maybe later i'll talk about the better life for girls and the new rural development scheme okay i'll come right back to you then i'm going to ask yang to to reflect a little bit on you know how the sdgs are really shaping china's development cooperation south-south cooperation which is long-standing but has it has this has the strategies changed have changed as a result of the sdgs yes i i i think actually sdgs has already to some extent they change china's china's policy towards the policy of the international cooperation and of course there's something has already changed and some not changed because we still think that china's although just now i mentioned from a recipient to a donor country and but we still think that china tried to help the other developing country we threw the we called the channel of south-south cooperation and we still think that north-south cooperation should the main channel in terms of international development cooperation but actually because the situation has already changed a lot and china has already become the the second largest economy in the world so it's our responsibility to help the other developing country and also we think that with the sdg in our mind we need when we talk about the aid assistance usually it's also something to do with the national interest why you aid the others because it fits your national interest so interest and for other things it's justice you just help people for for helping and nowadays we think that when we talk about international development cooperation when we try to aid the others we also know that there's something we call the national interest but we think we should put the justice before interest it doesn't mean there's no interest at all for us to help the others but the the most important thing is that we have to let the world to be justice to let the people have a better life in the future that's our the first change and also just just now you mentioned that presidency he also initiated the two billion u.s. dollars to help developing country to implement the sdgs but at the same time also we have diversified our health for example we will establish an international development knowledge center that's something to do just like we try to share our experience to our developing countries to the other developing countries and also we will raise the investment to least the developing countries until 2030 there will be 12 billion years dollar directly invest to least the developing country to help them to to lift the poverty as well as according to China saying that through the investment through the investment not only we just give them fish but let them to know how to fish so that's why we think the investment is so important to those least in developing country and also because of the sdgs and China has its commitment to implementing sdgs so we think that we should try to integrate our aid to the development country into the three dimensions so a presidency issued the we called the 6100 initiatives and that's 6100 initiatives includes the poverty reduction program the aid and trade program environmental and climate change coping with environmental and and climate change program as well as 100 program for setting up clinic and hospital and 100 schools so and 100 agriculture projects in developing country mainly in african country so now you see previously maybe we we won't support the developing country in terms of coping with climate change but now we think it's quite important we have to support them through the 100 project in terms of coping with climate change as well as environmental protection that's the also the change and the third one just now you mentioned the security issue and peace and security of course i don't think that chinese government don't think that we need to set a goal we call peace and security but we agree with that inclusive the goal sdg goal 16 peace peaceful and not security inclusive and peaceful society and we support this but we do not think that we have to interfere the other countries in the affairs but we can try to support peace and security through the international organizations or regional organizations like a you like a united nations so that's why actually china will stress on the importance of peace and development in implementing goal 16 for example china uh i i just give you some examples to 20 20 china will train 2000 peacekeepers from other countries mainly from african countries and also china will provide 100 million dollars to the african union and will provide free military aid through the 2100 million to the african union and also china will build a peacekeeping uh standby force of 8 000 troops and actually up to now china is the largest country provide a peacekeeping uh troops in the permanent five but not in all those members states of the united nations so that's why we link peace and security with the development issue so that that's why i think china has already changed a lot our international uh development cooperation strategy because of the sdgs thank you that's very interesting actually to hear about that shift which seems quite quite substantial as a result of the fdgs both in terms of kind of philosophy and also in terms of of the projects it's a real diversification from the past i think for for china and me if you wouldn't mind i'd like to introduce the audience a little bit to the better life for for girls initiative we're having a bit of problem with graphics there so oh yeah do you need the graphic can you do it without i can do without okay i'm not sure how to fix it yeah uh there uh president parkenet was very proud to be at the un uh uh leading last year september 2015 uh there she went through quite a few panels and was an important figure in giving um one session the korean government organized a new world development paradigm so there were two programs among many that she introduced that were very significant one is the new role development paradigm but the other one was the better life for girls initiative and maybe i i will start with the better life for girls initiative because this is something that i had been working on and providing the research findings from my uh for my research i was very happy when the president took the initiative wow she she took this and i was really flabbergasted very pleasantly surprised um the better life for girls initiative started with a grant that i received from the bill and melinda gates foundation asking us to find something that the korean government can do in global public health because our uh you know development cooperation isn't very big and we weren't really doing much spending quite a bit of our odf funds in public health issues but not really you know didn't have any specific distinct or important initiative so they asked us if we can do something about it after looking at what korea had done well in our public health uh like we is we're probably number one in the world in terms of family planning and we did so well they were now below replacement and one of the most rapidly aging societies in the world where when we do something we do quicker than anybody else so we did development in one generation eliminated poverty in one generation but we also you know our babies are not coming so uh and we're the fastest um aging population in the world um so we looked through various things that we were doing and then we looked through what korea was doing in the global public health area the most of the the the largest amount of money we were spending was building hospitals and and health centers health clinics um we were doing wash projects in in sub-saharan africa and so on but nothing really that stood out nothing that really reflected our own experience and whatnot and then we started looking at through the mgd's report to see what was missing in the global public health field and among the eight goals goal number four infant mortality and goal number five maternal health were uh the most problematic in terms of reaching their goals throughout the eight goals they were all very problematic in sub-saharan africa and south asia but four and five were universally pretty uh much in jeopardy so we started looking at that and when we did more research about how to improve maternal and child's health we realized that the intervention uh from the united nations and all the donor countries were happening too late there were uh young girls at the age of nine who are getting pregnant and giving birth and it's horrible that these young uh children are giving birth and there are a lot of repercussions on these young girls who are so uh become mothers at such a young age for their own health as well as the health of the infant and the babies and and the reasons why these young girls were getting pregnant as you know is not just for medical for for their own consent it could sometimes be by religion culture social norms poverty is a big role to play sexual violence and so on so we looked at this mix of packages affecting young girls whose needs were not being addressed so we decided to look into what are the health risks for young girls and what can we do to help remedy those young girls from getting pregnant at such a young age and having all these health risks uh but as well as social and educational risks so at the end we decided to focus on young girls from the age of nine this is a WHO guideline uh from nine to before 18 as a critical vulnerable years for young girls in developing countries and in order to assist them with their comprehensive health issues it was really about education as well as health so that's why the Better Life for Girls initiatives talks about educating these girls so they know more about their rights and responsibilities but can really protect themselves and perhaps become a major actor in changing their own lives as well and some research in Sub-Saharan Africa showed that for young boys to reduce HIV-AIDS infection is by providing them with condoms and good sex education but for girls in high gender gap societies that doesn't work so for girls it's just sending them to secondary schools was the best remedy to help with HIV-AIDS so the more research we're doing we're finding that education in and of itself can be a cure for illnesses as well as for empowering them so the Better Life for Girls initiative became a very comprehensive initiative to assist young girls who are sort of becoming a lacuna in terms of development assistance in mch in particular so the Better Life for Girls