you. Bye. See you. Bye all. You're welcome to our house anytime. Bye. Thank you. Thank you. Human services one, I just want to say thank you all for having my back yesterday. We are a great team and that was sort of incredible the way it went through in terms of the joint healthcare and human services amendment. And we've had to over the past two weeks do a lot of work very quickly. And we oftentimes like to have longer discussions and things like that. And I really appreciate the way that we have all collaboratively and cooperatively tried to work together. So thank you. I don't really know what next week has to to offer my in terms of whether there will be other things related to COVID or the the Q one budget that has I think come over or anything like that. We have two, whether we don't have to vote anything out but we do have two pieces of we have two bills from Senate Health and Welfare. One is S 185, which in all of your non-free time today when we were on the floor David Englander just sent lots of material around the connection to health disparities and environmental and other issues. And then we also have we received another bill from Senate Health and Welfare around I wanna say perhaps a bit of a continuation although in a different way of the work that we looked at last year around chemicals and that kind of thing. My thought about that, not that we need to do anything but that we get a presentation just like we got a presentation on S 185 and when we come back in August we'll see if that's something that we move forward or not unless that's something that people think very right now that they're ready to have a discussion and decide one way or another then my idea for this other bill that we just got from the Senate would be to have a before we go on recess to have a walkthrough from Katie so we know what it is. And I have to, you know and then that we although there's always multiple perspectives to be simplistic to have the people who are the groups that are supporting the bill they have a spokesperson and they got 10 minutes to make their case and the groups that have concerns about it have 10 minutes to make their case and then we go off on break. But so we have that in our head and we can make those sort of decisions and pick it up or not when we come back. How does that sound to people? Representative Bromsted. That bill is Senate 295 if anyone wanted to look it up and it's banning P-F-A-S in popular consumer products. So we started talking. I forgot to pronounce it so that's why I didn't say it. I just spelled it. But Kelly and I had met with folks when we were still in the state house in the cafeteria on this one and so we've gotten re-contacted I'm assuming Kelly you did too but I got a long letter from Elena from the conservation law project. So I'm sure she'd want to be on the list is... Well, absolutely. My thought would be in terms of the introduction that whether it's... There are probably multiple groups multiple different individuals or groups who think this is a good idea in general. And they're probably as there always is well groups who think this isn't either it's an okay idea but please make major changes or don't do anything or it's not a good idea. And it's like each side gets 10 minutes.  And when we come back in August we figure out whether it's something to move forward or not. This is my hope because I believe it may be next week. Isn't it next week the last week in June? Yeah, next Friday. I'm still hoping that that will be... That we will not as a committee be meeting next week until we come back. So that's sort of what my thought is in terms of being respectful of the Senate who has sent us legislation to look at and then we make our decisions. Representative McFawn. Thank you, Madam Chair. As part of a deep dive into the chemicals maybe we should get a copy of the work that we did a few years ago which I thought was extensive. So we should probably get that and find out what we did. Well, I think that's a good idea. Thank you. And McFawn, that part of what legislative council might do is summarize what we did and see where we move forward. Sure. And it would. Thank you, Madam Chair. I was just knowing that the Senate has these obviously on their list of things that they have passed and just reminding our fellow committee members that they now have bills of hours that we would also like to see move that hopefully we'll work collaboratively together. Yes. And what my understanding is advanced directives is on it's actually has been signed by the governor and the top or the bill that you introduced around receivership or that that has been sent. I think other things are in process, so we say. And I still see two hands raised a representative would take represent Brunsted. Just a quickie. What about we never got banning of flavors of tobacco and all of that? Is that? That is, I believe still in Senate finance. Okay. So we probably won't have to worry about that this year. We'll be back at it next year if we win. Yeah. Is there any final? Well, thank you all miss you but we have done actually I'm a lot of good work and it's been and I appreciate the trust that you put in me in terms of as I make little make changes and then try to run and tell you what's going on and those kinds of things. But I think we have really our voice has been heard and really important in terms of how we're spending and where some of the COVID-19 federal money's going. Representative. Madam chair, you were great on the floor yesterday. I'll just say, I know I just said that about Tom too but I was really impressed at the, I mean, when we were in committee, I felt like, oh no, there's a lot of stuff she's not sure of. And then on the floor, it was just like perfectly smooth, such good examples. Everything came out perfect. And I was just really psyched. So thank you. I would never have been able to do that. So I just was really impressed. Thank you. Thank you. You've all helped. I sent out a few help requests for, so that I'd have facts if I needed it. But thank you all.  