Thank you for having us all in today to talk about housing and all things related to housing because we're on topic. I think I can speak for my colleagues as well, and I say that we're really here to be partners with Vermont communities and liaisons between the needs of Vermont communities and the supports that the federal government has to offer. But we listen for and work with people on or when there's a challenge with a federal agency that might need a stronger advocate in D.C. to work it through the kinks, or if there's a federal program that is really serving Vermont very well that if an increase could serve Vermont even better. So really looking for those programs that are working well and supporting them and looking for those programs that a small fix could help them work better. In doing so, I think we're really interested to hear from you today about the housing needs and solutions in your communities and today and throughout the year, we're always interested in knowing what's happening around Vermont and how we can be here to help. So thank you all for having us in. I feel that I'm going to send our lady and I cover Housing, Health, Human Services, Education and Nutrition. So certainly not an expert on anything, but a generalist on most things. And as we were talking about how to divide up what we're going to talk about today, I usually start with a broad brush overview of mostly the money issues. Senator Leahy is the vice chair of the Senate Preparations Committee, and so it focuses a lot on how to fund those programs and keep them working in Vermont. So as we think about the federal programs that are really working in the state well to help our downtown, help our rural areas and develop housing, Senator Leahy is a strong supporter of the home program that's so well-administered through the HCD, the community development block grant program that's so well-administered through the state, and other programs including the National Housing Trust Fund that you're going to hear more about from Sheila. He's a strong supporter of NeighborWorks. There's a lot of home ownership development centers that are around the state. Vermont is so fortunate in its NeighborWorks partners in the way that they are geographically spread across the state and serving every community with both helping people access their ownership and affordable housing development. I want to touch on a big federal housing partner in Vermont that I feel sometimes flies beneath the radar, which is USDA Girl Development. It's a branch of the USDA that invests in community development. It's essentially a bank for America. It works everywhere outside of Burlington, essentially. And its largest piece of its lending portfolio is in housing. So this happened in 2018. It's under 65 loan mortgages to Vermonters. It guaranteed another 328 mortgages across the state, and it also has a home repair program for very low-income homeowners. That program is predominantly a loan program, but there's a grant component for very low-income seniors, which is a very valuable program that is good to see that access. So you have folks in your community who are needing that home repair. USDA Girl Development's a wonderful resource to connect them with to see if they can help out. They're one of the few federal agencies that has an outpost in here in Vermont. It's so very accessible, very easy to work with. Seeing as Senator Lee is on the appropriations committee, I thought I would give a little high-level review of the federal budget process for 2020. The president submitted his budget proposal, and it doesn't look great for housing resources. The World Development, for instance, their loan and grant programs are all zeroed out. The home and CDBG programs similarly are zeroed out. And if we look back at the last three years, that has been consistent with what the president has proposed, and those programs have been maintained in 2018, the home CDBG programs saw increases and home saw a little decrease in 2019. I believe not of a scale that's going to have a great impact here because Vermont, it's a small state minimum state, so small fluctuations don't impact what we get too greatly. As we look forward to the 2020 budget, one of the challenges is that the budget caps that were put in place years ago and lifted for the past two fiscal years come back into place. And I had in my notes what percentage that was going to be impact domestic spending. It would be a 9% reduction in non-defense discretionary spending, so that's really, we would be seeing cuts across the board in these valuable federal programs. What needs to happen is that Congress needs to negotiate new budget caps if they don't want to see those go back. That reduction come into place and they're working on that right now. Since the president submitted his budget proposal in March 11, Congress is now working on putting together their appropriations bills and that process is going to hopefully be concluded at the end of September, but we know how that's worked in years and years. So Senator Layte is very committed to getting federal agencies funded on time for the end of the fiscal year and saw some success with that last year with a series of many of us funding bills going through before the end of the fiscal year. A labor health and food services bill passed on time for the first time in 22 years. So that was a significant success, but we also saw the remainder of the bills, just passed last month, so mixed back there. So that is the high level overview of federal housing programs and the work we're doing with them. Some kind of examples of the more nitty-gritty work that myself and my colleagues do. One of the things that we're looking at trying to address in the 2020 federal budget is the fair market rents for the state. HUD sets what it believes is a fair market grant for the state and that determines the reimbursement rates for the housing choice vouchers, the subsidies, also impacts development around the state. And in the past year, those rents that by HUD have been going down, meaning that according to HUD's formula, rents have gone less expensive in Vermont, which would be great, but I think that's different from everything we hear and know about the state and see in our other grant surveys and statistics. So Burlington was especially impacted by this and they were able to submit a private grant survey proving that, no, rents actually haven't gone down and HUD corrected the rents for the Burlington area. However, that survey cost $70,000, which is really hard for the state to make that investment to correct a formula that HUD already has. So we're trying to do the appropriations, report language, get HUD to acknowledge that their formula is not working for rural areas around the country and I've been working closely with Vermont State Housing Authority and BHCB to look at ways to amend or address that issue. So that's just one example of where our work dovetails with the housing work here in the state. The last thing that I want to say is that Senator Leahy is a strong supporter of housing programs. He's always willing to go to bat for them and one of the reasons why he knows housing is a challenge for Vermont and that affordable housing helps everybody in Vermont. The other reason he knows how well these resources are deployed here. Vermont is so fortunate in the consolation of housing organizations we have, how they work together to really develop housing, help people into home ownership. And because he knows that those resources are going to be so well spent and so well invested in communities of need, he's willing to go to bat for them. So I just want to tip my hat to his hat to the housing organizations we have in the state. So we've heard from organizations such as the Memorial County of the Memorial Housing Project and the Champlain of the Housing Trust and such. And they gave these stellar reports about projects that they have implemented with a bond. In fact, we passed here last year about $37 million or so. So one of the things that struck me was that these organizations are now in place to continue this really good work. But then on the center side here in Vermont, we're struggling with trying to follow up with another bond. So that could leave a hole in some real progress we've been making on affordable housing and housing in general throughout the state. I'm just wondering if there's anything coming up on the federal side that might address something like that. The housing bond certainly did an incredible job leveraging federal resources. The programs that provide the bulk of the federal housing funding are large block grant programs that are funded through complex formulas that are very hard and quite hard to change. So I don't see those ships moving fast enough to next year fill that gap, but they will be there should the state to measure investment and carry it forward. Any questions? Yes, thank you for coming. I missed a question for all of you. Good. Right, housing is a huge concern, obviously. And I'm close to on the sort of a build is looking at big and abandoned buildings. This is an issue in Barry as well as some other Vermont communities. Concentrating on single family homes I've been walked away from basically and are just now going back to nature and serving no good and trying to find the funding mechanism to get them rehabilitated up to code and then back on the market and hopefully attracting more families into Vermont with some good housing. So is there anything in the federal programs that would help with that? So you are the fourth person to talk to me about that specific issue. Why do I hear that? And from every, I've heard it from Rowland, I've heard it from Wyndham County, I've heard it from Burlington, I've heard it from Barry. I hope you'll appreciate all of them, say it the same way. I think if you throw your gins on the pile. Say that across the state we do see a weird, I believe we have one of the oldest housing stocks in the country and we have some hard winters that are not easy on our buildings. So it's certainly a need that there is a weatherization assistance program through the Department of Energy that does do some of that repair. We have USDA, rural development through their home repair grant that alone is a little bit. But in terms of a big, bold program that's going to address that, I think we don't quite have the solution yet. What I've been hearing from around the state is interest in the shared equity model for an organization to put it. And I cannot explain shared equity perfectly. You'll have to ask a credit or be a shared housing trust. She could do a better job explaining it. But what I've been hearing from Housing Vermont and neighbor works organizations around the state is the idea of putting up front investment in these homes that would be matched by the homeowner and then the home would be assumed into the shared equity portfolio so it would be perpetually affordable. Which I think is a really neat and interesting idea. I don't know the several mechanisms to fund it at this point, but certainly interested to hear about it from you as well and keep our thinking about it and talking about it until we find a program that could work. Thank you. Representative Byron and then Representative Colackey. So kind of in the same thread, the same thing that's represented with more of a focus on modernization. Again, some of the oldest homes. Housing stock if not the oldest in the country. Biggest impact that we can have on people's home costs is through heating as well as climate impact. And we're experiencing a serious underfunding to those programs here through things like heat supply, multitude of other aspects. Whether it's credits to homeowners when they put forward the money themselves, et cetera. Are there any federal programs that can help fill that void given the