initiative was born and we presented to the government but really wasn't thinking that the government really actually take the note of our research we were flabbergasted I mean very pleasantly mind you but we were very pleased when the government announced that they were going to put 200 million from 2016 to 2020 for this initiative and now it's 15 countries that we see that they were going to be target countries for this age so this is a new initiative and along with the Better Life for Girls they've created a much more comprehensive Better Life for all initiatives of the various sectors we have the Better Life initiative and I look forward to working with my government to do the right thing on this and hoping that many other governments countries will join in this initiative so Julia I don't know if you want to add anything from the Australia perspective I'm going to segue into the last question so you can have a double barrel question and answer both together if you like reflect a bit on Australia and what the what the SDGs will mean in terms of Australia's development cooperation but then also will will they provide opportunities for countries like Australia to work more with China and Korea and the non-traditional providers often people say there's a lack of convergence between the non-traditional providers and the traditional providers when we struggle to find areas of convergence will the SDGs provide a platform for more convergence and working together yeah well you know what what might the SDGs mean for Australia's development cooperation program you know that our development cooperation program has just been through these massive wrenching changes you know unprecedented levels of cuts and the entire bureaucracy which administered the aid program was abolished and it's being taken over by DFAT so I think it's not surprising that it's difficult to see you know you know at the first point of that you know as the aid went into DFAT was a whole process of developing aid investment plans and then the second round of cuts came and so you know I think I think that's had an impact on the ability of the official aid program to really respond to the to the SDGs but you know I would say it's still very early days in those 50 years and it sounds you know from the rhetoric from the department and from the minister that there is the intention that this this you know this does influence the directions of the aid program I have sort of listened to a few podcasts from people from USAID and so forth and you know and there's sort of there is the sense of which I would think you're doing relates to the SDGs so it's okay but I hope that particularly as the indicators get agreed in March this year that that will give a sort of some impetus and as we start to gather data globally on those indications some impetus to think about which areas we want to see most changes but I would also say that for Australia this is a particular challenge because you know the minister has been very clear that the area of critical importance for Australia and the Pacific and this is the area you know the Pacific has done very badly in terms of achievements against the SDGs so you know I think high levels of Australian aid have not actually resulted in Pacific Island countries meeting the NDG targets and I think you know there has been a big rethinking of our aid program clearly and so how will that set it up to be able to deliver the SDGs you know I do think it's interesting when you say and is this a platform for greater cooperation you know for decades Australia has dabbled with trilateral cooperation with Korea with China and I don't not sure any of it's been terribly big or terribly successful but these global platforms do offer that opportunity but I would also point that some OECD donors rhetoric on aid has actually become much more aligned with the Korean and Chinese rhetoric I was interested I'm pretty sure it was the Dutch government saying you know our aid program is going to help and then everyone's economy from now on you know that was the most recent government and I think you know Julie Dishook's commitment to economic diplomacy is clearly about Australia's economy as part of the region so I actually think that that's an interesting shift in terms of changing global relations and development cooperation but you know that we all have fairly complex bureaucracies with particular cultures and it's one thing to bring two of those bureaucracies together in a bilateral relationship when you make it a trilateral relationship you have to start you know I mean there can be bigger overheads in that it is worth having fora like the DAC which enable us and other fora to really exchange views and ideas and I think it's a terrific idea to explore but we do run the risk of making things even more complicated than they are thanks Jiang what do you think do you think China with the SGGs will see more triangular cooperation that has meaning or will we see China participate more in global policy fora yes I can just give you an example last year our Prime Minister of the Premier, Li Keqiang visited OECD DAC and deliver a speech over there and and another story that's in 2014 in a international symposium organized by South-South cooperation in Washington DC organized by the United Nations we have a panel and with some scholars from India and when I delivered that I said that China should try to how to say cooperate with OECD and we we should try to promote the triangle cooperation so on so forth and the India scholar directly asked me do you think China's government will at last try to bid for the membership of OECD my response is that no it will never ever be member of OECD not like Korea but but it's quite important we need to cooperate and we have a dialogue and then the next year that means last year in 2015 our Premier visited OECD and delivered a speech so I don't think that during the period from the 2015 to 2030 China's position in the international development cooperation that's my personal view we can play the role as a bridge between the group SM7 and maybe group 34 the OECD country and of course that's that's one thing and why because I think China has already China still a largest developing country in the world but at the same time so we have to be very responsible in the international development cooperation and the China can play this role as a bridge but not as a member of the so-called the richest countries club that's my personal view towards this that's the first thing and the second is that China still think that's not only in the climate change in environmental protection as well as in international development cooperation we should try to still abide by this principle we call CVDR common but differentiated responsibility China is a developing country so we can provide our help to our development country through the South South cooperation all to some extent the triangle cooperation but we still think that the Western country the North country they should try to commit it to the point seven of gni in the ODA and on the other hand China is also very responsible in terms of the development aid according to our white paper issued by our government in 2014 if I have not memorized the wrong according to my memorize that from 2010 to 2012 the increase rate of the China's foreign aid the rate is 50 percent and according to my personal calculate up to now we provide maybe 0.07 percentage of our gni in the foreign aid and according to this increased rate I think to 2030 maybe China's foreign aid official foreign aid to their own countries through the South South cooperation I think maybe we'll reach to 0.1 but not 0.7 we never ever committed to that number but even 0.1 this number you just keep in mind according to here is this morning's presentation maybe China's GDP will surpass the UN GDP then just imagine how huge the foreign aid from China will be and the third thing that because China has already been a donor's country but China still have 200 million extreme poverty population how can we persuade people to understand that the first thing first is that we have to eliminate our domestic extreme poverty and to achieve food security and provide health for all in our own country so I think while we try to help the others our government will think about how can we try to solve our own problem first and then we have the solid base to help the others so I think these two the international development cooperation as well as domestic development in the terms of the three dimensions integrated the environment society social and as well as economic growth together then we can provide help to the world first if China at last to 2030 can really eliminate 200 million extreme poverty in our country then that's the most important contribution to the to implementing SDG in the world at the same times if we can provide maybe 0.1 percentage of our GNI in the foreign aid then it will also be a great contribution and I'm looking forward to 2030 maybe at that time I don't know where I will be but I hope it will become the truth it will become the truth thank you very much thank you I'm going to end with that comment because it offers a lot of optimism I think and and really shows us where I think there's speed is optimal both in the Korea and the Chinese case in terms of executing developing plans and executing them with commitment and also coherence which I think it's very applicable to the universality of the SDGs and what we're seeing in Asia I'd like to thank our three speakers first and then we will turn it over to questions thank you very much okay we have 20 minutes for questions I'm going to take them three at a time and there should be some mics please try to please identify yourself and keep your questions short and identify who you'd like to respond one over in the far corner two and then I'll take one from over here anyone yep three in the front yeah go ahead thank oh my name's Helen Hill from Victoria University in Melbourne and also the National University of Timor-Laura-Sai in Delhi um I'd like to thank the speakers I mean I'm very interested in the argument about the experience of development of those new donors influencing the the way that their aid program operates but it seems to me both China and Korea are huge countries they followed an export-led model of industrialization most of the country is still in the aid program with the exception of Africa I realize Africa is different but they're mostly small island