All right, welcome, this is Thursday morning and this is a joint hearing between General Housing and Military Affairs and the House Human Services Committees. We have just all introduced ourselves to our guests as if we were in room 11 in times past. This is our annual Homelessness Awareness Day and we have invited a great number of people to join us to give us an update on the homelessness situation. We know that for the last two years it's been radically different than the previous 30 years in terms of actions trying to mitigate and alleviate homelessness. And so we have you for about 90 minutes and I just want to, I'll just get right onto it and call the first witness, which will be Martin Hahn, Executive Director of the Vermont Coalition to End Homelessness. So Martin, we had David Martin's in yesterday for a short visit as the other half of the new air heart. But if you could just give us a quick introduction to yourself and your testimony, thank you. Great, thank you very much, Tom. As you noted, I'm Martin Hahn, I'm the Executive Director of the Vermont Coalition to End Homelessness. The Coalition's mission is to ensure that all Vermonters have safe, stable and affordable home. And that if homelessness does occur it is brief, rare and non-recurring. And that everyone is treated with dignity and respect. The Coalition works with 11 regional associations of people and organizations working to provide housing and services for those experiencing homelessness. We cover all of Vermont, except Chittenden County. Later this morning you'll hear from Will Towns from the Chittenden County Homelessness Alliance. These regional alliances include paid staff, volunteers, people with lived experience who are at the front lines of a response to homelessness. They are emergency shelter providers, physical and mental health care providers, housing navigators to help people find homes, case managers to support people to successfully stay at home and social workers and volunteers showing up every day to support those who are living in hotels. We are winding up year two of the pandemic and shelter and service staff like many essential workers are exhausted from unrelenting urgency. Unsurprisingly, community organizations throughout the state are having difficulty retaining and recruiting staff. Not to be overly dramatic, but I consider these people doing the work of supporting people experiencing homelessness to be heroes. You'll hear testimony from some of the advocates and providers over the next hour and a half. We are pleased that commissioner of the Department for Families and Children, Sean Brown is also able to join us. At noon, we will be holding a vigil to recognize Vermonters who have died in the last year without a home, a tragedy we should not have to witness in this day and age. I hope you will be able to attend the vigil. For those of you working from the state house, you may have noticed the flags on the lawn. There are 360 flags representing the number of homeless children counted in the last year's point in time count and 2,231 flags representing the number of adults. Homelessness, it's one of the most challenging problems we face in Vermont, and it's also one of the most solvable. The first step to solving homelessness is by acknowledging that its victims are people, regular people, fathers, mothers, sons and daughters, whole families, people who are at hard times and have lost their home. The Vermont Coalition to End Homelessness strongly supports the state's investment in new affordable housing. And we must also increase investment in non-congregate shelters until these new homes come online. Report a dignified, safe, secure, and long-term response to people who are now living in hotels. We support H93, a homeless bill of rights, and H672, which gives families with children a right to shelter. Vermont Coalition to End Homelessness look forward to being your partner in developing and implementing a response that ends homelessness in Vermont. Thank you very much. Thank you, Martin. Commissioner Brown, welcome back. You're making out, you did. Oh, sorry. Good morning and thank you for the opportunity to be here today. I think Martin Hahn clearly outlined you know, the challenges that the pandemic has laid bare regarding homelessness and the impact that the pandemic has had on households across the state becoming unstably housed and the housing market really lack of units and the impact it's having. You know, as of this morning, we have almost 1,440 households and hotels across the state. That's 1,805 adults and 491 children. We have seen a spike in the number of families with kids coming into the system over the last several months. And you know, while we don't have direct evidence, we believe some of it is tied to the eviction ban and with properties being sold and families being asked and households being asked to leave due to the sale of the property. I think we're seeing the impact that that's having and increasing homelessness among family with kids, which is incredibly challenging to see those numbers rise. Although given the challenges we have, you know, the pandemic has really highlighted this issue and brought tremendous focus and energy and attention to it. Not only from, you know, state government, our community partners and others as well. And it's really highlighted and showcased the need for, you know, a tremendous effort to try to address this in the state of Vermont, you know, and with the opportunity on the