conversations around climate impacts and trying to help lower income individuals? So the Wetherization Assistance Program through the Department of Energy that does provide funding to the community action agencies to run those Wetherization programs for very low income for monitors but I think the need is more than those programs are able to address. And so one of the challenges with that is that it's so targeted on Wetherization and sometimes there's other needs in the home like fixing the foundation that it's hard to address Wetherization when you have these other structural needs. So we do need more flexible funding source that will do that. USDA also has a housing preservation grant that I believe NIDO in the Northeast Kingdom, Sevka and Wyndham. And I can't remember all the other recipients off the top of my head. I have access to funding probably $300,000 across the state and that is useful because they pair it with their Wetherization program but it's able to address the other structural issues with the homes. So that program is addressing that but it's just... I get the program side to talk about more like expanding the financial capacity within those programs because the need is far outweighing the volume. And that's what I'm hearing from a lot of people. I mean working with monitors, working with monitors. I mean here again is a little majority leading the... you know, the cost of... the upfront cost of doing the understanding of long-term benefits of climate impact and cost impact but it's coming up with that money to like match just the program. So that's the Wetherization. Well I wanted to make sure those came out of Ways and Means with about a half a million dollars less than what was asked for in the funding bill that we had going. So it's trickling down here. John. I'm so grateful to the senator for being on the appropriation. He saved lots of things over the long time. It's not a housing thing but again in this budget the arts, humanities, libraries and all the television have seared up for the third year. I know the senator has made sure that those things remain but now we have a catastrophic event in it by law because our department of libraries gets a 40% of its budget from auction to that with estimated libraries. The arts council gets a matching grant from the NEA with almost 700,000 dollars left to be collected. The humanities council gets 500,000 dollars left to be matched back to the government. And the government will tell them that there is substantial amount of money in the office. So it would be for a small state. And every year the senator saved it along with many other things but I just want to send a great note of appreciation for all that he's done. It works across the aisle to make sure this is happening. But let's have to get those tiny little things that would be yours from now on. Certainly would. And he sees it across the state and communities. The arts have a huge impact on economic development here. That's something that's always the front of most of this line who thinks about investing in these arts institutions. One question that you asked us before we came in was about investment outside of Chittenden County and I just wanted to call up a part of U.S. D. Emerald Development. There's a set-aside for the Northeast Kingdom that allows for housing investment in a special set-aside of housing investment in the Northeast Kingdom and also investment in the arts through girl business development grants which contrary to their name actually go to support nonprofits that are going to generate economic activity. So that is one example where there is market and federal resources outside of Chittenden County and that's a program that the sense included in the 2000 farm bill and has supported ever since. It brings between four and eight million into the Kingdom each year. What agency? U.S. D. Emerald Development. Okay, thank you. And how does that filter into the Northeast Kingdom? Do you have any idea? Back to Vermont. Yup. So what it does is it creates a special set-aside within a number of U.S. D. Emerald Development programs. One is a multi-family housing development program. So Girl Edge or the Memorial Housing Trust when developing housing in the Northeast Kingdom has a separate loan money that they can go to and so 1% development loan. Girl Edge is a new port. Girl Edge is a new port. It's based in Londonville. Yup. And they're the primary non-profit developer across the Kingdom. So each year they do one or two properties using that pumping source. And one of the things that we're trying to do is ensure that rental assistance can be tied to that. That's not so bad. We're working on it. Okay. So no other questions. One more thing. Slightly off the reservation here but connected to housing. I was at Elder Ramonters Caucus this morning. I was at the Crescery Care Center on Monday morning for breakfast. And Medicare reimbursement is not taking care of our senior citizens who are in residential care or nursing homes that receive about half of what it costs to keep a resident in the Crescery Care Center. And they're teetering on the edge. And I don't know what we can do about it but they haven't had an increase in 10 years in their Medicaid reimbursement. And spend downs are happening faster because their private rates are now raised to a point where more residents are now becoming eligible for Medicaid and going out to Medicaid. And it's just the balance. And I just wanted to throw that in there because it's been on my mind. Certainly. Certainly. And it's sort of housing connected. We hear a lot about, and I might let Kevin speak a little bit more in fact because of greater depth of knowledge in Medicare. Okay. I do. Thanks very much, Polly. Appreciate it. Thank you. Sheila's next. Welcome Sheila. Welcome Sheila. She was an old friend of mine, a neighbor of my brother down in Ryegate. I am. I am. And she's here for a sender's office. And would you like another go around the table for me? I think I can remember everybody. Okay. And I have several old friends sitting out here. Yeah. Okay. A little intimidated by two of them over there. The real experts, Erhard and Jen. They'll correct you. They will correct you. They may. And there's Sarah from the network. How are you? Not very good. Good. Welcome. Thank you. I am an outreach representative for Sender Sanders. I cover housing, women's issues, early childhood, disabilities. And I'm missing one. Poverty. Poverty. So I have a big portfolio. So I also run the St. Johnsbury office. And I go over there all by myself. So I do, I answer the phone, et cetera. But I'm, I'm his eyes and ears in the Northeast Kingdom. And all the talk about the USDA, et cetera, I was at the Gilman Center last week. And if anybody has been there, it is a poverty-stricken little town and this senior center is just, you can't believe there's actually a building there. You go in and there's, it's warm and welcoming. There's food everywhere. There's people. There were kids from the middle school who'd come in to watch dishes. Everyone was, it was like a true sense of true community. And of course they asked me, what can we do? Our building is literally falling into the river. The freezers in the back are literally starting to slide down. So, you know, this is the issues we're dealing with right now in the state. And I should get onto what I was going to say. I was going to address some of the issues around our most vulnerable citizens in housing. And a lot of it has to do with the budget, the administration's budget that was just introduced on March 11th, as you know. The polly started to talk about a little bit. It does, that budget has an 18% cut in HUD across the board. And a cut like that would be catastrophic. It also, there are cuts in Section 8 program. That program helps three million households at their grant. It is already drastically underfunded. Roughly only one fourth of eligible people are actually receiving Section 8 vouchers at the present time. This proposal is to cut it by 13%, raising rents and kicking struggling families out into the street. That's what it'll do. The budget wants to eliminate the public housing capital fund, which already has an enormous shortfall, and make a 38% cut to the public housing operating fund. There's currently a shortage of 7 million units for extremely low income renters nationwide. In Vermont, there's a shortage of nearly 12,000 affordable rental homes for extremely low income renters. 23% of renter households in Vermont are extremely low income. There are only in affordable homes that 35% of those households. And when I go out in campus, I do see the housing stock that you're talking about represented by the just old, substandard housing stock all over the state. And we do not have enough affordable housing, especially for renters right now. Also, the budget would completely eliminate the National Housing Trust Fund, and I would like to talk a little bit about the trust fund. It's actually considered outside of the appropriations process. It's the first new federal housing production resource in a generation. This was a very exciting event when this came on board. And the first targeted to help build, preserve, and rehabilitate housing for people with the lowest incomes. We in Vermont can take pride of ownership in the trust fund as Bernie based the idea on Vermont's successful Housing and Conservation Trust Fund. Building affordable housing for very low income households through a dedicated source of revenue independent of the appropriations process. And in Vermont, that source is an annual assessment of 4.2 basis points on the business of Freddie Mac in May. This year, I just learned from our DC staff, $245 million will be distributed naturally and Vermont will receive $3 million. That's due to a very generous small state minimum that was included in the legislation and even though some of the bigger states grumble a bit about the small state minimum, our delegation has urged HUD to keep the formula the way it is and so far so good. It has stayed $3 million this year. If the proposal to eliminate the National Housing Trust Fund goes through, we're sunk. It's a non-starter for Senator Sanders and I know for the rest of the delegation. One of the other things I want to talk about quickly is Veterans Affairs Supportive Housing and Representative Trani will be interested to hear this. In the last few years, we have made important steps to address the scourge of veterans homelessness. Our entire delegation is deeply committed to making sure that the men and women who put their vives on the line do not live on the streets. The 2019 budget passed with allocations of $40 million for Veterans Affairs Supportive Housing vouchers and $4 million for Tribal Veterans Affairs Supportive Housing vouchers. The Trump 2020 budget proposes to completely eliminate both of those programs.  