states in the pacific now which are never going to adopt an export-led model of industrialization in fact you know when I used to teach this to my students the Pacific oh no no we're never going to be able to do that and I'd just like to make a quick example there's another non-traditional donor which has been active in the pacific and that is Cuba and ironically Cuba received aid from Australia under the Howard government the Cubans asked Australia to fund a permaculture project and that was extraordinarily successful when the Cubans were facing an agricultural crisis and just a few a months ago the Cubans have brought that agriculture they learned from Australia to Timor-lesht and it's being implemented in a kusi because Australia would never put permaculture in the aid program to Timor for some reason but put industrial agriculture in the program to Timor so I'm just sort of wanting to point out the sort of the different types of experience of development that different countries have thank you um I was Nolina Bolivo from diverse voices in action for equality and dawn from Fiji um my question I was in all of the open working group meetings around the SDGs and thank you it was a really useful session um one of the questions that I have is in that whole process where we did have so much civil society and government engagement trying to move to what is quite a complex set of SDGs the the I'd like to hear your thoughts about the fact that while we have this you know focus on accountability and how we are accountable in terms of the social contract um between states and their citizens but also states and states the question also is how do we reconcile that with the fact of things like the Trans-Pacific um partnership agreement and the Tefter agreement that's on so as you get a widening of free trade um agreements how are we going to reconcile that with human rights within states and between states thank you thank you here it's just a really quick question for the whole panel but potentially most particularly for Mr Jiang I'm wondering how you see the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank as sort of feeding into these SDGs in Asia is this something that potentially represents that new model or is these for the time being something a little bit off to the side thank you thank you thank you for those questions so first let's look at the the relevance of China career development model with small island states I like to take that let me let me start with that question I mean if you see Korea now we seem like such um fairly affluent nation that it's not our lessons are not applicable and we're such an unusual case but let me point take you back to the early 1960s when we began our development experience um our GMP per capita at the time was 81 dollars so poor then many of the sub-Saharan poorest countries in the world we just uh were coming out of war that has officially not ended so it's a war-torn country we had no natural resources or gas or any other sort of mineral resources that we could really count on we are very low levels of technology so we didn't have any of the ingredients that was necessary for development capital technology land or whatever um our land is the size of Minnesota our population is now about 50 million so it's not a very big big country that you might think of so the the obstacles or challenges that we face as an impoverished country is not very different from the developing or the least developing least developed countries face poverty extreme poverty war and conflict lack of democracy all those things packaged into a nice bundle or south korea the world bank officials were saying that we were a basket case so and now I you know jim kim the korean national born is now the head of the world bank's iron anyway so the the point that i want to make is korea's lessons should be valid and uh when i was at the un last year at the 70th anniversary it really struck me and others that korea was one of the very few countries that made from extreme poverty and prosperity within a generation so developing countries still come to us to ask us so what did you do what did you do that was different what did you do that you didn't listen to your donors and so on and my listen my story is not about explore oriented industrialization that was the strategy that we could use at the time the strategy for us was uh we had a government uh that was able to bring all of the talent in the country to work on a development strategy that was best suited for us at the time we wouldn't say that export is the only way i don't think that's the only way these days it's not a good way because the the market is is too crowded but when korea without resources without capital the only thing we had going was a lot of people were fairly well educated so our level of education was much higher than countries at our level of poverty so that's what we had smart relatively smart people who were educated not you know smarter but well educated people so what we did is um we couldn't just focus on our domestic economy because we are so little so the only way that we thought we could earn money is through exporting light manufactured products so in the throughout the 60s the most uh the high on our uh export items were wigs we were the the global capital of wigs because our dark hair we we didn't have money to have perms and stuff like that so it was untreated coarse hair that was could be made into very good wigs so we were the wick capital of the world we were the capital of of stuffed toys before china so we were the the global capital of cheap clothing textiles so that's where we started because that's the only thing that we could do so the lesson from korea is not exports it's really about uh working through the government having government leadership and and channeling all the the resources into what we could do given our challenges and given what we had so i wouldn't say export is the answer but i would really say uh working with the sound government so i think the formula would be different but but the fact that we struggle through a war toward economy um political strife and poverty these are issues that are not very different from developing countries uh who struggle these days there are of course some lessons that we hope countries would not follow us uh we had a long um authoritarian rule we would not say oh go ahead go ahead go get a military dictator too i wouldn't i would not recommend that i would i would say to the contrary these are things that you should not try to replicate that's why uh we we are very much into being transparent about both our successes but also our trials and errors so that other countries will not repeat some of the mistakes that we we had done but we hope that we can provide an alternative to what the washtar consensus says and so that's that's the message uh that's the lesson that i would rather like to share thank you john could you comment on the the relevance of the china model and then maybe also jump straight into the link between the ai b and the sdgs first of all i i i don't think i will promote the also terrarium uh government in all days in south korea but i will say that actually if we really want to promote uh development and the lift to poverty i think the strong government is very important not only me but also fuguyama also says so without the strong government how can you really do something to help people to lift their poverty at all so of course according to china's uh a former leader deng xiaoping's saying that no matter it's a white cat or black one if you can catch the mice it will be the good one so no matter what kind of government if those government is accountable one if this those government can help people to lift the poverty then we just follow this maybe i i cannot say china model china people always say Beijing consensus or China model but according to my personal experience actually i don't think china can be a so-called Washington consensus as a Beijing consensus but one thing is quite important every country has their own situation they have to select their own road to their own development and up till now i can say through the 30 more than 30 years opening up and the reformation in china we have found a right away for china to develop from a very uh how to say even we can say least development country or less development country to a we call the middle income country and even in the future and from recipient to a donor country so through this way i think maybe that's if we can say china's model that means you should try to find the the best way for your own country maybe that's the answer for your your question and for AIIB and in SDGs we know the SDGs said that built resilient infrastructures so you can find the Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank so that means infrastructure is so important than the just now we mentioned and even in the morning talked about china's aid to Africa we ate a lot in those infrastructure construction and in China saying if you want your country i mean the countryside the rich the first way is try to construct a road towards your village and your village will be rich the infrastructure is so important but in the asia pacific region of course we have word bank we have the asia development bank but they have no enough phone and the china has no phone and then we have the capability to do that and why not that's why we initiate the asia infrastructure investment bank AIIB that's the first reason and the second i don't think that this bank is very open towards the world australian government joined this and also uk except i'm so sorry united states and japan our good neighbor in japan but anyway i think in the future maybe i'm not sure but this bank is still very open and the thirdly i do think that AIIB it is a mechanism by the international development cooperation mechanism it is the mechanism to implement the traditional word like word bank like asia development bank i don't think that that's china or even like australian government will think that we joined and we want to replace issue development bank or or word bank so that's why i think all the world should support AIIB let it be successful and help the international cooperation in the future especially specifically to complete the goal nine built resilient infrastructure thank you very much thank you yes question number two on julia do you want to tackle that one on and then i'll turn and we'd like to say something