Representative Redmond. I may sound a little bit like a broken record but I just really want to thank Kimberly for her work with our committee and the way we've worked with other committees. It has just been spectacular, the interface and the way we've integrated things. And I just feel like we're working at a whole new level and I just want to really honor that and thank you for that. I think Chair Pio really appreciates the late calls in the early texts.  I sort of, you know, when I've said that to Julie, although Julie more often is oftentimes also email, between Julie and Katie, I'm not quite sure when they sleep. And, but Kimberly is coming to a close second. She didn't respond to my last one. When I said, we're time to go to bed and I think it was 11, 15. Okay, see you on the floor tomorrow at 10. And I've not gotten the schedule in terms of, so I really don't know when the master schedule in terms of when and if there are, when there are committees but between Julie and I, we will let you know. Okay, thank you. And this ends the committee meeting for House Human Services. Oh, Representative Gregoire raised his hand. Yes. I just wanted to echo the sentiments about how well everybody's working together and how lucky we are to have folks in the administration that have worked with us so tirelessly along with other committees. And it's been helpful for all of us to, you know, work together to get this stuff done. Yeah. Okay, thank you. And you take care, Representative Gregoire. All right, I think that this now, does anyone else wanna say anything before we get off and conclude today's meeting of House Human Services and good work folks. See you next week. Julie, if you could take us off of live, that would be appreciative. Stopping the live.


Continuing with the Italian speaker theme, we have Francesco who's the epidemiologist with MSF in Belgium and was previously here in the Manson and so on, but Francesco, so over to you. Okay, good afternoon. I'm going to present a preliminary analysis of the affected or patient affected with Ebola that were admitted to MSF Management Centre during the current West Africa Ebola outbreak. So the objective of this presentation is first to provide an overall description of Ebola confirmed patients admitted to MSF centres and secondly to present a preliminary exploration of risk factors associated with this. So since the beginning of the epidemic, MSF opened nine centres at a different point in time, two in Guinea, in Gekedu and in the capital Conakry, five in Sierra Leone in Kailahun, Makburaka and two centres in the capital Freetown and two in Liberia in Foya, close to the border with Guinea and in the capital Morrovia. So other small and temporary centres were open for short periods, but that are not presented, are not being pulled in this analysis. So here is a summary table of patients admitted and confirmed positive by an Ebola PCR test up to the 12th of April of this year in the nine centres. As you may see, there was a great difference between centres ranging from more than 1,000 confirmed cases in Gekedu and Morrovia to just a few confirmed cases in Makburaka and Kisi, the two centres that were open last. In total, MSF admitted 8,520 patients of whom 5,818 were confirmed. So these are the patients including the analysis I'm going to present. So we pull line list data of the nine centres, I mentioned above. We carry out a descriptive analysis for sex, age, time to admission and case fatality. Regarding the factor associated to death, we estimated the incidence rate ratios in univariate and multivariate personal regression and estimate were adjusted for variability among centres. So a low number of children, 5.6% of total cases were reported being admitted to the centres. The majority of cases were in the 15 to 54 years age group. Ebola cases were evenly distributed between male and female. And the age and sex distribution, as you can see, were similar in all the nine centres. So this is why we put them together, not in detail by centre. Regarding the time to admission, 35% reported of coming to the centre within three days since the onset of symptoms. 45% between four and seven days, but almost 20% came at eight days or more after the onset of symptoms. For the variable, we observe some important difference between centres. Some centres had a longer median time to admission because most of their patients stayed some days in a transit or holding centres before being admitted to the EMC. So this slide presents the case fatality by centre. Case fatality range from 38% in both to around 60% if we exclude the key C for which data are still incomplete. The overall case fatality was 52.2%. If we take a reference, Ghekheido's reference where the epidemic started, the death risk ratio was significantly lower in the centres of Dongka, Kailahun and Bo. So we look at whether case fatality changed over time. In this graph, you can see the blue bars which correspond to the monthly totals of admitted confirmed cases and the right line, the overall case fatality which with a decreasing trend, which is clearly visible in the months from August to December, the period during which the majority of cases were admitted. This decreasing trend has been observed in all centre with the exception of Dongka and Bo. So we then look at the changes in case fatality according to age. In this case, we use a lowest estimate which keeps age as a continuous variable. You can see a J-shaped curve with the risk of dying around 70% in young children. The risk then decrease progressively with the lowest value in the age of 15 to 20, 15 to 20 years. And from around 20 years, there is a steady increase of the risk with older age above 60 years, having a risk of 70 to 80%. So this is for the descriptive analysis. So regarding the analysis for the factor associated with this, here in this table is a summary of the risk and incidence ratio for the univariate and multivariate analysis. This table presents an estimate from all MSF Ebola centres. You can see that there is a decrease of the risk over time or with the time, with months passing. That the death incidence rate in young children and in person at older age is