incredible amount of federal money flowing into the system, I'm actually hopeful that we actually have a once in a lifetime opportunity to really impact and reduce and make homelessness brief, rare and non-occurring for households that experience it. You know, we're seeing hundreds of millions of dollars coming into the state through FEMA, which are helped us pay for the hotel program to keep these households housed through the pandemic from the start through now and then moving forward. We also have hundreds of millions of dollars of rental assistance that will have available to continue to support these households when the FEMA money runs out at some point in the near future. And so we really have opportunities to make sure we continue to keep households safe while the historic investments that the administration and the legislature have put forward last year and are being proposed in the budget adjustment this year and in the budget move forward so that we can expand incredibly the number of units available in this state to ensure that every family and household has a safe place to live. You know, it's actually brought us closer together in many ways. We have the GA working group now that didn't exist before the pandemic. We met yesterday to continue the work of serving the over 1,400 households and motels and create the emergency rental assistance program that the department is hoping to launch in the coming months. So there's a lot of energy and collaboration that's happening that didn't exist at the level that we're seeing now. And with these resources that we're seeing coming into our state, increased collaboration and recognition and definition of the problem and our focus and resolution to move to a solution. I'm hopeful that in the coming years, we will see the fruits of our labor now in our work really start to show and support the families that are homeless now and actually provide the resources so that families and households experiencing homelessness in the future, it's really rare and brief and that we can quickly, stably house them and that we have the services in place to make them successful long-term. And so I'll stop there because I know there's a lot of other speakers but I do appreciate the opportunity to recognize all of our partners here testifying as well who have just been amazing partners during the pandemic. When I've seen our partners do amazing work and provide services in ways that we couldn't have contemplated before the pandemic and I'm honored to work alongside all of them. Thank you, Sean. And I think that that form of appreciation is also comes from us as well. It's really hard to stop and appreciate the work that has been done. That's been herculean and I don't use that word often because we always think everything's so big but this has been a remarkable effort on everybody who's using on this call today to coordinate and try to if not solve a problem then mitigate it to the best of our abilities and the work that your division has done OEO and others who we've met over the last several years it's just been remarkable. And yet we tend to carry the negative of there's still 1400 families and households that need our help and that will drive us through but I appreciate you saying that from the beginning of just really understanding and putting into context the size of the amount of work that we're able to accomplish with the administration and with our service providers. Thank you. Next up we have Paul Dragon. Good morning. Thank you for having me. My name is Paul Dragon. I'm the Executive Director of the Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity. I'm also on the General Assistance Working Committee that Sean referenced. Some of my comments today will reinforce the thinking on that committee and some are the singular expression of CBOEO. First especially on this day I wanted to express my deep appreciation for you the legislators, for our state partners. We deeply appreciate the Department of Children and Families and the Office of Economic Opportunity. I wanna also appreciate all the colleagues around the state as Sean had said that are doing so much hard work on behalf of people experiencing homelessness. I also wanna express deep appreciation and respect for people who are experiencing homelessness and people who lived experience who demonstrate the resiliency and the hope in spite of an economic and social system that so often excludes them. CBOEO is a community action agency with 10 different programs that provide emergency assistance and longer term supports to help people move out of poverty. We work in four counties in the Ship Lane Valley and we also have three statewide housing programs and we have Office of Racial Equity that works statewide. For people experiencing homelessness we provide housing advocacy or case management and we also operated Domestic and Sexual Violence Emergency Housing Shelter. We recently opened the partnership with the city of Burlington, Community Resource Center that has 60 to eight people experiencing homelessness on any given day. And last year with the help of DCF we created a community outreach team that provides emergency assistance and resources for both the unsheltered and people who are sheltered about the Community Resource Center. I try to spend as much time as possible there. We see all sorts of people there, straight, gay, trans, young, old, people of color, people with mental health conditions, people with chronic medical