The other thing is work requirements. The President has added two punitive proposals to the 2020 budget that were part of last year's legislation from HUD to cut housing benefits through rent increases and work requirements. It's labeled as a way to increase family self-sufficiency, but this legislation would only jeopardize family stability, increase financial burdens, and push them deeper into poverty. Work requirements do not reduce poverty. In fact, over the long term, the most successful programs support efforts to boost the education and skills of those subject to work requirements, simply rather than simply working to search for work or find a job. And one good thing that came out of this budget and an important one for health and safety is that the budget, the Office of Lead Hazard Control in Healthy Homes was, that grant was actually increased by 11 million from 2020. And that, I'm sorry, go ahead. Well, that included, we're working on school-led monitoring, actually. I don't think it's for affordable housing. I've had other people, Holly has people ask me, I have people ask me about lead in schools. And I'll keep looking. Yeah, this program has made important gains in removing lead from public housing and improving the prospects for children who live there. In conclusion, the President's budget would increase evictions and homelessness as we continue to struggle with a protracted and severe housing crisis, not only in Vermont but throughout the country. Those most susceptible are those most vulnerable, seniors, people with disabilities, veterans, and families with children. So many of them are living in deteriorating public housing or working to rebuild after natural disasters throughout our country. This budget will go nowhere, but it demonstrates the priorities of the administration. And it forces advocates and policy makers, like us, to continually play defense rather than put together a totally comprehensive national proposal to solve our continuing housing crisis. And the Senator sends his greetings to all of you, and we also will be working with you as we work with the delegation to put something together. Thank you. Any questions? Yes. On the screen behind you is... Oh, right. ...brought forces or anything here? I just...it shows, you know, like the bash, the veterans' supportive housing. You see, wrote out. You know, you can just look and see the differences. And also, we...you asked about a couple of other things. Our office put out this. I didn't make copies here. Your paper is pretty bright. Yes, I was going to ask, if you could submit your comments to electronically to Ron, he could distribute them to all of us. Absolutely. This is something our office put out, but I was saying... It does look like... You'll take things? Okay. And I can, you know, make copies or pass them on to you. I'll send it to you just a little bit. Great. Thank you. Any other...any questions? They're good. Thank you, Sheila. Good morning. Good morning. So my name is Kevin Veller and I'm from Burlington, but I'm happy to say that I've lived in Northern, Central, and Southern Vermont. And when you went around introducing yourselves, I bicycled through every one of your towns. That's standard. I have. Okay. I have. I was biking and I was looking for the town and I realized I had biking. That's true. But so anyway, it is a privilege to work with, for Congressman Peter Welch and with my colleagues on the other side of the Congress, in part because our bosses are all pulling in the same direction and we're dealing with such an important need, housing, it's such a crisis. I cover health. That would be Medicare and Medicaid, private insurance, human services, disability policy, and housing. So I like to think of it as housing and everything that goes into it. What's challenging by the timeline of the third person up is what I can say that adds value to the conversation. The chart that you just put up, we're in the middle of the budget process and what that means in day-to-day terms is that my colleagues in Washington are bombarded with about 400 bills or letters, recommendations that we're pulling through each and every day, trying to figure out which one is in alignment with our bosses' priorities and which one are in alignment with the housing community. What makes that sort of winnowing through all of that so much easier is that the housing community in Vermont, as Congressman Welch says, has a very deep bench. They're incredibly knowledgeable. They collaborate, work together on complex financing, complex projects for a greater good doing work that private sector developers would not do. So it makes it very easy when we look at that, the president's budget, what's been zeroed out to go back in and remember the ones that are the priorities and have been priorities for Vermont, the big ones, the ones that provide flexibility like home, the ones that, the bigger ones that we can, I think we're confident that a lot of the house budget will obviously reinstate a lot of what has been zeroed out. One of the programs that isn't on, necessarily highlighted here, but is important to the Congressman, is ability introduced last year around TAP, which is a smaller program, but it addresses homelessness and preventing those who potentially will be homeless that have mental health issues disorder as well. And we have a small state minimum that is ministerial, it's like $300,000, and it goes, at least $300,000 goes to the five homeless shelters throughout Vermont, like Good Samaritan and Barry, the real drop-in center and the other ones throughout Vermont. So his partner in that is now a senator, which is probably good, it'll be reintroducing it in the house, it has a colleague in the Senate to move that forward. In terms of, I mean, I think what you are looking at is yes, housing, but then all the complex issues that impact the people in the home. You brought up the senior center, Medicaid, there are, if we can't address some of these things straight on, then try to find ways in which to address them in other ways. So, I just throw that out there for a dialogue if I mean, I'm coming to part of my presentation where I think it would be helpful to hear from you, like for instance you mentioned the libraries. And I know the libraries are key component with our response to the opioid epidemic because so many people who are homeless or have mental health issues, substance abuse issues, they're showing up in the libraries. And so the libraries are a touch point and a place, a part of our safety net. And the state libraries are to be commended for the way in which they're trying to address that. And we have, our delegation has supported them in a brand application recently to enhance that work that they're doing. So, that's just one example. The schools, the congressman is really hopeful that we will have an infrastructure bill. And of course there's a lot that needs to be in that infrastructure bill. And so let it be part of that weatherization that's another one where energy and his focus on energy and the fact that we're talking about disrupting a whole industry in the way in which it delivers energy that we need federal policies that support that going forward because it's going to displace the coal miners, but it needs to provide not only new ways of doing this, but economic opportunities to do solar for example or what have you. So, if we can't address housing straight up, we try to look for other ways in which we can address the issues. So we made an attempt and we'll probably come back to it next year, but to expand weatherization into 120% of the income because if energy efficiency homes that make people oftentimes senior citizens more comfortable in their living conditions is a worthwhile effort. And so it didn't happen this year, but we're thinking in terms that we possibly come back with it next year. So, it's a really important piece of aging housing stock energy efficient buildings comfort of our citizens all kind of wraps up together in this weatherization plan. So we're hoping that we might be able to get somewhere on that. Heat Squad is an independent auditing organization that comes up and they will audit anyone and make recommendations and they were looking for some funding, some bridge funding to take them into next year because they've got revenue sources that they're hoping that build on. So, that's kind of what's happening here and I'm just hoping that to replace a relatively small amount that was taken out of Vermont's budget or at least budget proposal could be looked at from the federal level I suppose. Yeah, I have talked to Ludi in Rutland about that program and sort of strategize in ways in which she's done work locally in Vermont but also I think it was Kentucky or someplace was consulting and so we were just trying to think about ways in which to, you know, take that conversation at a federal level and which partners would be interested in that but it's a fabulous program and they have plenty of housing stock that needs the same thing that ours does. Any questions? Okay, so just to conclude to share with everyone that Medicaid reimbursement on our senior citizens is just an imperative thing. Well, we've got a problem there. Choices for CARES funding people to age in place. It's such a great program. It's so lost in what we've got a Congress that wants to cap Medicaid to the states, not a Congress but a and so even though we can save enormous amounts of money with Choices for CARE or SAC or helping people with disabilities stay in their homes saves enormous amounts of money on however they're just looking at the pot of money of Medicaid and what we in Vermont have been saying is that we want to look at the population health and extend that money into the community and do these ways that are better for all of us and yet we are fighting but have been successful in Vermont in leveraging the way in which we use our Medicaid dollars. Well, a report from appropriations this morning is that the half a million dollars going back or be recommended to continue funding for SAC. That's so sad. That was so interesting. Thank you. Thank you, Kevin. Thank you, everyone. 10.15. 10.15. Okay. Well, I mean, I can see if David can come in sooner. Yes. We have an amendment at 10.15 which it looks like. Are you on schedule? I'm not on schedule. Right, I know that. So is there time that we might be able to take that? Is there time we might be able to take that? Is there time we might be able to hear from Karen? Sure. Okay. We're David's coming in at 10.15. Chris Price can make it. We heard from the sponsor yesterday. Okay, so committee, what's your pleasure as far as and under what circumstances and then further below in five you're setting up a process for additional security measures. Can you do the extent anything in a rental agreement conflicts? This says this prevails. So if my lock just broke we heard about the core. So if I break my key in the lock of the door and I call my landlord now he can say, all right, I'll get to it when I can. As long as you can get it in and out. But his answer can be yeah, okay, I'll get to it. And this is putting a time certain. So this provision is only going to come into play if it's motivated by the sexual assault or the imminent harm or by the assault. So it's a narrow universe in which this procedure prevails over a lease agreement. I have questions about the protected tenant's expense part of this but let's go on to the next section. Two and three there were the same in case you need to refresh your memory. Two deals with what happens if the perpetrator also is a tenant. In that case the protected tenant has to include with a request a copy of a courier that requires the perpetrator to leave the premises. And then three, if the landlord changes the locks as requested landlord shall provide a key to the new locks to each tenant of the dwelling unit not counting the perpetrator is the subject of the court order. That's in our bill. Those are both in your bill. So that's important because if the landlord responds in the affirmative what is the duty provide a key within 48 hours in Sarah. So under four this is all different. So if the landlord does not change the locks as requested the protected tenant may change the locks at his or her own expense provided that it's a protected tenant. So in A shall make a reasonable effort to obtain the landlord's permission to change the locks and provide the landlord with an opportunity to specify the type and quality of the locks and the identity of the person who will perform the work. So A is all new the bit in line four about at his or her own expense that's new. B's, I've highlighted this because I replaced it in total and I renumbered it, but B you actually had you had already said shall ensure that the new locks and the quality of the