twice as high as in person aged 5 to 14 years. That the risk of dying was not associated with the time to admission. And that male gender was at slightly higher risk in dying than female. So we explored the probability of survival according to the cycle threshold at admission. We made a Kaplan-Meier survival curve for each of the seven centres for which this information is currently available. Data are still not available, unfortunately, for the centres of Donka and Kisi. I remind you that we used the cycle thresholds, what we call the CT, as a proxy of the viral load. The lowest, the lower the threshold, the higher the viral load. So we split the variable into three groups, below 18 cycles, 18 to 20 cycles, and more than 22 cycles. The green curve on the graph showed the probability of survival during hospitalization for a person with a CT value above 22 cycles. The pink representing the probability in person between 18 to 22 cycles, and the blue, the probability of surviving in person with less than 18 cycles. And you can see clearly that although some differences are observed between centres, overall patients with a CT value above 22 had the maximum probability of survival, and patients with a CT value below 18 cycles had the minimum probability of survival. So looking at this, so we added the CT in the regression. And as you can see in this table, the death rate in patients with a cycle threshold below 18 at admission was more than seven times higher than in patients with more than 22 cycles, while the other factor did not record major changes. So we acknowledge that this analysis has several limitations, in particular that we have analyzed a limited number of factors. Other factors need to be added in the analysis to have a more complete picture, in particular the clinical symptoms. Obviously, our analysis referred to patients admitted to MSF centres, and results cannot be extrapolated to other centres, or to the significant number of community cases and deaths, or to cases who died on arrival to the centre gate. We analyzed the time into admission, but there is an open question regarding the reliability of this information. I think everyone is aware of that. Another limitation is that the pool data from different centres, each with their own specific geographical context, may hide some ecological factor that we are not able to control. And the support of different laboratories and lab essay make the pooling of the lab result quite challenging. However, despite those limitations, we might conclude that the cycle threshold at admission was clearly the main predictor for deaths, that the risk of dying is also clearly associated with age, with person in younger and older age at higher risk, that the death incidence rate decrease over time independently for at least the factor we were able to adjust for. And there is quite some work still ahead, in particular on the analysis of symptoms at admission and on the treatment received during hospitalization to see whether the workload in the centre had any impact in patient survival, and to keep working improving the information on the viral load and its association with other factors. So I would like to acknowledge all MSF volunteers and local staff who worked and have been working so hard to fight this unprecedented epidemic and to all epidemiologists and medical reference in the field and MSF headquarters that have made this analysis possible. Thank you very much. Thanks Francesco for that great summary. Questions for Francesco? I'm looking further back because I've found, yes, right at the back. I've got a question because I saw that my name is Oscar Serrano from Working with Goal. I saw that the highest mortality was on the under-fives. I am very curious about the mortality among infants less than six months. Well, you can see the trend I think is going higher. There is a clear, this is a regression, so you can see that really there is the younger you are, the higher the risk of dying, and also the older you are, the higher the risk of dying. So I think there is maybe the number quite small in the children, but this is clearly the trend. I don't know if someone did some analysis about the very younger, I don't know. I mean under ones the death rate was very high for the under ones, but I don't know about the under six months, I don't know that particularly. Here at the front with the yellow shirt. Thank you. I'm Hugo Smith from Ames of Holland. Thank you for the presentation. I think this is a very important study because it could be the start of more prognostic studies in depth, but for these studies you need much more information, much more variables. We have any idea how to collect more of this information and not only shouting by the fence? That yesterday we have quite several presentation on that, but I would like to say something that we have other variable in our database that we are not able to pull together because they were collected in an inconsistent way. And I think one of the big work that we really need to do is that to harmonize from the very beginning this data collection. Apart from the tools, we have to agree on what we need to do. But I also think it's a big job now to make the best use out of the data that is available. There will hopefully never be an epidemic like this again and so we will never have a better opportunity to explore these things. But it's a big task to put it even just in MSF data to put that together. Never mind across other organizations, but it's a huge task. Ruby. Hi, Ruby Siddiqui from the Ames Union in MSF UK. Francesca, did you look at treatment? I'm particularly thinking about there's been some criticism around oral rehydration versus IV. This information has been collected for each center and as I say, not in a standardized way, so we cannot put them together at this stage. I hope that with the coming weeks or months, there is some centers that we are able to analyze. But surely this cannot be collected. This information cannot be pulled in the analysis as it is. But yeah, as I say, we hope to do maybe for the next. Okay, thank you very much Francesca.