conditions, pregnant women, refugees, new Americans, people with pets and people are working and those that can't. Yesterday while I was there I had several people express their deep appreciation for the work and for our team. I heard lots of laughter. There were several women there. One in particular was extremely anxious. You could see it on her face. There was a man there sleeping after spending the night outside. A young man was playing the banjo in the corner. Another talked to himself for the entire two hours I was there and this past Sunday four guests tested positive for COVID. I mentioned this because the people we see they are a diverse and reflect us and who we are as a society. They are thankful. They are hopeful. They are creative. They are trying to live their lives and they also are anxious, depressed and traumatized because they lack housing. It seems to me that what we do as a society, not just in Vermont, we kind of do a lot of backtracking in our work. We're lost and we're trying to get back to some important starting point that we can't find. I just want to acknowledge that the starting point is a better economic and social model and a set of new values that lift people out of poverty and out of homelessness. Until that deeper national and state challenge is met we must try to do more and do better. So let's commit to keeping people in the hotel system whether it is through federal funding or state funding while we continue to work on more permanent solutions. We've worked hard as the commissioner said to find solutions during this pandemic and we've done extraordinary work with our state partners. Let's not go backwards. Let's try to end homelessness for families close to 500 children are in the hotel system. We know that one episode of homelessness is has a profound effect on adults and especially on children. Many are single mothers on reach out. Let's provide them with direct cash payments. We know public benefits have not kept pace over the decades including the reach up benefits. Let's consider direct cash payments that are in addition to public benefits and provide them with the flexibility they need to improve their living condition. Let's consider a match savings program for some of the funds for those who want it. Let's evaluate the effect of the direct cash payments and its impact on family homelessness. We did a direct cash payment in partnership with the state for people exiting the holiday in, I think there were 35 people. It wasn't a formal evaluation but anecdotally, those small direct cash payments helped people resettle after leaving the holiday. Let's do that for families. Let's create regional emergency housing facilities based on the hotel model until there's more permanent housing online. We all know that the hotels are full at this time. The sites could provide wraparound services. There could be municipal buildings. There could be a committee that can help to find state buildings to get this done. I know the Office of Economic Opportunity, part of DCF put out an RFP. I think that's wonderful. They are addressing this. I do know resources are an issue. CBOEO would have loved to respond to that RFP. We just do not have the capacity now to create a regional housing emergency housing facility. But we should continue that work. We should invest more resources in the emergency shelter system. And I should say that the state is doing that. We need to move away from congregate settings to single resident occupancy model where people have their own space. They should be operated 24-7 with services on site so people don't need to leave during the day. We need to increase the wages and benefits of shelter providers. And that's already starting to happen and that's a good sign. The continuity and staffing that Martin referenced is so very important for people who are working with people with chronic mental health, substance use, and medical conditions. We should require or incentivize more state-funded agencies to do more housing advocacy or case management. There are not enough providers in the service system that focus on housing as part of their therapeutic and medical work. Housing is a social determinant of health. It should be a focus in terms of time and resources for healthcare providers. Let's make better use of our network of community care homes, all levels including nursing homes. We know there are many people living in hotels who need skilled nursing level of care or even assisted living. Let's develop a response for those individuals. Let's create more community outreach teams. We have had tremendous success here in Burlington with our outreach team. Let's create more community centers in populated areas. Our community center here not only provides computer access, phone access, hot meals, it is an important place to build community and have people who are typically isolated connect. This is a therapeutic response in and of itself. Let's create more specialized housing options, recovery housing, quasi-assisted living for people who are homeless. If we can't get them into the community care facilities, those with medical and mental health need more care than can be provided in the hotel system or in the shelter system. Let's allow for safe campsites and parking sites. It's unconscionable when we don't have enough rooms or enough places for people to stay that we keep moving them from one site to the next rather than provide services. They should not have to be moved from a parking