installation equal exceed the quality of the original and you know I can see that as originally drafted there could be disputes as to what that means you know what's the quality and the nature of the original how do you equal or exceed it who decides I mean I don't know if you can honestly that to death it's a potential place for a problem but but that was in your original and that is an affirmed of duty along the protected tenant that you imposed right so in C it's responsible for the costs of installation and operation of new locks and liable for any resulting damages so I lifted that from the piece below because this language in subdivision C applies to the security measures to the additional security measures but it was not previously applicable to the lock change D shall notify the landlord of the changes in 24 hours and provide the key to the new locks D knee you already had so the new stuff is here is explicit that it's the protected tenants expense the protected tenant would have to make this reasonable effort to get not only permission but also provide the opportunity to specify type of quality of the work and the identity of the person who perform it and then C direct responsibility not only for the cost and operation but also liability for any resulting damages so there is both the kind of C already exists with respect to security C only applies right now to the additional security measures so when we say they're live if it reads responsible for the cost of installation and operation of the security cameras and liable for any resulting damages that kind of came up yesterday in terms of in terms of somebody did ask a question about damages on our walls yeah so that's covering that on representative Byron my question was D and E is there a timeline on the key exchange is that correlate with the 24 hours of installation? No but the notification is 24 hours there's no time limit on the keys so the main thing I'm taking from this is is that election so the main thing I'm taking from this is that this is requesting some things that are seen reasonable but the main thing that's happening is that the tenant will pay for that will pay for the expense if they're changing the lock based on an incident of abuse or sexual assault or stuff there's no provision here that there's no provision that the landlord would cover the cost at all so the cost that representative Leclerc was talking about yesterday that could be $100 it could be $1000 is if the person who was in fear and wants the locks changed which again they could request if they wrote the key in it and the landlord would change it this is saying in an emergency situation is what abuse is tenant is responsible for changing the locks as long as it's for the expense of it and must use this section 8 doesn't bother me so much like that's a communication thing that a landlord would be able to tell the tenant who to go to to change the lock system but I'm concerned about the costs but that's just me I want to hear from but this is as well so representative Leclerc so my recollection of the conversation yesterday in terms of cost has to do with and the cost of being a tenant's expense they are apparently they're because of special lock systems if you if a tenant on their own changes the lock it can severely interfere with the existing system that the landlord has so the idea of this was to encourage tenants to notify the landlord and let the landlord take charge of the actual arranging for the change of locks in the case of a special lock system it would only be the core that would be replaced and that is a fairly nominal charge now the cost as I asked the representative yesterday he said $20 about now I'm sure that that does not include the actual installation charge if a locksmith did it but he also indicated that is not necessarily something that a locksmith would have to do but as the owner of for the one once the system is in charge if you he felt in his case comfortable to be able to purchase the core to change it himself so that the cost would be nominal to the tenant $30 now that may not be true in all cases so I don't want to say that everybody any landlord that has a special system would be able to tinker with it but the idea behind this is if a tenant on their own fills with to change this system could be damaged in such a way that it would cost quite a bit of money I hear that there's an element and I think David I think whenever you testify to the word reasonable effort it's a legalistic construct that basically accepts the humanity of the situation in my words but again this puts the full cost of if someone is being victimized this is what this law is about I'm a flake and I lost my key that's not what this is about this is about I'm in a really intense situation here and I'm asking for safety and the first level of safety is changing the laws so reasonable someone who's been a victim landlords are victims of the crime as well under this scenario I'm not trying to I'm just trying to tease part of what this does and so someone who's under the stress of having been the victim of abuse asks the landlord at some point to change the locks for my own safety because this guy or woman who I can't trust has access so the first level is this lock changer and what this is saying is that the landlord is saying you've got to call me first you have to call me obtain the landlord's permission yes you can change the locks call this person tell him this is the core number whatever whatever whatever but you have to pay for it and I think under the circumstances is that the question that I have is that reasonable and who is well let me play devil's advocate is it reasonable to expect to assume costs because of a tenant's need yes I think so quite frankly when reasonable people are making a reasonable effort to fix this particular situation yes it needs to be fixed right and this is a very specific conversation representative chinas said started to bring in racial aspects of what somebody's being and he understood after we talked that this bill he said well this is pretty narrow and I was like yes it's narrow because it's about domestic violence and sexual abuse and stalking there needs to be a different bill if we're going to broaden the way that that relationship is built so I'm just trying to lay out what I'm reading is I'm always wary of changing landlord-tenant law I'm always wary of changing things that were fairly carefully negotiated between the advocates so this falls outside the balance of normal stuff landlord-tenant has a lease in the lease, leases are can be very include a lot of things but ordinary normal maintenance let's say breakage getting your key stuck in the lock that sort of thing is normally handled by if something breaks I'll come and fix it I'll make sure it gets fixed so in this case it's not that the landlord is saying no you can't do it the landlord is saying yes fine however I'm a little leery of what the cost of all of this may be depending on how it's handled is so and again I think that at least I would like to think that most landlords have relationships with their tenants and so I think that this kind of situation certainly be worked out and it's not saying that the landlord cannot bear the cost of this and there may be many landlords who would in the case of for instance but that's it, this one says that they do represent the landlord and flat I'll bring up the question that I had yesterday and it's probably best directed to the witnesses who are in the room but I really remember hearing somewhere that there could be emergency funds available for a victim to access to get the locks changed people nodding their heads so I think this is almost a good point that if that person reported that the abuse went to a survivors network and there were some funds available they could use that money to get their locks changed if they were unable to pay for it themselves or the landlord wasn't in peril to do it who's that? just curiosity we're talking about this is about the safety and security of the tenant if a landlord and I'm not sure who to correct this too but I'm sure this committee has feedback on this if a landlord has windowsills that have tested positive for a lid is it not a landlord responsibility to make sure that that is mitigated for a tenant and it may be much more important if a tenant has children so I recognize the correlation of breaking a key in there but sometimes the security and safety of the tenant is critical and when we talk about me that's a need too and we do the tenancy I think that's what's important I'm later on we all have put that security measures and I it's all make sure the landlord understands what we're going to do and they can't unreasonably refuse but the tenant is liable for the cost of this installation so I'm a little a little stock about the expense the 48 hours and 7 days actually worries me more if someone is in crisis and lives could be a danger I'm worried about the time frame of this that if someone is just beaten and they're they gotta save their life and so it's just I wish we had more time to kind of go back and forth on this I can't support this amendment and less of the less of the cost but more of the time frame I think is not appropriate for what we're talking about for example a question I wanted to ask because I sat here and think about it is the landlord as it's written has given an opportunity to decide whether to change the locks or not and what the proposed amendment says is that the landlord wants to refuse to change the locks but still wants complete control over the process and that's the part where I want to ask Representative McClare what's the rationale there you were given the opportunity to change the locks and control it in all the ways that you wanted to but instead you say no I'm not going to and I want the tenant to do it exactly how I want an explanation for that you're given the opportunity to have total control you say no I don't want total control but I do want total control and I think that those things don't make sense to me Representative Byron I would just need some clarity on how the two different areas intersect but if the security measures are on the cost of the tenant cameras are you know window mounts or whatever how is a lock not a security measure it's like the first stage of security measure total control is that not falling into this one? where is that again? phase three is all the security measures if they want to add additional that's on the tenant so you're saying the key thing could also be on the tenant but I'm just trying to toss that around I'm just playing with that anyway that's how that can be defined just trying to be legal no I mean respectfully let me take you one step back and so there's really three different levels here that you've created and you've created a balance sort of between the three kind of moves and stages first you've given the right to terminate the tenancy and that's just upon notice with 30 days and you do have to provide documentation but it could be a self-certification on the form that says I'm in imminent fear I'm in harm I'm in imminent harm or there was a previous sexual assault in that case tenant delivers the paper and is out of the lease and there's no more repercussions, there's no more cost to be incurred it's over so that is very strongly on the side of the tenant, obviously in the middle is this section and the first four subdivisions that relate to the locks and that's sort of a dance in the first stage you make the request landlord notice please change the locks from 48 hours for the cause, A or B landlord has the opportunity to respond if landlord doesn't respond the tenant has a process for changing the lock again it's silent as to who bears the costs and all that because that's something they're probably going to need to work out