We had talked about some of the sections of the paper, and now we will engage with, we talked about, well, the ecumenical nature of Poggy's claims that, well, it cuts across theories, it is anti-reductionist, so it talks, it does not put in alliance with any particular theory, rather it tries to ecumenically or Catholic, in a Catholic spirit tackle the various objections raised, and therefore, not bound by a particular theory. Now, going ahead with his, what he terms as his ecumenical approach, he engages broadly with consequentialist conceptions of social justice, so that there can be various strains of consequentialist theories regarding social justice. So, he asks for a very, in his words, a very minimal requirement, which is common to perhaps most if not all consequentialist conceptions of social justice. He reads that, I quote from him that, there is a shared institutional order that is shaped by the better of, and imposed on the worse of. This institutional order is implicated in the reproduction of radical inequality, in that there is a feasible institutional alternative, under which so severe and extensive poverty would not persist. The radical inequality cannot be traced to extra social factors, such as genetic handicaps or natural disasters, which as such affect different human beings differentially. Now, this is quoted from his book, and also from the article that we are currently going through. So, his claim is that well, how the world order benefits the better of at the cost of the worse of, and what he eliminates here, in this point if you read, is that if there is an alternative order, then this poverty would not be so severe, and would not persist. And for those who would like to argue, or who have, because this paper is in response to the criticism that he is received against the theories put in his book. So, one of those, some of those criticisms were that the radical inequality cannot be traced to extra social factors, such as genetic handicaps or natural disasters, which as such affect different human beings differentially. So, poverty is not an effect, in which the affluent are innocent bystanders, or neither is it a result of chance, or genetic handicaps or natural disasters. It is to Poggy's reading very strictly a result of the institutional order, which the global institutional order, which is benefits the better of and is implicitly upheld by the better of. So, very clearly he puts forth the claim that the better of are harming the worse of, in upholding a shared institutional order that is unjust and avoidably producing or reproducing radical inequality. So, this is a very crucial reiteration of his claim that the better of are harming the worse of. Now, notice the words used that when he says in upholding, what is he denying over here? He is denying that well the institutional order are not parallel orders running in different countries or regions, that the poor and the rich are a part of an institutional order. If there is a macro level to talk about, that there are not various micro levels running and parallel to each other unaffected with each other. His claim when he says that a shared institutional order is that there is a single macro order of which these are facets. And that macro order is unjust, that is a claim that he is made and we talked about historical wrongdoing and how it translates or it carries forward across generations. And therefore, it brings forth duties of reparation and avoidably, so this single macro order that is unjust and it avoidably reproduces, produces or reproduces radical inequality. It is avoidable that means a tweaking in the global institutional order can avoid this poverty. And this recurrence of poverty both in earlier times and new his prediction reading here is that this will continue creating poverty. So, this production and reproduction of radical inequality will continue if this institutional economic order is to continue. So, what is it about the consequentialist theories here? So, Poggy's minimum claim from the consequentialist theories is that he sums it up saying that most broadly consequentialist theories, theorists agree that a national economic order is unjust when it leaves social and economic human rights unfulfilled on a massive scale even while there is a feasible alternative order under which these human rights would be much better realized. So, what consequentialists are judging and a system by the consequences it brings forth. So, a clarion called to the various strains of consequentialist is that well what Poggy is asking for that well what is perhaps the minimum common among the various consequentialist theories that any system it brings about any system is unjust when it leaves social and economic human rights unfulfilled on a massive scale even while there is a feasible alternative under which these human rights would be much better realized. Now, I would read into this that well when he crucially mentions that while there is a feasible alternative this is a almost an attack to the against the consequentialist theories that go about claiming that there is no alternative. So, that world poverty takes place because there is no alternative or any frequent consequentialist justification does claim that well there is no alternative and therefore we need to take this particular step. So, this claim that there is no alternative this is a frequent consequentialist justification now this is what he is going he is trying to because he is engaging the consequentialist he is saying that there is a possible alternative order in which these human rights would be much better realized. So, the classical consequentialist justification has been that there is no alternative be it utilitarian or any strain of utilitarians that there is no alternative therefore we stick to the decision that we have to take. So, this justification that there is no alternative does not hold in this case because he is that is why categorically perhaps putting forth this condition that there is a feasible alternative under which these human rights would be much better realized. Is there any comment that you would like to engage in this