as well accessibility accountability human rights and the tpp well you know i think the sdgs have a you know important aspirations towards good government good governance and participation but there's there are some unfortunate trends in the world even you know within our own government where we see freedom of information requests are you know becoming more difficult and not always the level of transparency one desires i think citizens will need to demand transparency and need to keep arguing for it it's not something that governments will automatically provide but again things like the sdg provide another lever another way in which we need to claim the rights we have as citizens i think you raise a very important issue about accountability and rights-based approach to these topics i think in each of our governments there is some balance and there's some attention between development cooperation and our and our practices of free trade and so on within the korean government the ministry of strategy of finance is very much interested in promoting further trade and for further economic growth of korea and the other hand the minister of foreign affairs want to do more in terms of providing more granted in line with sdgs and so on ministry of finance and strategy although they're the one providing the funds not always short so you can see in the real day-to-day life that there is this this tension between different ministries and their different mandates and broadly speaking the global arena tension between these goals i hope because the sdgs were to be inclusive and we were supposed to look at not just to assist developing countries but to find pockets of poverty and develop developed countries to assist that maybe developed countries will find a way to incorporate the principles of rights-based approach to development cooperation in their other policy areas such as free trade and tpp and whatnot so i hope sdgs can be that conduit for for that but realistically speaking i'm not that optimistic i'll take two short questions one and two as a question for the whole panel alongside all of the stakeholder consultation globally around the sdgs has also been hearing yeah being the conversation about reform of the un and reform of the un agencies and so i just been sitting in the panel's comments on how you see the effect of the sdgs on the reform of the you know one of the key global systems for actually implementing them and whether that reform process will whether you see it actually happening and carrying on thank you okay thank you next question yeah i'm simon pollock working for the department environment but this is very much my own question just when talking about a alternative to the washington consensus in providing aid and focusing on infrastructure could that then be seen as a way of furthering tide aid in a way that is favoring maybe advantages for your own countries infrastructure providers and providing in a way unfair leg up for national industrial companies to get gains in developing countries okay who'd like to take the un reform question no one sorry think about it start with the second question uh the alternative to the washington consensus doesn't mean just about giving more aid for infrastructure i think that's one of the things but i was stressed that it's really about government leadership rather than letting the private sector lead the the process of development in a country especially in an early stage of development when the other institutions are not well developed i think it's really critical for a sound government to have good policies for its nation's development so i would say the when i mentioned alternatives to washington consensus i was more focused on the government versus the market divide rather than the infrastructure um tide aid no i don't think that's a good idea i think looking at how aid projects are being provided in developing countries from the korean government sometimes it's much more economical to use vendors from neighboring countries than to use korean companies or korean products and we have certainly done that so untied aid i think is not really the the tide aid is not the answer that i would say is part of the alternative to the washington consensus so but i thank you for that question to give me a chance to to um to clarify reform of un agencies i think that has been a very important uh goal for the pangiman secretary general from his first and his second the only the the one thing that i noticed is is minor but maybe not minor but he has been rather successful in bringing more women to the leadership and i think that's making some changes not that all men are bad but he is of course a man but he has really included more women in the leadership and i think that's making some changes within uh creating un women as a comprehensive women's initiative uh agency within the un i think is a step in that direction but i i i don't know uh to what extent the reform within the un has been successful um i know there has been a lot of effort and trying to reform but i don't know how far they've gone and whether they've been really successful we'll talk about the washington consensus but actually mdg based on post-washington consensus so that means uh now maybe we are experienced the period of post post washington but it doesn't mean that we return to washington consensus and at this moment i think the most important thing that the whole world because sdg is a universal one it's a comprehensive one and it's also a transformative one that means uh according to china's experience that we are reaching the stage that we have to transform our economic structures and so on so forth i i think even in uh at world large in in this world we are now experiencing how can we transform the traditional economic growth to the three dimensions that means we promote economic growth sustainably sustained and but also we should protect the environment and uh to promote social development and then it will be not only beyond the washington consensus but also beyond the post uh washington consensus then we can really implement uh the sdgs in 15 years but i doubt we can really fully implement all those because just now i mentioned there's too many targets and then indicators in March i can really difficult to imagine how many indicators it's difficult and for us my personal job maybe we try to to to suggest maybe every country should try to find some something which we can really implement quite well and then we can uh at the same time try to implement all of those goals and so on so forth and targets and so on so forth about the un reform i can just uh maybe use china's experience just now i mentioned why china can develop so fast because we experienced the more than 30 years reformation as well as opening up the world so for us reformation or reform it's a continuous process that means even in the the largest international organization i do think that it should experience a long long time reformation that means first we need to reform the structure we need to reform the mechanism and all those uh uh uh systems in united nations but the second just like china uh chinese experience we cannot change the system overnight we have to be very patient maybe just because of chinese history so long so we are very patient and american history and maybe austrian history is so short you always want to change everything up uh overnight so i think the best way is try to go to the middle we can try to find the third way try to reform it at the same time be patient thank you that brings us to the close of the session thank you for excellent questions i'm sorry for those of you didn't get to answer ask your questions um i'd just like to sum up saying i think we can see from the session that the sggs really have been a catalyst for change in the realm of development cooperation both for northern and southern providers or asian or western providers um both as a catalyst for change and as an area of potential convergence both in the present and and going forward so i think get some hope for the future thank you very much and please your


All right, good morning and welcome to this joint hearing of the Vermont Legislatures General and Housing Committee and Committee on Environment and Energy. This morning we are here to talk about S100 and ACT relating to housing opportunities made for everyone. And in this joint hearing, I just want to kind of lay out the way that I'm seeing this unfold, which is as an opportunity for the two committees to share ideas and questions about housing generally and S100 specifically, but not a place where we're going to debate policy, but rather communicate areas of interest and shared or concerns, questions that you have and you want to see addressed as we take the bills up. I'm going to start off by having, well, first of all, introduction to make sure we all know each other since we don't work with each other every day, at least not in committee. And then I'll ask Tom, Chair Stevens, to give an overview of what the General and Housing Committee did when they looked at the bill. And I'll talk about our process and our committee a little bit and then open it up to members to discuss. Does anyone have any questions about that? Seeing any. Representative Morris, would you start with introductions, please? Representative Morris. Springfield. Representative Bartley. Franklin 1. Representative Brian Smith. Orleans 1 from Derby. Representative Paul Kirtz. Rutland City. Rutland Town. Representative Seth Boingardt. Bennington 4. Robin Chestnut. And Chairman Rutland Bennington District. Representative Tom Stevens. Washington Chittenden. Representative Jamie Sheldon from Middlebury, which is Addison 1. Representative Laura Sevillea. Wyndham 2. Representative Kathleen James from Manchester and Bennington 4. Larry Sackwitz. Orange, Washington, Tottison. Representative Dennis LeBowney. Lyndon Newick. Sutton Sheffield. Wheelock. Joe Parsons. I represent the beautiful towns of Newbury, Topsam and Grotton. Good morning. I'm Larry Labor. I represent Essex. Orleans District 1. Representative Emily Krasnow. South Burlington. Hi. I'm Elizabeth. Excuse me. I'm Elizabeth Burroughs. And I represent Windsor 1, which is Heartland, West Windsor and Windsor. Hi. I'm Representative Dara Tory. And I represent Washington too. More town faced in Duxbury, Waitfield and Warren. Thank you all. Representative Stevens. Thank you. Thank you. Representative Sheldon. Thank you to the Energy and Environment