right and the other end is steps beyond that so if one subdivisions one through four are specific to locks subdivision five is specific to additional security measures including security cameras security system bars in the windows in that case if we're going beyond to the final stage to move additional security measures then you've made clear let landlord know landlord can't unreasonably consent but you have to pay for it you have to arrange it you're responsible for the liability and the function of it and you have to ensure the quality protection, disability, etc so it's kind of a spectrum of protections in that way and so you know I think the balance in each obviously is different that helps so came back to the date changes and then I wanted to bring in this case to talk about their opinions so letter B within seven days if any protected was a victim of sexual assault that occurred on the premises within the six months preceding the date so this is about person who suffered the assault sexual assault that occurred on the premises within the six months preceding that's that's not assuming that the perpetrator leaves that's just if something happened in March and then in June the relationship was I don't know what the seven days here, how does that work with the six months preceding I guess so again the basis of your termination or your request to change the locks could either be fear of imminent harm or something occurred on the premises in the past six months and either you think maybe you're still in danger so realistically maybe you don't want to keep living there and representative the player said yesterday that he felt because if it happened six months ago the person he's dealing with it's more stable than a more volatile thing and that's why he that representative drew a distinction to add this within seven days before A or B was a trigger to action right so the 48 hours in the seven days that dichotomy does both relate to how long does the landlord have to act subsequent to the tense request so something happened to me three months ago can you change the locks and the landlord if the landlord is going to do it under this if the landlord is going to do it they may have seven days that's right if the tenant if the landlord in that same phone conversation if the landlord says ah you do it but you gotta use this person this person and this person and this is then they can do it that day or as soon as they can get a locksmith up this is just the situation where the if the landlord agrees to change the lock him or herself then they have seven days yes we're providing that's a good thing they have a decision what to do this person may have to wait seven days to have the landlord get mastered yeah yeah yeah representative hang up or I can see another scenario with that that the landlord says nothing let me think about it wait seven days still says nothing then the tenant could go and get the locks changed or whatever themselves but I'm actually with representative Kalaki on this that I think the 48 hours in the seven days are too long I also feel that this six month business things could be going along just fine for five of those months this is too representative Leclerce talk yesterday and then all of a sudden something happens again so it's not necessarily this always this is what happened six months ago and I'm just thinking about it now there could be a flare up again and something happens that the person the tenant feels that maybe they're going to be in danger again it may not be imminent fear but I really think they're one and the same in John before I go to Randall can you just scroll up a little bit just show subdivision two the other way right there so I'm going to scroll down just a little bit more so I can see the top of the page and so on top of the page right there right there subject to subdivision two of this subsection which is if the perpetrator of abuse to solve your stock is also a tenant so the protected tenant is already going to need the court order before they make this request that's in number one is it my reading that right if the perpetrator is on the lease then you can't lock them out unless you can unless a court is adjudicated that that person must leave the premises that's if they're on the lease but if the person if the protected tenant is the sole signer of the lease that doesn't imply because this is again this is protection against well somebody's legal rights being violated under the lease and having the court adjudicate who's legally allowed to be there versus the landlord having to be in that position yeah can you represent us off any more I just wanted to point out to legal counsel correct me if I'm wrong bill we passed if we're uncomfortable with the 48 hours the bill that we passed already had the 48 hour language in it and in that instance it applied to both of those the 7 days was right oh okay but the 48 hours it sounded like you were uncomfortable with the 48 hour wait and I'm just pointing out that that was already in the previous one but it hasn't passed it hasn't passed the reading yet can you represent it so we passed the bill and the 48 hour reference and even in this my take on that was there had to be an actual action taken within 48 hours not just I've I notify you and now you have 48 hours in which to respond but rather I've notified you and within 48 hours this needs to be dealt with so that's how I responded to the bill that we passed out and to this also and so I don't know but it seems like I don't know how many other people may have interpreted that the same way because there's a big difference between waiting 48 hours and then taking action because that action could result in another 48 hour wait take the case getting a locksmith they don't necessarily immediately respond just getting hold of one but so that's how I'm here what you're saying is that there's two ways of interpreting that sentence a protected tenant may request that a landlord change the locksmith dwelling within 48 hours like I can ask within 48 hours or the reading I think that we've taken is that please change this within the next two days because the action has to be executed so that's that sentence it's not that mother may I within 48 hours it needs to be tweaked to be a little more specific let's just yeah that may require a different so can I bring Cara to talk about the thoughts on this and going back to the Chris Rice representing Angel Zakhowski couldn't make it in today and has just sent an email that just said that they're that they can accept the changes that they didn't have any problem with the changes for the record Cara Casey from the Vermont Network Against Domestic Incident thank you for inviting me to talk with us so I I can talk about the specific sections in the amendment and also talk generally about what you will the conversation that you will so we would have an issue with at the tonight's expense we all know that poverty can exacerbate conditions that may attribute to violence and that violence can also exacerbate somebody's situation when they're living in poverty so we would be opposed to creating any extra financial hardships on a survivor the way that the bill exists now the landlord cannot pay for it or doesn't have the time to do block change then it would go to the tenant so we feel like it was pretty balanced we we feel like it would be creating a mandate that other tenants don't have so as the chair said if tenant asked for a block change for any other reason I think that it would be expected that the landlord would pay for it so for us to expect to put that a survivor would have to pay for it we feel like that we putting an expectation on a protected tenant that isn't on other tenants and we as representative Gamash did state there are ways that a tenant can work with the landlord to get the block changes paid for and that does happen now but we do know that from talking with advocates that there are landlords that like to change blocks on their own because of some of the reasons that you have stated that are willing to pay for it so we feel like striking a balance between landlords that are able to pay for it and do want to do the work themselves and tenants that don't have the means to pay for it or maybe could reach out to a program and get some help or victims but we also don't want to put a lot into place that would kind of mandate that a survivor work with one of our programs some survivors don't want to reach out to a domestic and sexual violence program and we respect that survivor's choice in doing so we're not doing so we in terms of the seven day piece we in terms of equity would like to keep the 48 hours as representative Hango was talking about we're we're talking about trauma is really what we're talking about in this piece so it could be that somebody experienced sexual violence on the premises two days ago or it could be that they experienced it five five and a half months ago and that yeah it's not that they're not thinking of it or just got around calling the landlord is that either something happened that triggered a trauma response in that person and they you know in that moment we're like okay this is what I need to do in order to feel safe in my home it could be that the person that assaulted them you know they hadn't seen them in four months but then that day they see them walking past their apartment right so we feel like the 48 hours is important and may help to relieve some of the traumatic effects of experiencing sexual assault and in terms of the subject section A that was put in I feel like saying this is your right as a protected tenant but then saying you have to ask permission what we're saying you have to ask permission to the landlord but the landlord can't refuse because this is your right as a tenant to have your law exchange so I just got some questions about that and as stated the landlord does already have the opportunity to change the law if they have specific people that they want to change the law or specific quality or specific type of law they have the opportunity to do that in the way that the bill was written but we would be open to adding language that the tenant will or the tenant will make reasonable effort to inform the landlord of the intent to change the law so they contacted the landlord and then 24 hours went by and the landlord didn't contact him and then the 48 hour mark is coming and the landlord still hasn't contacted them or said no I'm not going to do it that the tenant would say okay my intent is to change the law we would support if there was some language out here on that not that they had to ask permission though but they just said and then subsection for C around obviously again we would be opposed to them being responsible for the cost if the landlord was doing it but we would be okay for adding language that said something like the tenant is liable for any resulting damages for them changing the law and just to speak to the issues around the security extra security measures having this language and the part of the law not having it I think that our intent in when we were first talking about creating this bill was how can we create balance for landlords because we feel that they're valuable partners obviously we need housing in order for our survivors to be housed and we feel like locks and having a locked door is something that is already expected that a landlord would provide a locked door but security measures such as alarm systems or security cameras was not something that we currently expect that all landlords would do so in asking for that they would be asking for something that was in addition to what they would normally expect or reasonably expect to be able to provide and so that's why we did create those kind of extra extra pieces around the tenant paying for that and being liable for installation