area or at least there should be safe parking areas and safe camping sites. We need to help resource the general assistance housing program and their staff. They do an amazing job. They're part of AHS and DCF and they are quite frankly tapped out. Some of our folks are waiting an hour, two hours, sometimes more trying to get into a hotel system. Let's resource them properly. Let's invest more in landlord and tenant mediation to avoid evictions. That is really important going forward and let's eliminate no cause evictions. No cause evictions give landlords immense power over tenants. We talk to people here at CBOE every day through our fair housing program. People are threatened with eviction for no specific reason. That's unconscionable. Legislature should pass the bill banning no cause evictions. And please pass the rental housing safety bill. This is a bill that increases the health and safety measures for vulnerable Vermonters, including people who are precariously housed. We do not want them to slip into the space. I wanna thank you again for inviting me here today. It's with deep appreciation for all you do and all the work we do here in Vermont on behalf of the most following. Thank you. Thank you, Paul. Next up, we have Robert Little from Rural Edge. Welcome. Thank you. Good morning. Again, my name is Robert Little. I serve as the director of community development with Rural Edge, the primary affordable housing developer in the Northeast Kingdom. So good morning representatives Parsons and Troyano. Good to see you. I also serve as the secretary for the Vermont Affordable Housing Coalition. In my role at Rural Edge, I oversee communications and resident services, including our community building and engagement in SASH programs. I know these days at the beginning of the legislative session are full of individuals and organizations advocating for the diverse needs of many Vermonters. So I wanna begin my testimony with some successes that Rural Edge has experienced thanks to your efforts these past two years. In summer 2020, using CARES Act funding, we were able to rehab seven units of housing in downtown St. John'sbury, all of which released to families off the coordinated entry list. While we shared the concerns that concentrating seven families totaling 27 people, previously experiencing homelessness could create issues. As we learned the stories of these families as well as having the assurance that NECA, our local community action agency would provide the support of services, our concerns moved to optimistic opportunity. One of these families, for example, a blended family of six was burned out of their mobile home six months before becoming a tenants. While parents continued to work in the food service industry in Littleton, New Hampshire, commuting with only one vehicle, and the parents would take turns making sure that their children stayed on top of their remote learning at the height of the pandemic, all while living in a motel. Their perseverance at this most difficult time in their lives has continued throughout their first year of housing with us. And along with the other six households, all have retained their housing, in large part due to that network of support provided to them. Fast forward to 2021 using BHCB funding, including some ARPA funding, rural Edge was able to purchase the bright look apartments in the four seasons neighborhood of St. Johnsbury. Most of the tenants of this 18 unit former hospital are elderly and the previous owner kept rents below market value with no subsidy and no leases. So when the property listed, there were multiple offers from out-of-state developers. If one of these developers had purchased the property, rents would have increased dramatically, causing some of these residents to possibly be priced out of their housing. The owner of the property did not want to see that happen, so he was willing to speak to rural Edge. So we made the case to BHCB, who awarded us the funding to purchase this property, ensuring its perpetual affordability. We are already in the process of upgrading some of the systems at the property. And as part of our funding, we are going to do a full-scale rehabilitation within the next five years. So as part of the conditions for the ARPA funding, we had to set aside two units for those currently experiencing homelessness. With that, we were able to place a 97-year-old World War II veteran who was experiencing homelessness. He found himself homeless in a motel because after several years at 97 years old, he decided he could no longer live in the camper with no running water on his son's property. His income couldn't quite support the market rent at Brightluck, so we lowered the rent until he can secure a voucher through his Veterans Affairs caseworker. He's already become an active member of the Brightluck community and has become friends with several other residents, including a 90-something-year-old widow next door. These are successes worth celebrating. But while these successes give us great hope, there is no shortage of challenges that housing providers face when housing those previously experiencing homelessness. The funding for wraparound services that are needed for so many are not adequate to serve the needs that we face as housing providers. When individuals disengage from their service providers or the period of wraparound services in that program that got them housed has concluded, it ultimately falls on the housing providers to address the