Committee for having, for hosting this meeting. We are going to talk about S100 and about the work that we did. It was a bill that if you looked at how it was introduced, it said land use and housing. And I think that there's a general consensus that the two go hand in hand. But what we experienced, of course, in our committees is that the oversight of land use is the purview of the energy and environment and energy committee and housing is the general and housing committee, but there's the needless to say there's a display between the two. And so we just wanted to have the opportunity to share what we did and how we addressed the housing portions of the bill because as it came over from the Senate, it was quite different than what was passed out of committee in its original version. And we also added some material in the sections previous to the housing that one section in particular, which was there was a request for a summer committee on mobile homes. And it was very general proposal. We had passed age 213 earlier this year. And so we inserted that material for that particular committee into the bill that you have the that we passed out of our committee. I'm not sure if we need to do a section by section, but the housing portions of this bill were stripped in the Senate because they had appropriations attached to them in the way that the Senate was their work is because we get the budget first. They tend to strip out sections that have money attached to them. And so what we ended up what we started with was very bare bones housing and we needed to go back to the Senate has passed the committee to get an understanding of what their impulses were to make it a home bill, housing for everybody bill. And in fact, up until then it had turned into basically a zoning and active 50 bill. So we to our work concentrated on primarily bringing the Senate bill back to what had passed. We will have an amendment that won't affect your work in this committee that will deal with some rental issues as well. But that will be presented what we're doing work on that this week. We didn't have time in this compressed session to address that some of those issues that we wanted to deal with. Prior to needing to get the bill to you. So what what is in the section of the bill that we worked in includes the the program, which is the Vermont housing improvement program, which is which is a program that started a couple of years ago as a pilot program with federal money. This is the first year that there was a request to use tax general fund dollars with that. And so we had to consider that we then which we did throughout the year with the budget memo and the proposals that have been put forward. So we put back into the bill the policy, both the policy language and the appropriation request for for the v hip program. It's been a it's been a by all accounts. It's been a successful program, which allows property owner the ability to apply for either a grant or a loan for up to $50,000 depending on the size of the unit that that you're trying to upgrade. And in the past it was tied into whether it was in code or whether it was code compliant or not. And over the years it's it's loosened up and to the point where we are addressing things like weatherization and accessibility as as items that people can bring into code. And that came with a large request. I can't remember what we ended up at $15 or $20 million that 20 for this program. Also a missing what's being called the middle income housing program, which is a program we approved last year that would people would be able to build a house. So developers would end and potential owners would be able to qualify for almost like a bridge loan or a bridge grant that would say if it costs $550,000 to build a house. But it's only going to appraise for $500,000. Generally speaking, a developer can't build that house. And so this is a program that would if the developer is qualified and goes through the process, they may be eligible to receive that difference between what it costs to build and what it would cost to sell. And then up to about 35% of the public build prices. And if there's any money left over that money could be applied to the potential owner of that property in order to and it creates what's called in the housing world shared equity. And that just means you would as a house as a homeowner you would leave that equity behind when you sold the house. You'd be able to you'd be able to achieve certain elements of equity depending on how long you lived in the house. But that that would keep help keep that house affordable. At that level that it would provide that subsidy moving forward. It's been a successful program in the past in the affordable housing world where people who generally can't afford a house are they qualify at a lower level of mortgage. And but the trade off for that is that they don't get a chance to take all of the equity with them as they move forward is that they might not be a bigger house or they make they may not qualify for it any longer for on an income level. So that program we kept in and we also kept the funding up to that pretty much to where it was requested at 15 or $20 million. That was 20 as well. We also included a program for first generation home buyers. These were all things that were in the Senate bill that we had to replace because they had appropriation. So first generation home buyer program is again something that we started last year with excess funds for we funded it for a million dollars VHFA has come in and said it's been a successful program once they got it up and running. And it's going to run out of money. The million dollars that we gave to provide $15,000 grants to first generation home buyers in in order to try to get an element of our population had had the opportunity to build wealth through home ownership. And those that grant program started off it started off where they needed to set the rules up and it's well underway had asked for another appropriation and we decided to appropriate or make a proposal for appropriation of $2 million. Again, this is money that would be granted to potential home buyers that would lower the costs of buying a home. We also have we put in we put in the request for funding up to $50 million to VHCB to continue the work that they've been doing and that's it. That's on top of the amount given to the property transfer tax from the property transfer tax to the housing and conservation trust fund, but it is specifically to continue the programs that have been in place for the last three years where VHCB has been able to work with local organizations to purchase properties and turn them into housing as quickly as possible. It still ends up being a one to two year process, but it's that's a shorter timeframe than what happens traditionally with VHCB working with local nonprofit housing. We also added in a study from that did make it across it didn't get cut out that was from for fire safety to work on to look at the building codes and determine if there's anything in the building codes that they can adjust or that they can identify that would help make the materials less expensive in the sense that if there are building codes which do exist and which generally make us need to build at a higher level, are there other ways to still keep those codes in place but make some of the some of the improvements in the codes less expensive that may promote again development at a lesser price again the price development of single family homes in particular and also multi unit buildings but in this case for this bill has gotten extraordinarily high. And so this this material these these proposed appropriations would in theory bring down the price to make it somewhat more affordable to people building and buying. And I think that's where I'll leave it for now. These are programs that we have worked on in committee for many years our committee took a lot of testimony earlier in the year on these programs when we were dealing with the budget. And then there's a revolving loan proposal. Thank you for that. That's a $20 million proposal from VHFA which says that for multi unit buildings that are being built for people at a certain level income they developer may receive upwards like the middle income home program a subsidy per unit of $100,000 if they are building apartments that are for people between 80% of the area median income and 150% of the area median income. So we're the missing middle is more about the economics of people who make a certain amount of money. We know that the area median income across the state is different it's different in Chittenden Franklin County than it is in Orleans or Caledonia County or in Rutland County. And so we use these percentages which are which are expressed through HUD programming. So there would be about $100,000 per unit up to a certain number of units for that level. And if you were building apartment units that were going to be affordable to people between 60% or 65% of AMI and 80% of AMI then it would be about $150,000 per unit. So those are things that the if that proposal goes forward a revolving loan fund in our world simply says if I if I'm loaning out $500,000 to help you build these things that gets paid off over time and that money goes back into the revolving loan fund to be then lent out and at some point if we continue to fund this if it proves to be successful in its first trench then if we continue to add money to that over time it would take care of itself because the money would keep would would go out and then we'd be coming back in with people who have utilized that loan over paying it off. So those are the main highlights of what we did. We did have questions about about zoning issues and about Act 250 issues. But again, we tried to keep boundary in the discussions because of the shortness of time and for this committee. All right. And so that's some I'm passing, I'm passing time. Okay, great. Thank you for that. I want to acknowledge that some members have joined us since we did introductions. So Avram, would you introduce for the group for yourself? Hi, I'm Pat, I represent the one of two representatives representing the Memorial Washington district along with representative Lamont and I live in Worcester and I have been involved primarily in energy issues over the years both in the legislature and in my work before that. And a couple at the end of the table also. I'm Mary Howard. I represent Rutland District 6 and I have been on the