so thank you for clarifying so what committee what's on the table essentially is while I appreciate your willingness to talk further on language we're not I mean without having everybody back at the table to hammer out details whether someone's on a field trip or not in the building or whatever it's very difficult for me especially in a situation that we've treated so sensitively in terms of creating this balance I think we're in a position to we have to make a decision on whether we support this particular amendment as written and that any potential for different language really at this point going into third reading would rely on the advocates working in the senate that's kind of without discounting or giving any weight to any of the testimony in terms of what would make a better deal I think we're at the point where we think we're making a decision about this amendment and sending you off with the the requester of this amendment and try to see if there's a reasonable alternative to some of this language that's just where we are I think rather than delaying writing more language to represent the commotion and hangover yeah I was just wondering in section 4 paragraph a where it talks about the landlord's mission so the landlord is the owner of the building presumably the landlord is the owner of the building and at 10 it's not their property and that so what I'm wondering is if we could tweak that still retaining the instead of putting obtaining the landlord's mission if it would require the tenant to notify the landlord of the situation and the desire to have the locks changed because it's the original build this is after the landlord said no I'm not going to do it or it's just not a good thing I just hadn't so can I I'm not sure did I interrupt that point completely totally well it was just I guess I had focused in on paragraph 4 I read that whole thing but I focused in on the word and that that is where in paragraph A I'm not I'm wondering if there's a way of being able to just if we're in agreement whatever we decide to tweak this to make it yeah I think the fact that this is an amendment to our bill makes it harder especially without players in the room it makes it very difficult to say I don't want to speak for representative Leclerc again I totally respect his conversation about wanting to make sure that his the systems that he has in place are treated correctly you know I think we all get that and respect you know an owner's right to their property but some of these changes I think it's again I think it's conversation that's not going to end today and I will clarify that we do not support the amendment as written is that helpful? Yes but that's you know I mean even if there were one thing wrong again without the without the sponsor of the amendment here you know even if there were only one thing wrong with this bill we have to vote on this amendment we have to vote on this amendment you know and without that ability to tweak it back and forth now it could be up to representative Leclerc to come back find out what happened to reach out and care they could conceivably in the next three hours put together something that might be reasonable but I think the most realistic things that what's going to happen is that is that this conversation will be picked up when the bill is picked up in the senate and that's just I think that's just the reality of the time and the place right now and so um so um I would do we have a vote sheet um yeah this is a welcome to reality moment for me um because Miss Casey has proposed something that I think everybody would be happy with although I can't speak for representative Leclerc by adding language that the tenant would be responsible for any damages incurred as the result of a lot of change if they were to be the ones changing it so now my question is since we can't do that the original bill as we passed it out we're only voting on this amendment here and then on the house floor we're voting on if this gets voted down we're voting on the original bill so we passed it out of here favorably and now in retrospect I'm thinking that this would be a better way of going about it and and so the reality is and so the reality for you is the technical reality or because it is a technical reality um you are you know again without the third party here then third I'm saying the attorney and then advocates from either side or the presenter of the amendment I could foresee someone else offering an amendment that includes that language we would still have to review it and approve it or disapprove it um we just can't change this language as it stands so if there was another um I mean if there's an amendment from the committee then like if you wanted to arrange an amendment it would really have I mean it could come from you but it would be better if it came from the committee because you're sitting on the committee and then as a committee bill we would report it as a committee amendment um we would report on this amendment say we didn't vote for and then there's this amendment or we can do a substitute I mean of handling it council can advise us on some of this but um or again the path of least resistance is to I mean again I I've been assured from both the landlord association and from the network that there's common interest in making this bill as good as it can be and that the intent behind the bill the motivation behind the bill is to keep a balance of fair victims of domestic violence and sexual assault and the landlords who are also victims of domestic violence and sexual assault when it involves their property I don't think that there's this isn't a stereotypical tenant versus landlord tug of war and um and again that's the thing I've appreciated in this conversation from the very beginning and so um if there is a desire I mean we still have to vote on this amendment and if there is a desire and the reason I the reason I hesitate to say we put committee amendment forward today is that again we're receiving testimony from the network and not from the other folks who have participated in the conversation and I the perception of balance is probably more important than the balance itself and so I guess I'm we're going to vote on this one and then just put the reality out that this is something that would be taking up further in the senate and um I'm not going to count on it coming back necessarily but if this change is made in the senate if they pick up the bill in the senate and if that change is made then we will see that change when it comes back to us that makes sense for people I'm trying not to like sweep anything under the rug or any of the concerns under the rug I mean I think we acknowledge that these things exist but words matter and again we don't have the full team to work this to hamper this out right now so I have literature so if the senate picks this bill off if it passes out if the senate picks it up they make changes come back to us do we make additional changes or do we just have to grapple with what the senate is saying no we can accept the amendment with further amendment okay there's a limitation to that right not only in time but in process but yes we would be able to so at that moment we could insert whatever work what you're talking about just want to make sure I understand we could right yes I mean the downside of anything is that the senate may just go no version is fine and it'll pass it I don't think that's ever happened yeah but we should also consider that this amendment is out there and this concern is out there again I just want to make sure that the folks who are you know are that there is a balanced conversation to move a resolution forward that keeps the balances in the bill and you know I personally feel that I think I expressed it earlier that having the tenant the protected tenant be responsible for the change without there being another reasonable effort to like for two people or two classes of people come together and say wow this sucks let's work it out thank you for changing the law but it does create an imbalance on its face but as I mentioned I think there's a solution that we just that Lisa was just talking about that may work but we're not going to get to it we don't have the tools to get to it today or at least in this hour so asking to put off a third reading for a legislative day I don't think that does any I don't think that does any good right now again I think that there's enough motivation I'm putting a faith of process on the table and saying that there's enough motivation to get this right and that there's time in the process to do that so I would entertain a motion on being careful of the verbiage on this particular so we're either voting to support it or we're voting to not support it finding a favorable or unfavorable so I'd entertain a motion and we'll figure out what a yes vote is or no vote is expected out do you want to make a motion? I'll move that the committee move to find draft 1.1 H132 unfavorable so a yes vote is we do not support this bill this amendment and a no vote is that we support we'll do a second second actually it's the first one to vote it's so representative here's that other dose of reason you're voting yes you're voting yes the vote for yes is to find this unfavorable and when representatives not present this on the floor it's like we found this this amendment unfavorable by a vote of so a yes vote is to find it unfavorable and no vote is to support the changes presented in the amendment does representatives not get to explain why we voted it unfavorably well he's going to so what's going to happen on the floor is that the presenter of the amendment is going to prior to third reading representative Claire has an amendment and he will do what he did yesterday he will explain the amendment he'll sit down we'll stand and basically present in whatever way he feels appropriate he'll explain the conversation that we had we'll thank the bringers of the amendments and he'll explain the conversation that we just have why we came down on the side of the amendment and what we think will happen we can provide as much or as little information as you need to but yes it's up to the representatives not to explain the committee's reaction to the amendment and then the vote and thank you any further questions comments or comments to call to all representative waltz yes representative waltz representative long representative to mсa yes representative torino yes representative power quotes yes representative caulac yes representative saddick yes representative byrton yes representative Panagam yes So, representatives, that'll just be, again, it's that kind of auto-negative thing, you know, to describe it, to vote it. We voted to find this amendment unfavorable by a vote of, I don't know if this is for his knowledge. 10-0-1. 10-0-1. 10-0-1. 10-0-1. Yes, right. Sorry. And again, I appreciate that we had this long of a conversation on this issue. It's landlord-tended-wise. I learned early on that it's very sensitive to retain a balance and to make sure that we hear an offside of the story, and that's why I hesitated on moving this forward or suggesting that there be a further amendment done. But I think we'll work, because it's on our radar, we'll work with the advocates to make sure that the language is sorted out in the future. We can do that just by checking in. We're not going to leave here in May without this being as good as it can be. I'm presumably May. Come on. Could be April. Could be April. Oh, right. So when the bill itself comes to the floor of the House, presumably it will pass and it will go to the Senate. At that point, it would be advertisers who are advocates, like presumably, consult with the Senate to see about any changes, and that would be true of any of the interested parties or affected parties to do the same. As you know, from your experience, bills get passed here. Who are you for? Because of their work. And the advocates kind of put their briefcases back together and just say, we'll fight another day. And they go to the Senate and it starts relatively fresh from there. And so they have the opportunity, these two, to get their points across in the Senate, just as they've done here. So I fully assume, I fully expect to see this bill back on the side of the House by May. And if for some reason it gets hooked into some larger omnibus bill, again, we will track it and keep an eye on it through Ron or through the attorneys. We'll make sure we get it as right as we can. Thank you all.