slide now an institutional order is human rights violating when it forcibly gives rise to greater insecurity in access to the objects of human rights physical integrity freedom of movement adequate nutrition etcetera than would be reasonably avoidable through an alternative feasible institutional design. So, here Poggy is trying to put out that well what is required what are the consequences required from a fairly good institutional order well it should guarantee the minimum rights which it codifies physical integrity freedom of movement adequate nutrition etcetera. In an institutional order that is human rights violating so the author reads the current global institutional order as human rights violating because it does not bring about these minimum human essentials which to his understanding is very much feasible in an alternative institutional design. So, moral claim on institutionals on institutions translate into moral claim on individuals designing and upholding them no institutional escape now this is a very relevant applied issue that the author talks about is that when we have we frequently seen cases that well individuals throwing up their hand and claiming that well we cannot do anything that we do not require any response that we cannot do anything because it is a part of a system. Now the author here is breaking that chain he is trying to say that well the moment you are a part of a system you are upholding the system and therefore even if there is any moral wrongdoing on part of the system the individuals upholding them do not get any leeway for that system. So, the frequently given excuse that it is a part of a system and that the individual is cannot help it cannot do anything that is where in fact just as Socrates does in Crito preempting civil disobedience that well when we follow or uphold an institutional order we are we also inherit the moral qualities of the institutional order. Ultimately pegging moral responsibility on individuals rather than on systems because perhaps going ahead a convenient way of evasion of moral responsibility comes in the invention of this entity called a corporation which has all legal rights of a person but nowhere a moral claim or a moral responsibility to the corporation. So that is where this Poggi makes a very interesting and very relevant interjection that when people tend to give an excuse that it is a part of a policy and there is nothing that can be done about it well they are not absolved of moral responsibility of making such a claim because by upholding the very system they are responsible for the moral stand of the system. So, there is no escape in obfuscating moral agency into institutional or organizational level. So, Poggi starts to see he is particularly done this work considering a period post 1990s the 15 year period from 1990 to till date and there he finds the genesis of a new world economic order evolving in the 1990s. Now this he goes on to empirically show in his book that how this evolving world economic order since the 1990s is structurally flawed and morally wrong that it shall always remain it should it will always bring about poverty and achieving equality in such an institutional order is almost impossible. So there have been critics who have attacked his above his usage of human rights violation which he mentions as when the institutional order does not provide the minimum essentials or promotes in the first bullet when we talk about that it forcibly gives rise to greater insecurity in access to the objects of human rights. So an institutional order is human rights violating when it forcibly gives rise to greater insecurity in access to the objects of human rights. So this term of human rights violation has again been objected to by critics that well this is perhaps lowering down the definition of human rights violation. So the critics have attacked that well if not being able to give rights is human rights violation then how would you perhaps term human rights violation which are like torture and war crimes which are perhaps more active than passive. So this is of course almost a nomological clarification that the author makes that considering the passive active distinction that the human right violation by not providing the minimum essentials can be termed as passive and therefore he re-christens them as official disrespect for human rights but not as human rights violation. However that does not majorly affect the spirit of his argument and this is perhaps just as a passing retort to one of the critics. So now coming to the penultimate section of the article he talks about the causal role of global institutional order in the reproduction of severe poverty. So we see a structure how a philosopher engages with a topic in applied ethics. So he first brings about the problem that how there can be a different situation and how it is responsible and now towards the end he is coming out to give the details of the what exactly in the global institutional order causes this reproduction of severe poverty and he ends by proposing the solution. So and in fact he has gone ahead in acting and making a difference to the world out there and not limiting this to an academic intellectual intercourse. So how he analyzes this causal role of the global institutional order in the reproduction of severe poverty well his tirade or his disagreement is primarily with development economists a strain of them who allege that the incompetence, operation and corruption prevalent in poor countries is responsible for the severe poverty not the global institutional order. So this is a fundamental world view a difference in approach that the author takes compared to the prevalent anti-poverty brigade today. So the dominant world view on eradication of poverty would like to hold local or national incompetence operation and corruption in poor countries as responsible for this severe poverty but and not the global institutional order as the author accuses. To this the author is loyal to his stand of course and he talks about local factors and global factors but he sees their relation and not as not additive but as multiplicative. So the global