housing committee for a number of years. So housing is not new to to me. Thank you. Good morning. I know a lot of my Washington district, the outside of them remember. Great. Thank you. All right. Thank you representative Stevens for that overview. I can talk a little bit about where we are in our process so that we haven't gotten obviously we're just starting. We started taking up housing, the housing conversation last week in our committee. And we kind of framed it. You all still had position from the bill. And so we framed it under age 68, which was a bill that representative Baumgart's introduced and I'm probably going to have him maybe just talk a little about his process on that bill in a minute. But so we started talking about the housing issues looking at some of the issues we know we're in S 100 last week. And now we have it in our possession. And so we'll be taking it up fully. I guess what I would say is that when we get a new bill into our committee, I ask my committee members and myself to keep an open mind and to say like, you know, what's the problem we're being asked to solve here and how does this bill address those problems? And that we're still we're still pretty much in that place. You can see that we've heard from a lot of witnesses. We're still hearing from a lot of witnesses. We certainly haven't heard from everyone on all the topics in the bill yet, but we will do our best to do that. You know, and I guess with that, I would just say, I think it's maybe important because a big portion of the zoning pieces in the bill are grounded in age 68, which Representative Bongards introduced, putting a little bit on spot because I can give you a heads up. But I know that a lot of it's in your back pocket. And really, I don't need you to talk about the content as much as the just a background on your process when you how you did how you got to age 68. Short. So what I did actually two years ago, Kathleen and I worked jointly over the summer on a housing bill that became the number that it became for the number that became, but we pulled together a group of stakeholders and that bill actually relatively speaking passed in a while last year. This summer, I pulled together a group of stakeholders and over the course of the summer and fall, everything from VHCB three directors original planning commissions, a couple of town planners, Vermont Housing Finance, Vermont Natural Resources Council, the Office of Racial Equity. We were in touch throughout with the legal cities and towns. We invited them into the process. They declined to be involved directly. I'm leaving out half the people that we involved, but a group of 12 to 15 stakeholders that met, obviously ever north by the way or housing Vermont. We some days still think of it. And we decided also by the way the Department of Housing Community Development and that we decided we just wanted to there's a lot of elements to the housing issue. We decided to just focus on one of them and try to do it really well. And so we focused on the zoning and the fact that zoning can often have, you know, and I always say I believe in Vermont unintentional, but what you can have discriminatory impact and make it harder for people to, for incomes to live in downtown. And so we really wanted to focus on the extent that there's a major housing issue in Vermont and to the extent that the conclusion that we reach is that we need to in one way or another bring about either the construction or reuse of buildings to develop whatever the number, you know, there's different numbers floating around with 30 to 40,000 units. We looked at it as is we, if you're going to try to bring those kinds of units on line, what you don't want to do, what you want to try to do is do it in downtowns because the alternative is sprawl, alternative is building a farm wave in forest land. And so we tried to focus on how to extent we can do this, we can make that happen in downtowns with the byproduct of course being that housing in downtowns leads to vibrant downtowns. So that's what that's what we did and I won't go into the details, although I will say that some of the just a few of the highlights that really, so by the way, then what happened is that Senator on Hinsdale picked up age 68 with my blessing and made it the center of the bill that we're now working on. And most of what we had in the bill, which went to the things like in certain areas, there was with sewer and water, you know, a minimum density of allowed of five units per acre, the duplex by right, the by right provision, meaning that, you know, if you're allowed five, you can't get that little down to the process by NIMBYism frankly. And those most of those things that we had in the bill as the starting point came back and are now contained in S100. So that's the that's the foundation of H100. I mean, S100, a lot of things that thing, all the things that the general committee's been working on were added into by the Senate on, you know, people on the ends of the bill. And so that's the that's the background of the work that started this over the course of the summer. We met, we worked for months and went to 15 or 16 drafts of meeting every sometimes every week and sometimes every other week by Zoom. And that's that's the process. Thanks. Open it up for members to discuss. Representative Smith. Thank you. So far this meeting I've heard talk of housing, housing and housing, appropriations for housing. We, our committee is environment and energy. I believe that this bill should be separated somewhere so that the housing can be addressed as much as the Act 250 idea should be. So I'm just a little confused as to why we are addressing a housing bill. Yeah. So we're addressing the land use parts of it and certainly land use effects housing. But it is in one bill. Yeah. So I think it should be separate. There should be two bills here. I'm not saying they're either good or bad. I'm just saying that I think there are two separate subjects that should be addressed. I hear you. Yeah, let's just the third of that. That's actually what we were trying to do with the bill with age 68 was have the one portion of it be the land use bill. But got turned into on it was both actually very similar to what happened with 226 last year. We'll recall our committee focused on use portions and the housing committee. There are other portions that work very smoothly and we got through. If I may, I would like to ask Christy with the question to this for clarification. Sure. Thank you. Thank you, Tom. The first generation home buyer is a $2 million. Is it a forgiveness loan or is it a payback loan? It's a grant. Well, so it's a it's a it's a grant to qualify home buyers rather than alone or rather than a forgivable loan. It's simply it's a grant. Okay. It's a first time. I believe you've worked on anything at this level of a grant that hasn't had the loan tied to it much like much like even the via program is which is federal grant. No, this would be using state tax dollars. Last year when we last year when we created the idea of VHFA did phenomenal work in making it making the language work so that it includes that it was all inclusive to any first generation home buyer. There was a million dollars that had been appropriated the year before in a bill that had been vetoed but the amount had passed through. And so we use that money which was which I believe was federal money to create the idea of the proposal last year. This year the money requested is from general fund dollars. Thank you. Other members. Representative Sebelia. Yep. So really excited to be in this joint environment have a couple of issues that Madam Chair I've talked with you about I don't know if they actually are relevant for our committee or for this broader committee and just thinking about in terms of housing generally. I'm not sure where or who is keeping track of how much housing we need to build. How much housing has been built at what level of affordability that housing is at if we are building housing for the middle class. And so I have been starting to put together some thoughts and communicating those with you Madam Chair and also have spoken with Commissioner Hanford. I'm not sure if that is actually in our committee or something that we should be talking with the housing committee about. I'd like to see us have some more language around counting and reporting back to us on progress. Another issue that I'm not sure which committee would take up one of the elements of the rural caucus amendment is this rural recovery coordination council. One of the things that's really apparent when we look at this bill to me anyway is that you know I can typeboats starting to leave for over month for places that don't have sewer and water or other critical infrastructure. And so this council would be one that helps our communities really start to grapple with our communities that are able to really start to grapple with these infrastructure issues which are pretty limiting for housing. So that's another element again that's part of the rural caucus amendment.  