Welcome to Don't Just Age, Engage, Kantec Hawaii's program for aging and the issues that come up personally, primarily in people's lives, the lives of the families and communities that support them in their aging process. Don't Just Age, Engage. I work to empower people to make their aging an extraordinary elderly. And so in the process, we look at various resource people that are available online and in other ways to empower you to do that well, to age well. We have a society that doesn't seem to like the age, but alone die. And so how do we age well and also die well is part of the calling that I like to fulfill and help people move towards. But ageism is one of those isms that I've never really known much about until now. I thought as a Presbyterian minister, I worked against to dismantle racism. I've worked against gender discrimination and sexism. But now working with elders and being an elder, I come up against ageism. And I'm wondering, can ageism kill you? So to answer that question or to at least respond to some of your questions around this, I've invited Dr. Lucas Morgan to join me again on this program. Dr. Morgan was on with a while back with us, discussing, hello, Dr. Morgan. Hi there, Larry. Thanks so much for having me on again. Pleasure to be here. Last time you were with me, we were discussing psychological issues that come up in aging process. And you did a great job of helping us look at some of those. And then at the end of the conversation, you mentioned ageism to me. And I thought, what a great opportunity to talk about it, revisit that. And to hopefully, and to highlight it so that our elders, our viewers, recognize when they're dealing with ageism. I read a recent article in Atlantic about a woman who was 84 years old and she talked to herself as being a pharmaceutical and a pharmacist. She had trained as a pharmacist, worked as a pharmacist, was living in a long-term care facility and needed a certain kind of medication. And she knew she needed it and she knew what the medication was and what it would do. And she asked for it and was ignored. And she said, I couldn't believe it, ageism. So part of what I hope we do here today is identify with your help, look at some of those signs that people may encounter daily of ageism in their lives. So give us an introduction about yourself. We're on the island of Oahu and you have a long-standing career here. Share a little bit about that with new people here who haven't met you yet. Sure. So yeah, I'm from Kama'ina families here, going back seven generations. So Hali, but we just celebrated 200 years here since our first ancestors arrived. And so very, very much committed to Hawaii and its people and just really grateful to be able to have been able to come back after getting my clinical psychology doctorate degree in Boston, where we focused a lot on the effects of social disadvantage on mental health and things like different forms of stigma, including ageism on people's experiences and their mental health and how big a part those things play, often invisibly. And so getting to come back here, I focused my psychology work, both in my individual practice, but also in doing lectures and workshops with other psychologists, you know, groups of doctors, medical students at JABSON, talking about aging and aging mental health and ageism in specifics. So yeah, it's something that's very near to my heart. Yeah. That's terrific. And we're fortunate to have you here with that sort of emphasis and focus. I have read a wonderful book by Dr. Aronson, Louise Aronson named a Elderhood, which I've enjoyed so much. And I'm just delighted to find that we have you here with that same kind of intent focus from a slightly different point of view from a psychological point of view, she, me and MD. And so I'm very grateful to have you here and helping us to ask this and answer this very important question. So let's jump into it. Where does ageism come from? That's a great question. Ageism comes from, I guess you could say social stigma that connects and sort of teaches us stereotypes about older adults. And it gets perpetuated through things like media where older adults are not typically included. You think about movies where 30-year-old actresses play 70-year-old parts. And so the sort of ageism or exclusion of older adults as protagonists, as sort of the center of the story really leaves younger folks only with stereotypes about what older people are like. And so ageism and aging is just a really unique part of our identities because other things like our race or ethnicities, our gender, sexual orientation, most of these things for most people do not change during the person's lifespan. Of course, there are exceptions, but age is one of the few categories where we actually grow up learning the negative stereotypes about those old people. And then if we're lucky enough and we live to become one of those old people, we start to turn that stigmatizing and stereotyping finger back towards ourselves. And so this is one interesting aspect of ageism in that ageism can become internalized. And that's where this is speaking to your initial question, can ageism kill you? So internalized ageism, right? Internalized ageism becomes a force against our own health and well-being? It does, it does. Oh my God, that is amazing to think about. Yeah, because think about it. A lot of younger folks, they may have very limited exposure to older adults and they see sort of portrayals of older adults as lonely, helpless, frail, demented, all these negative stereotypes, which are really not the norm for most older adults, but can be true, but are not the norm. And then they think, wow, must be depressing to be old. I don't really wanna ever have to do that, right? I don't wanna grow old because it seems so hopeless. And then if you have that belief that old age is depressing and hopeless, if you find yourself later in life as an older adult and you feel depressed, you might just think, this is just normal. And so you're less likely to seek help and you're much less likely to get treatment. So you're much less likely to get out of that depression because of those beliefs that were ingrained. Excellent, excellent, that was so well stated. I think of this and also in terms of when I understand what the Hindu practice, the native, the indigenous Indian people from India, who believe that there were four stages of life. And so there was a student stage at first, there was a productive stage second, a wilderness wandering stage third, and then returning as a wise person or a sage. And when we think of elderhood as being that fourth sage element of our lives or time of our lives, we can actually kind of get a sense of how underappreciated that really is, underappreciated socially, aesthetically and in the arts, underappreciated by myself. Finally, to your point, excellent, thank you. Feeling worthless. Yeah, right. And then, go ahead. Oh, just gonna say in Western society, there were two really main sort of social, cultural lines in the sand or periods in time where the value of elders as a repository for really important knowledge for a group of people got sort of demoted. One was the invention of the printing press. And so all of a sudden you can make books, right? And if you can write stuff down and mass produce books, what do we need sort of the collective knowledge of older adults, that becomes less important as a repository of things that gets passed down orally. And the second was the Industrial Revolution where people's value as humans in our societies, in Western society became more equated with how many hours can you work in the factory? And if you are older and less able to do that, your social status started to plummet, so your value. So some interesting cultural factors from Western society that contributed to where we find ourselves today. And that certainly feeds the whole notion that we value ourselves in terms of our productivity and are we really of any use to anyone? I mean, I've heard this in my work with people in hospice care that I've done that's chaplain in hospice where they feel useless. And there is no sense that that's valuable to be useless. Right, or that's the only way to assess value, right? Yeah, well, good. How do we recognize ageism as it occurs in our everyday life? Now you've suggested that it is something we can look for. How can I recognize ageism? Well, ageism, I recognize it myself if I'm coming up with stereotype beliefs that say old people are blank. So if I'm running through those types of sort of thoughts in my head, old people are blank. I'm probably just sort of saying these ageist stereotypes that I've learned since I was a little kid, that we all are socialized to learn. So that's one thing to look out for in ourselves. If I say, so that's one way to look for internalized ageism if you are saying, well, what's the point I'm old? That is ageism, that is internalized ageism. So what about other people, right? Because ageism is not only internalized, it's also interpersonal and it's institutional. And so I'm going through really the four eyes of any form of discrimination, including ageism is give me internalized. It happens between people. So that's when maybe there's ageist microaggressions or ageist sort of comments that can be well intentioned. It can be institutionalized in sort of how doctors treat older adults. We see patterns in care, in differential care between older adults and younger adults that institutionalize ageism. And then the fourth is intersectional. So it also depends on are you a man or a woman? How ageism affects you is going to depend on those types of things. What racial category does the world put you in? So those types of things also affect ageism. Okay, how about in a doctor's office? Doctors are by and large really very good hearted folks. They are helping professions and of course, the majority of them are very well intentioned but they're socialized beings just like you and me and everybody else, so there's ageism there too. If a doctor says, well, it's just age when they're talking about a condition, that's a place where I would encourage folks to assert a little bit more of well, as far as I know age is not a disease. And as far as I know, you're not billing insurance for treating my age. So there must be something else besides age that we can talk about here. If my right knee hurts and you say, well, that's just age. Well, my left knee is the same age. So I'm not sure why that one's not hurting. So sometimes doctors get stuck and they don't know what's causing an issue. And so age is often an easy thing to blame the doctor. But let's not accept that. Good, that's a good example. That's great. We're encouraged, I think, rightly so recently, perhaps more so than in the past, we're encouraged to be responsible for our own healthcare. So when we bring up some of these things, we can often gauge ages and perhaps by the way they're received. It can be, yeah. And the way that our problems are sort of thought about by providers, they can definitely have those lenses of, well, this is probably age. But so an important aspect of aging is that we don't wanna focus on too much on, that really