order multiplies or aggravates the development of local inefficiencies. So it is a factor that we can almost look around and relate to say in the Indian scenario why is there corruption in the electoral system? Why is the ability as we talked about earlier the ability to spend money crucial in winning an election and thereby causing a vicious cycle for collection of money to win the next election and therefore putting the leaders or the politicians in a vicious cycle of corruption. So this according to the author is an effect of the global system which aggravates the corruption at the local level. So whereas development economists would like to see a failure in governance as responsible for poverty but what the author would like to emphasize is that it is the macro or the global institutional order that the imposition of a western model of democracy in the Indian scenario where thinking for the still continues largely at the communitarian level rather than at the individual level. So having small pockets of self governing entities like the panchayats what Gandhi dreamt of versus a massive impersonal governmental massive impersonal government. So how these macro systems influence or aggravate the problems of inefficiency and corruption and incompetence in poor countries. In fact it goes on to give in the examples of Africa and Africa countries of Africa would very well fit in over here because we find that how does the world order which is in need of say natural raw material which is available in these nations deal with these nations to buy them up. So the moment one the macro order recognizes a ruling entity and gives legitimacy to that ruling entity of a nation it perhaps influences that ruling entity to oppress or to be corrupt to continue having that recognition of being a ruling entity. So these macro factors influence or aggravate the inefficiencies and incompetence and corruption at the local levels. So the author in a way is giving a clean chit to the inefficiencies and incompetencies at the local level. So the development economics suggests a change from reforming local order. The author on the other hand is arguing for a top down approach not a bottom up approach as the development economists would suggest. So he gives this analogy of two factories releasing toxins into river and the cumulative effect exceeds the simple addition. So it is not a simple addition when he talks about local and global factors that the global factors aggravate the local inefficiencies and therefore the entire situation becomes multiplicative of inefficiencies rather than a simple additive of inefficiencies. Is there anything that we would like to question over here? This analogy if you are familiar if you have read in the article it talks about two factories which are polluting releasing toxins into a river and down below these toxins interact and bring about much more pollution than they would have when caused individually. So the effect downstream of this pollution of these two factories is not just a simple addition of what factory A and factory B are polluting but because they together they cause much more harm. In fact say if factory A let me make it simpler say if factory A effluents of factory A kills all the plant products in the river. The pollutants of factory B damages all the animal products in the river now where they polluting in two different rivers there would still be a kind of a still rejuvenating system possible. But if they are polluting into the same river because the flora and the fauna interact to keep the system clean. Now if they are both polluting into the same river it would definitely be a lethal combination that would cause much more harm it would almost make it a dead river with no scope of regeneration. So this is an analogy in fact he uses analogy is a very powerful tool of demonstration of proof very frequently used in Indian philosophy and not very popular in the western tradition because analogy also has its weaknesses where the similarity between what are compared analogically may not be very sharp. So but here he does take an example of an analogy to elaborate his difference between the local and the global factors and how they interact or interact with each other to create much bigger harm however the bulk of the responsibility still remains with the global factors to the authors claim is that shall we proceed. So here he comes to the end and he talks about solutions he talks about change in international property rights in fact this is he goes on he is currently founding working on the foundation of a health impact fund and to re-channelize investment in pharmaceutical industry from more affluent markets to more necessary diseases that need to be tackled but do not generate so much of revenue. But that is of course the details of his empirical work but this is now a classic example of a work in applied ethics where we find a philosopher puts forth his claims uses his philosophical prowess tackles the established world order challenges us to think for ourselves and not rely on the claims of the specialist and thereof he arrives at an alternative world order or an world order that can be modified to eradicate problems that we are facing to eradicate these problems in the time that we are living in. So perhaps there is a call for individuals for generalists or people to think about systems and see that many of the follies that we face are institutional side effects and perhaps the solution is not within the system and the system needs to be tinkered to bring about a solution. So this is a classical case of an active philosopher who is in fact has been working in the area of applied ethics and in departments of applied ethics to bring about a real change in the world. So this is for many of the critics who find that well where does philosophy or theorizing connect with the world out there this is a clear example of where it has. So this is an example of how an idea can shake up the world of ideas and start translating itself into the world of reality or practicality in the same life. So any comments or anything about the paper that you would like to talk about?