So those are two things that I want to put on the table. Thanks. I address the count. Do you have time to address the count? Let me see. I'll see if. Sure. Any other any other just member comments? Yes. Representative Bartley. Thank you. I definitely would. I think that's a great idea and understanding where we are and where we need to be. I know we've all heard that. Or at least our committee has heard that we need 40,000 units in the next 10 years. I think some of us aren't sure if that's really how much we need or what there is out there. So I think that's really important. A concern that I've had is kind of because these are separated how should somebody who is concerned about that an environment and energy come to us. We've already voted it out. How are our concerns going to be heard? Can we join or sit in on a committee? Are we going to be asked? Are we going to be able to ask questions ourselves? This process has been a little frustrating for me. And so I'm just wondering. It sounds like that should be a general and housing question that we address. And can that be put back into the bill? And how would that, how would we do that? Yeah. So process wise, there's always amendments. I think representative Siemens already mentioned that there's likely to be, you're likely to have an amendment and then it would, if it's an area that's in those sections of statute that are in one of the committee's particular areas of jurisdiction, then it would go there. Members are always welcome to and actually enabled by our current technology in your free time to watch our hearings and learn more about it and join our process as we go through it, if you'd like. And of course individuals are always able to bring forward amendments on any bills. But did you want to talk about the count also? Yes, representative Sebelius. So of course we took a testimony and updates from the numerous organizations that are, I mean in particular though VHCB and DHCD, the Department of Housing and Community Development. So the VHIP program itself, which is bringing units back online and has, has netted approximately just over 400 units. That was units that are geared towards primarily finding residents who were experiencing homelessness. And if those tenants weren't able to be found, they would be available to tenants who are at 80% of AMI, the area median income. And then if a tenant there couldn't be found at that level, then the property owner would be allowed to, with approval from the department, to rent to anybody at a market price. So I'm going to actually just interrupt for a second. Yeah. I mean that's a little bit too into the details. I think just that's a topic on the table is that question of who's keeping track and count. Representative Bartley, I want to make sure I actually got to your point in that, if you have a topic you want to put on the table, now you could do that. I'm concerned about Act 250. I want to make sure that the, I know from when the bill was in Senate economic development, there was a decent amount of Act 250 reform and zoning. And that kind of got significantly watered down and Senate natural resources. That's a very large concern for me. We've heard you can't build houses without land and keeping it to the designated downtown. That's 0.3% Vermont. And so who, I guess the question is who do you plan on having testifying and do you have a course of action on how you're going to address Act 250 reform? Sure. I mean, we've already had folks in to testify here. Welcome to look at who we've had in. I actually had our legislative council do a summary of all the work we've done on Act 250 in the past five years. I can share that with you. We are pretty, you know, we've many of the members who have been on the committee for those years have spent a lot of time taking a lot of testimony on Act 250 past a number of bills. And I think as your committee is aware, we are waiting to hear back on two really important topics with reports coming back to us before the next session. And you know, those of us who've been working on Act 250 all these years were holding off, taking up Act 250 issues until we got the reports back. But this bill has brought it forward. So we're going to take it up. Thank you. Yeah, representative Clifford. Thank you. So I guess this is a pretty good question. I know Representative Sibili touched on a little bit about water and sewer issues. And from the standpoint of addressing those water and sewer issues as far as capacity goes and how it's a strain on certain, might be a strain on certain cities and towns. I mean, that's one of the, one of the issues that I know that relevant city has as a matter of fact, the mayor is here today and we discussed a little bit about that this morning. So if there was something in the bill that had to do with water and sewer issues as far as, you know, the capacity, you know, adding new, you know, more, more rooms, more toilets and how it affects the capacities. So would that procedure be to have an amendment on that? Would that be addressed in our committee or, that would be in our committee? It would. And I actually did get a DEC to come in there. They were not available for when we invited them. But we are, we're going to explore that topic. Absolutely. Since it's a pretty big part of this. Okay. And the other issue I have is not issue. The question I had is the, is the timeline on this bill. Are we, are we looking to get this done this year? Is it going to be one of those complicated things where we have to, you know, some sort of questions? There are a lot of questions. We're going to have to work that out. Okay. Yeah. As, as, as we begin, kick the tires and figure out what we're comfortable with now. That's ready to move. And what is it? Thank you. Representative James. Oh, sorry. Representative Morris and then James. Oh, thank you. Representative Stevens, thanks for the information on, just a clarification on the $2 million for her first generation home buyers. So I'm a parent. My kids would not be eligible for that because it is, what do we mean by first generation? It was defined and the definition of it was updated after one year to, to what's in the bill, which is, yes, your children would not be eligible because if, if in fact you have owned a home, they would not be considered first generation home buyer. Correct. That's what I understood. I just wanted to get a clarification for sure. Thank you. Representative Jane. Could you, Chair Sheldon, could you remind folks, please, about the two at 250 reports that are due, what those, what those topics are? I know they're significant. I know we're waiting on them and I've lost, lost the thread on when they're due and what they're going to cover. Yeah. So one is on the designated areas. And they are both underway. And that is just looking at the process, like those designated areas. It's important for folks to understand that they were not intended to be a land use tool. Like they weren't a regular, they're not a land use regulation tool. They actually primarily came from the housing. There is a situation. Yeah. They're a taxation tool. And kind of a, so we're looking at them. There are currently five and this bill kind of looks to enhance them and it's a little bit, maybe a little bit of cart before the horse. But again, we're going to look at the proposals in the bill as they came to us and see how it fits in with the more specifics of the study that, and that's a study that's happening at ACCD. We're doing the designation looking at that. And then the other study is primarily on location-based jurisdiction. And natural resources board is spearheading that one. And what that means to me, they're very similar because what we've started to do is use the designations for location-based jurisdiction. But, you know, the question that has arisen in the conversations in the years of talking about Act 250 reform, updating is what is the role of statewide land use regulation in the modern era with all of the growth of regional planning commissions and some of our communities having very advanced planning at the local level. What is the role of that? And, you know, how do we want to, what benefit does it add to Vermonters? So the two studies for me will inform that. So the kind of flip side of where do we want development is what are those resources of statewide significance that we agree, we don't really want to have a lot of development in those areas. And so these, both of these studies are complementary, I hope, and will help inform that conversation. And when I say areas of, like natural resources of statewide significance, I think many people's minds go to our ridgelines, our mountain areas, places Vermonters go to, you know, recreate and enjoy our beautiful state. They go to river corridors and they, they may go to other places too. And that's what this study will inform. I hope. Representative Smith. Thank you. Would it stand to reason that Representative Bongarts has, has a bill that will address the previous question as to separating this bill. Would it stand to reason that we let hundreds sit by a little bit and both committees study what bill he's going to be presenting or is presenting before we proceed with that 100? I hear your interest in this. And it's, I guess we'll take it under advisement. We can consider that. Yeah. Thank you. Other members of thoughts. Representative Sebelia. Yeah, just on the active 50 pieces and past and future work that will take place. The chair has just detailed some important studies that will happen. I've been a little skeptical about our ability to progress with any kind of comprehensive active 50 reforms. I've seen those kind of miss with rural Vermont. And, you know, I just want to put on the table that I've actually reached out to VNRC and others as these studies progress to, to work specifically with rural Vermont. With rural caucus and others on issues related to infrastructure in our rural communities to see if we can make more progress. In terms of those comprehensive reforms. And I'm hopeful that we can also move some of these questions in this bill. This year I would not support actually separating these bills out. I would support us doing what we can. I appreciate the chair bringing the two committees together to see if how we can work together on this bill and us getting the best bill out that we can this year for monitors. I think really need us to do something on housing. So, and it's time is ticking. I'm not used to calling my don't roll off my tongue, but I think I'm going to usually cut a couple of syllables out. So I, I am very aware of representative Sebelius concerns about rural that the rural areas have the opportunity to take advantage of funding programs and one thing that I think our committee has kept in the forefront is asking about the funding programs. Where will they, where are they useful? They're, you know, and one of the pieces of information was that the program has actually had more uptake. Ruraly. It's been in the, in the conversation. Precisely your concerns. That it, that it be the benefits be statewide. Not regional. That's all. Economic sectors. Representative Stevens and following up on that. Thank you, chair. I'm following up on that. The, the, the mission statements of organizations like BHC. The, the, the mission statements of organizations like BHCB and VHFA is to be statewide organizations. And while there has been some with the federal money up to date, there's been testimony we took show that, that more projects have happened in more populated areas that there's been a commitment also from those organizations to focus, to make sure that they have the resources that they need. Just to make sure that the resources are available. But on an even equity basis. So we're seeing. We're seeing things get built. Seeing housing get purchased and built. And I think we need to always remember. That it's always going to be