it's all up to you. If you try harder, maybe you won't feel this pain. Or if you try hard enough, maybe you can defeat aging because that's also problematic. It's the other end of the extreme of what's the point? It's helpless, it's a downward spiral. The other extreme is also not helpful and not realistic, which is if only I could try harder, I could defeat aging, which is what a lot of the beauty stuff in the stores want you to believe. If you buy this product, you can defeat aging, right? And so there's a middle ground where it sort of matches up with that sort of serenity prayer that a lot of folks are familiar with, which is, let me identify things that I can still do. And if I can still exercise in some way and no matter if I'm in a wheelchair, I can still find some exercises to do to help the body do what it still can. And at the same time, work on accepting the things that I can change. And that's often where I'm working on in therapy. What is going in which category? So sometimes that's not clear. So sometimes ageism, as with other isms, are personal prejudice either others towards us or it's an aging person or I towards myself. Other times, ageism is structural and systemic and built into the system. How is that, how do you hear that or from your clients in terms of that systemic ageism that they encounter? Well, in healthcare, there are folks that do research on this and they find that just based on age alone, older adults are much less likely to be, to get assessments for depression compared to younger adults because of the myth that depression is a normal part of aging. And those who are assessed for depression are much less likely to be referred for psychological treatments and usually only provided medication options compared to younger adults. Cause there's this other myth that older adults can't learn new things. And of course, therapy is all about learning things and exploration. And so these myths could sort of seep into healthcare amongst of course, very well-intentioned providers. And so these are myths. Depression is not a normal part of aging. It's not inevitable. It's very treatable and older adults benefit just as much as younger adults from the psychological therapies and can really do a lot better and enjoy their older age when that depression is brought down. And have a right to enjoy that time alive. Oh yeah. It's not like we, well, aging people step out of their right to pursue happiness in all of their life and all aspects. But gosh, Lucas, this age is such a, such a great material for comedians, humorous. Right. You know, even when we talk about it ourselves, what do you do when somebody comes in to you with all these, you mentioned it before, well, this is what happens because I'm aging.  What do you do? How do you counter that? Yeah. So if I noticed that someone sort of using self-deprecating kind of ageist humor, sometimes that's okay. Sometimes that's just sort of a way of coping with some of the challenges of aging, which are of course there for different people in different ways and are real for different people in different ways. But if I'm noticing it all, I might just mention that and be like, well, let's talk about that. Is that something you actually believe or how can we test out that theory that this is just age and that there's nothing we can do about it? Let's test that out. Because maybe that's part of this internalized ageism thing that we get taught to believe so early on. But yeah, humor and ageist sort of compliments or sayings are so common in our society that they're not even noticed. So a very common one is, you look so good for your age, right? And that itself is a very ageist statement. Although for both parties involved, it often feels like a compliment. But what is it saying? What is implied in that?  If we wanna look at any joke or any sort of compliment, supposed compliment and just to test out, is it perpetuating ageist stereotypes or not, let's try replacing the word age or the age, the number itself with another aspect of identity. So what if I came up to somebody and I said, hey, you look so good for your race.    That's very heterosexist. And so when we compare it and switch out these different aspects of identity, we can see pretty clearly that there is a stereotype being reinforced in that statement. So just something to try. Very good. What other tricks are there that we can try? What other advice do you give when we are come up against was, well, it's often people of authority who are exercising their own prejudice. A prejudice that number one, age is ugly. Number two, ages means disempowerment and inability. Three, age is equated with ignorance. Sinility. Sinility, thank you. Can you encourage me to confront these authorities and their misunderstandings? How will I do that? Yep, and I think that the most powerful sort of way to confront something like that is with data that shows otherwise. Because these stereotypes that folks have are based on misinformation and stereotypes that are not founded in real data, which actually often show the opposite to be true or show a very different picture of what older adults are like. So reading, learning, getting immersed in sort of the literature on combating ageism to a very helpful... If there was one book that I would request folks to read and I'm not at all involved in this book myself, so I'm not pushing it for any financial gain at all, but I think it's a very really eye-opening introduction to ageism and exposes folks to a lot of the facts that folks can use to counteract their own and others' ageism. And that's called This Chair Rocks, A Manifesto Against Ageism, and it's written by a woman named Ashton Appelwight who is a very gung-ho sort of anti-ageist advocate. So This Chair Rocks, A Manifesto Against Ageism, I would really recommend for anyone because all of us are elders or elders in training, she calls it elders in training because we can always learn new things and always look for our biases. Excellent. This Chair Rocks, I like that. And it reminds me of back in the day when the Grey Panthers were on the rise. I don't know, you were too young for that probably, but there was such a strong Grey Panther movement in the follow-up to the Black Panther movement. It's kind of interesting that the racism often is on the cutting edge of change in our society. And then comes women's rights and rightly so, and then aging rights. But yeah, this Chair Rocks, and we really do need to reclaim or claim for ourselves as we move into elderhood, the right to be an aging person with all of the strength and the vitality that we have and have been given. And thank you so much, Dr. Morgan, Dr. Lucas Morgan for being available again through the, which, what is the name of the clinic? Oh, my private practice, Keelalani Counseling and Mindfulness Services and yeah, appreciate the chance to be here and the sort of, I guess take home message that I would really encourage folks to sort of view their own aging and others aging is, you know, let's live while we're still alive.  And if you're still alive, even if you have the challenges of your own aging process, changes in functionality, change in work situation, change in family situation, relationship of course, or losses. And yet if we're still alive, let's try to live whatever that can look like. And the first exposure to this may come in people who say, my mom and dad are experiencing terrible prejudice in the place where they live, or in the place where, and with a doctor they see or, and we, and you and people who are young enough for family or who are at the age of having family members in the care system might experience it right off the bat and begin to know what it is for themselves too. Well, thank you so much. Don't just age and gaze. That's my theme and I have a website that is personal coaching for life and faith. Make your elderhood extraordinary. And I'm available for conversation or follow up to this and for follow up to any aging issues so that you can make them extraordinary. Can ageism kill you? Yes, it can, but it doesn't have to. And you don't have to do it to yourself. Let's find a way out and make sure that you have the strength and have all of the strong empowerment that you're entitled to. Dr. Lucas Morgan, thank you so much. Aloha and to all of you, be at peace.


Hey everybody, what's up? It's Rob. I'm here with Gray Norton from the Polymer team, AKA Nor Easter, if you are a Polymon fan. We're using our inside voices a little bit, because we're in the Code Lab overflow room, where folks are working hard on some Polymer code labs. So Gray, you just got done talking about data flow in Polymer applications. I know that it is a very important topic. A lot of developers ask us about that all the time. And so for folks watching who maybe haven't seen your talk yet, is there a way that you can distill some of the key points from your talk down for them? We do get a lot of questions. This is a big thing, especially as more and more developers are building not only elements, but also apps with Polymer. Really, the considerations for how you flow data through a simple reusable element versus a complex app that has a lot of structured data are actually very different. And the other thing is that unidirectional data flow, as popularized by the React ecosystem, is really kind of taking the world over. And I think there's some good reasons for that. And so really, the main takeaway from my talk was that if you're building an app with Polymer, especially of any complexity, you really ought to be thinking seriously about taking unidirectional data approach. And so for folks who have never done anything like that or maybe don't know a lot about it, is there a good library or someplace where they could get started to learn about some of those patterns and how to apply them in their applications? Yeah, I would actually recommend starting with Redux. It's actually become arguably the dominant library for doing that. And there's actually a really nice Polymer binding for Redux called Polymer Redux. And the two work really well together. It's really easy to get started. And the Redux docs, by the way, are also great for just conceptually getting what the whole thing is all about. OK, cool. So if you could have folks go do one thing, go check out one thing after they're done watching this video, what would that be? Well, I am going to put some files up on GitHub in the next few days. I did a bunch of explorations, so I took an app that Kevin Schoff wrote for last year's Polymer Summit, a chat app. And it was just the perfect size. It was complex enough to be interesting, but small enough that I could mess around with a lot of different versions of it. So I found some interesting stuff. I'm going to put those files up where other people can look at it and play with them, too. So if you go to github.com slash gray Norton, I think I called it paper. I don't remember what I called it. But there's only one repo that could be it. Well, we'll drop a link in the show notes with the actual link to that repo afterwards. So one more question, too, which is, so you are the Nor'easter Polymon. And I just want to know, what is it like being your own Polymon, right? You've been captured a few times now. How's that been going? I have. It's a little frightening, a little overwhelming at first to be swarmed by people. But I actually take a little bit of pride in the fact that I'm hard to catch. People seem to have a hard time successfully scanning me. And I take that to mean I'm an excellent Polymon. Great. Thank you so much for being with us today. Thank you all for watching. We're going to keep doing these videos. We're going to keep reporting live from Polymer Summit. So definitely stay here on the YouTube channel. I'm Rob. Again, this is Gray. And thank you for watching. Stay with us. See you.