Live from Vancouver, Canada. It's theCUBE. Covering OpenStack Summit North America 2018. Brought to you by Red Hat, the OpenStack Foundation, and its ecosystem partners. Welcome back, I'm Stu Miniman. Here with theCUBE's coverage of OpenStack Summit 2018 in Vancouver, my co-host is John Troyer. Happy to welcome to the program. We have Bernad Deverem, who is the Senior Director of Product Marketing, a platform at Red Hat, and we thrilled to have a customer on Niko Wellner, who's a UNIX systems engineer with finance, informatics out of Germany. Thank you both so much for joining. All right, Bernad, let's start with you. Just give your first time on the program, I believe. So a little bit about your background. You've been with Red Hat less than a year, so tell us your role there. Yeah, I've been at Red Hat for about nine, 10 months now. I'm very, very excited to be here in the open source community development model. It's a very unique opportunity, as I've been leading the platform's marketing, which includes Red Hat Enterprise Linux, as well as Red Hat Virtualization, and Red Hat OpenStack platform, of course, is why we are here in the OpenStack Summit. All right, great, yeah. We got RHEL and RHV and RHOSP and lots of other LMAOPs. So Niko, give us a little bit about your background. Tell us about your organization and then let's get into the kind of mini case study we'll do with you. It's an honor for me to be here. Thank you very much for this and I'm working for Finance Informatic, as you said, and it's a centralized IT service provider and the S Finance Group in Germany for the savings bank and state banks. Overall, we serve about 400 institutes, savings banks, individual savings banks, and we, on our systems, we are operating more than 120 million accounts, bank accounts, and nearly half of them online, our online accounts, and we also develop the software for our savings banks for our customers, not savings banks only, also assurances, and state banks. And we operate the applications we developed previously. Also, it's a huge and amazing company with a lot of different rules and systems. Well, we're really glad you could make it here with GDPR banging down the door and in just a couple of days, we expect everybody in Europe to have been pretty busy getting ready for that. Tell us, your role inside the organization, what's your team do? Your title has UNIX in it, so what's that entail and kind of give us kind of the scope of what you cover? Yes, I'm a systems engineer and I'm working in the department and we are integrating and operating the UNIX systems, which are AIX, we have a huge AIX environment and a huge Linux environment and data centers. And on these Linux systems, we started with OpenStack in 2014 with testing and went into production in 2015, a half a year later. And we integrated this OpenStack, we operated and serve it for our customers internally and on the OpenStack platform, we host one of our core application, it's the internet banking for our customers, as I said, for about 50 million accounts and we have multiple OpenStack clouds and my department is responsible for the clouds and for operating them well. Yeah, Nico, I wonder if I can step back for a second and what led to you going down this path was the company figuring out its cloud strategy, obviously financial institutions we understand, there's governance, compliance, security is a huge concern. What does cloud mean to your team? What led you to OpenStack? Let's start with kind of that problem statement that you had. That is what the main reason we introduced OpenStack was the time to market with our applications and with our environment. And the deployment process took a long time normally in the legacy environment. And with OpenStack, we could dramatically increase the time to deploy the systems and from days or weeks to minutes, so we solved one huge problem with OpenStack and what was another reason is vendor login. We want to avoid the vendor login and so we decided for OpenStack because it's a huge open source software, great community and very stable in our case. And so it's OpenStack for us. All right, so Bern, I've had the opportunity to interview quite a few Red Hat customers. I remember three years ago we were actually in the other hallway here talking to FICO about their rollout of Red Hat OpenStack and I hear some similar themes but you've got access to way more customers than I do. What are you hearing from customers in general? Is this kind of the typical, is speed and agility at the top of the list when it comes to their kind of cloud environment? Exactly, Stu. Just like Nico said actually, we are customers tell us all the time that it is about speed and agility but it's also about the different types of use cases and the workloads that they're actually looking at in their environments. Very popular ones. The use cases are for example, scale out IS as well as dev test environments for the cloud native applications for example. Also we do see that big data analytics, NFV also. So there are many, many different types of use cases we see from our customers. We also have been hearing that they're actually using OpenShift on top of the Red Hat OpenStack platform. Majority of them are either deploying it or planning to deploy containers. So we do see a lot of different but similar aspects as well. Nico, have you started to go down that path with containers, Kubernetes, all of that stuff yet or? Not so far. We plan to do so. In general we lay with containers, we are planning too but, and we already started the process but it would take a little bit. And I think we're not sure if start with OpenStack, containers on OpenStack or plain but I think with OpenStack could be a great way to do so. And because one of the reasons is that our OpenStack environment is very reliable and this is important for us, very important for us and our customers. And over the years, as I said, since 2015 we had no outage due to OpenStack in the whole environment and it's great for us. And so it's- That's great. So where are you now in your Red Hat