a two to three year process because whether it's nonprofit or for-profit housing. They have to go through the same permitting processes and the same, same funding processes, but not the same funding processes, but they have to go through funding processes, which are extremely complicated at times as it is for the private industry. So things are getting built. Things are happening. What I appreciate about the conversation about where development could happen in rural areas is that if when rural areas band together like this, there's something done and really focused the, the conversation on what the needs are in rural communities in a different way than, than has happened in the past. And I, we should all, we should all appreciate that and try to make changes that address that. The dresses that we're making, whether or not it's in zoning or whether it's in funding is an important, they're important steps along the way, but the housing won't show up in June. We have to keep addressing these issues in their longterm. Some of the programs are shorter term, but they're still longterm solution. And I think one of the proudest things I can say is that the committee's fact that we're sitting together shows that how integrated housing and all of the other portfolios are across, across our state house because we've operated in silos before that haven't been as efficient as they should be. And so while this conversation may seem a little rough at times, it is really a step forward in integrating all the different pieces that go into building housing across the state. I have a question or a housing. Yeah, question about, I think we heard yesterday that we had a certain population, something 2000 of unhoused for monitors. And then we've, we've sort of built or put online housing for those and we still have the same population of unhoused. So how do we wrestle with that? Like I'm curious what, how do we get a handle on that? Again, this is a conversation. The answer is, I don't know. You know, we as a system don't know. We have, again, to appreciate the fact that we've housed over 3000 households over the last since May, March of 2020. And yet we still have this tide rolling in of the same number of folks. I think it's a deep systemic issue about poverty, about the amount of housing, you know, is not simply about the units, though that's important. If we do not have the other two legs of the stool, which are the services and the funding, then the folks won't be able to sustain that housing. So it is a, it is a question that we're wrestling with in a committee. We're wrestling with it in the human services committee. The folks who remain unhoused are needs, supports that we are trying to provide. But again, it's out of balance. And so that's it. We only gave an hour for this conversation. We could be here for a couple of days. Others. Thank you. Yes. No, I don't want to chime in on that. A lot of it is because of the influx of people entering homeless. Right. And what we're learning, what we learned at our joint hearing in this very room a couple of months ago was that that is not affecting only low-income Vermonters. That is affecting middle-income Vermonters, et cetera, because when we look at our housing stock, we have people who have homes that are too large where they have lived and they would like to downsize. However, it's not affordable for them to do that because they would save money by staying in their home that is way too large. But there is no housing that is affordable for them to move into. And so what we have is a housing stock issue and a systemic issue because it's not, when we're looking at it from angles of only addressing certain dimensions of this, whether we're looking at affordability, whatever that may mean. We're looking at accessibility, whatever that may mean. We've heard testimony that majority of the people experiencing, what is it? 78% of the people experiencing homelessness are people with disabilities. Right. And so when we're looking at what types of housing are available, the types of housing that are available are not available. And so that, I think as we're addressing this issue, it's really important to look at the types of housing that we're going to have available, not only where they will be built, but accessibility and what that looks like and design to help mitigate some of that. Because when we're looking at that, the middle income vermonters who would like to downsize need some place to go to. Right. And that will free up some housing for families and people who are coming to Vermont for jobs and opportunities who can't find housing. One piece of your zoning world is going to be talking about shelters. Yeah. And about the ability to regulate how long shelters can be open, which is not a simple issue. Here in Montpelier, the winter shelters open at 7pm and they close at 7am and then there's a day shelter that opens it. So it is something that you will directly address in terms of what the community is, what you're going to hear may not be the simple, it's not a simple section. Yeah. We took a little testimony on that yesterday. Yes. Representative Burroughs. I went to dovetailing with what Representative Lamont said. We also have, we took testimony on what's the name of the rental relief. COVID rental relief. V-wrap. V-wrap. We took testimony on the ending of V-wrap. And the number of people who are renting for more than 100% of their income, which I think was 4%. So there are 4% of V-wrap recipients. So there are going to be more. More people added to the ranks of people who need help. All right, members. I'm not seeing any hands. Representative Burroughs. I really appreciate the work of the housing committee. It's been great. Everything that you've talked about. I'm going to. Some of the. Some of the end that the get out addresses. Representative Burroughs was talking about in terms of providing some relief that will. You may not see that directly in your committee. If we get it out as a community. And you'll see it later. And. And I'll never want to leave a meeting on a high note. There are organizations. I'm chairing. There are organizations that are talking about this. Just to do not, as much as I'm proud of the work that we're doing, that we've done, I just always am reminded by the sober comments made by organizations that work directly with this population. And they're talking about buying tents for people right now. And so, again, changing zoning isn't going to get people into housing at the end of June. But to keep in mind that there are going to be upwards of 2,000 to 5,000 contractors who are going to be leaving subsidized services that have provided mostly, but not solely by the federal government in the next several months. It's just sobering to know that the skills that we have brought to the fore are being put aside for a moment because we have to buy tents and sleeping bags for monitors because it's summer and they can sleep outside. It's not, it's a very, I won't say anything except for my personal morals is that's a difficult thing to hear and to work with in the face of the work that we're already doing. And so that's what keeps me awake. That's what keeps me focused on it. So thank you for joining. Thank you. And thank you all for your participation and your passion and concern for monitors and the housing crisis that we're in. With that, we are adjourned.


NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said Ukraine should continue to receive the support it needs to fight Russia off its land, otherwise, the US, Europe and other parts of the world will be more vulnerable if Russian President Vladimir Putin gets what he wants from Ukraine. Such a scenario would also embolden a land grab by other authoritarian regimes in other parts of the world, Stoltenberg said. During a TV interview with Fox News, Stoltenberg also said that Beijing is watching closely NATO's response to Putin's invasion of Ukraine. Today, it's Ukraine, tomorrow, it might be Taiwan, the NATO chief said, Stoltenberg said the southern US border crisis is important in the United States as it is in many other NATO countries. But he said investing in helping Ukraine resist Moscow's advances is a good deal for the Western world. We need to realize that this is closely watched in Beijing, he said. So it's not only making Europe more vulnerable but all of us, also the United States, more vulnerable if Putin gets what he wants in Ukraine. It is important that Putin doesn't get his way in Ukraine, because that will embolden other authoritarian powers, Stoltenberg said. Today it's Ukraine, tomorrow it may be Taiwan.


One of my favorite picks in the draft, and let me tell you why. In the second round at pick 49, the Cleveland Cavaliers selected Isaiah Mowbley. You hear the name Mowbley and you think, hmm, don't they already have one? And the answer is yes! Isaiah is Evan Mowbley's older brother. They've played together at literally every single level. Growing up, middle school, high school, the same college team. And now, they are playing for the same professional basketball team. Welcome to the land, Isaiah, and shout out the Mowbleys.


Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, Ainek Professor Mahmoudya Kubu, has met with the Acting Director-General of the National Youth Service Corps, the NYSC, Mrs. Kristi Uba, towards a successful conduct of the General Elections. The meeting is to officially smoothen out all arrangements for the participation of core members as ad hoc staff in the forthcoming General Elections as NYSC members formed the multitude of ad hoc staff for the Electoral Empire. In his opening remarks, the Ainek Chairman thanked the NYSC for their support over the years, saying it is impossible to conduct elections in Nigeria without the support of the core members. The National Youth Corps members are our most reliable, most readily available, most educated, most patriotic, the largest number of election duty staff in the country, so we simply can't conduct elections without the support of the core members. And this is very important, particularly now that we are introducing increasingly more and more technology in the conduct of elections. There is need to look at the view of the allowance paid to the core members in view of the prevailing economic reality. Also on our part, we have directed all state coordinators to land with DSS and other security agencies to identify crisis-brewing areas in the state and follow the same to be head contact.