OpenStack deployment? You're preparing to go into production with OpenStack in production and now you're already a Red Hat customer in other products and you're now going out with Red Hat OpenStack platform? Is that correct? Yes, it's correct, yeah. I'm kind of curious, one of the conversations around OpenStack is the component nature of it and that many OpenStack deployments are different. And so as you're now deploying Red Hat and that you were already on OpenStack are the skills transferable? Do you find that the processes are transferable? Or do you feel like this was a good investment? You know, no uptime for three years now and you're now moving to this new platform. Do you and your team feel like you're able to properly instrument and maintain and operate it? I think it's the best platform for us for infrastructure management in the Linux environment and we want to evolve it furthermore. And the skills you've known for years will still transfer to the new OpenStack? We have only a few people working actively on the design and the architecture and operating for OpenStack and it turned out that we could do fine with them and we have, now we have huge experience with OpenStack, feel comfortable with it and we are planning to increase the OpenStack environment slightly I think but the scale out works great for us and the OpenStack itself, in our case, we could very flexible do systems releases and so on is one important thing for us and so I think the OpenStack itself is the best platform for us and our application to hold. That's great. So, Berna, I was at Red Hat Summit and the interesting thing there for me was the portfolio, the breadth of portfolio, right? One of the messages was clear, you've always depended on Red Hat Enterprise Linux and that's still there and containers are Linux and there was a lot of multi-cloud talk and things like that and OpenStack was part of the mix. So can you talk a little bit about OpenStack as part of the Red Hat portfolio and what y'all are bringing to the table and how you're thinking of OpenShift on OpenStack and that sort of thing? Yeah, exactly. As you pointed out, Red Hat is all about open hybrid cloud and within that Red Hat OpenStack platform plays a big, big role, of course, as you can imagine and what we are trying to do with the OpenStack platform is to help our customers like Niko get towards the digital transformation and with that comes again the need for speed and agility and what we are enabling with OpenStack platform is the, as we would like to call it, powering the digital transformation through enabling our customers to accelerate their businesses by simplifying their applications and delivery as well as the services delivery, which then, of course, moves towards innovation, fast innovation at the speed of the business. At the same time, we are trying to enable IT teams to be empowered so that they can actually do the innovation at their own pace without worry with all of the Red Hat portfolio, as you pointed out, yeah. Niko, would love to hear your take on digital transformation. I think back five years ago, we were talking about financial institutions. Oh, well, we needed to go mobile. Well, it's much more than that for most companies that I talked to. Do you consider digital transformation in your company? How does that relate to what IT does, to what the business does, to what your users need? Is one of our core tasks in our company to help our customers for digital transformation and finance informatics itself sees itself to be the best partner for customers to do this transformation. And with leading technologies like OpenStack and in a special case with Red Hat OpenStack, of course, which is a product which enables us to be flexible, secure, and fast with our environment, and to drive this process of digital transformation in the S Finance Group, the savings finance group. All right, so you've been at this for three or four years now with OpenStack. You look back, I'd love to get what learnings you've had for peers of yours that might be earlier in their journey. What have you learned? What might advice might you give them and let's start there. Yeah, okay, yeah. Overall, I would say the OpenStack environment is very reliable, more reliable as I thought at the beginning, but it turned out that it's really good. And yes, from the automation perspective, it's a really nice, let's say, tool for our environment and what I found OpenStack is a great project with a lot of software components you can combine and we have a flexible platform. We can add some components we do not have today but are part of OpenStack community or OpenStack project at all and to enable additional functionalities to the environment. Let's say for containers or for object storage, and something like that and new services for our customers to decrease the time to market. Okay, one of the things that this show we're seeing is looking beyond where we've been. I think the keynote is where people are asking to do more and in more places everything from containers and edge and serverless and the like. So what's interesting you these days is you look down the road, different technologies that are in your roadmap in the future, kind of inside or outside OpenStack. For our company, we are in the process to integrate new needs for our customers and we are planning to do, we will do a lot of big data and maybe OpenStack could be also the right platform for it and for the future we are planning. So while we are still on planning, I think it will be much more diverse in future because right now we do have one application warning on it, one core application. It's a core application, very important for us, but I think we will maybe spread it, enable it for other applications because of the great experience we've made with it. Very well. Niko and Berna, thank you so much for giving us the updates on where you stand with OpenStack and all of your deployment. We'll be back here with lots more coverage here at OpenStack Summit 2018 in Vancouver for John Troyer. I'm Stu Miniman, thanks for watching theCUBE.