issues these residents face when they're in times of crisis. While our staff are incompetent and go above and beyond the duties of their job descriptions every day, the fact is that we are not trained to address the diverse needs that come with housing individuals previously experiencing homelessness. We do have a service coordination model in our SASH program that works effectively for over 500 people in the Northeast Kingdom alone. However, this program is limited to those who are Medicare eligible. And even with that restriction, Rural Edge historically has had to subsidize the program out of our operating budget. There have been efforts at developing a family SASH or a SASH for all model, but the funding for that program has not been secured long-term. But even without that funding, we have used a similar model at our 48 unit Mountain View Housing in St. Johnsbury combining our existing SASH and community building and engagement program staff. Over 50% of the residents at Mountain View have moved from homelessness. And our services have helped build an intentional community where residents feel safe and supported. If funding for family SASH or a SASH for all were available to us, we could expand our offerings significantly by expanding our SASH staff to cover Mountain View and our other larger multifamily developments. SASH, which provides preventive nursing services and robust service coordination through non-profit housing developers, allows us to serve as a first point of contact for our residents and members of the greater community in communicating with doctors, case workers, and others along with providing food security services and regular wellness assessments. This model further positions us to address housing stability issues as they arise. This program simply works and it needs to be funded at a higher level to become more readily available for all, especially as the needs of residents increases. As great as my SASH team is, they need the support of local service providers to deliver those direct services, especially mental health services, effectively and regularly. Without these service providers, our service coordination services have few places to turn to, which decreases our effectiveness and increases the burden on us when residents are in crisis. Without these services, despite our best efforts, sometimes we have no choice but to proceed with addiction, which is something we don't wanna do and it defeats the purpose of setting aside units for those experiencing homelessness in the first place. As a housing provider, we see funding for supportive services as of equal importance as funding for the housing itself. This is a significant time in our history. Not only to alleviate the burden the housing crisis has created in our state, but to change how we view ongoing support once we secure housing for those most in need. Any efforts you make in the development of affordable housing and those accompanying services has a direct impact on the effectiveness that rural edge and the other affordable housing providers in our state can have on the communities we serve. So thank you so much for your time and efforts and at addressing the needs that everyone here is presenting to you today. Thank you so much. Thank you, Robert. Next up, and I apologize if I don't get your name quite right, but we have Hannah Henschen who is the Director of Transitional Housing and Washington County Youth Services Bureau. Did I almost get you right? That's close, good name. My name is Hannah Henschen. I am the Director of Transitional Living Programs at Washington County Youth Service Bureau. I work with youth between the ages of 16 and 24 who are experiencing homelessness or who are at risk of becoming homeless without immediate intervention. I want to start by thanking you all for this opportunity. It's the first time to speak to legislators about the population I serve and what they are facing. I'm here because I want to make sure that among everything you hear today, you also hear about the homeless experience of our youth as they face different challenges than other homeless populations. Whether you realize it or not, we have youth in every county of our state who are sleeping outside in tents, living in their cars or crashing on different couches every night because they have nowhere else to go. I first want to speak to the cause of homelessness. Some youth are kicked out because their caregivers do not agree with their life choices, whether it's in regards to sexual orientation, gender identity or simply their decisions around employment or education. Others are left homeless as they age out of the foster care system with no clear plan and no family to turn to. Some run away from their homes because of abuse, neglect or substance use that is happening in the home. For families who struggle during normal times, this pandemic has added even more strain to already tenuous relationships and situations reached their breaking point where youth were simply told to leave. I have seen other youth forced out of their homes because of financial hardship. Their parents simply cannot afford to care for them anymore and if they are 18 or close enough to it, their parents should show them the door. Financial hardship has become more of a problem as parents have been laid off due to the pandemic and struggled to access unemployment or as they have been forced to miss work because they have COVID-like symptoms or were close contact with someone who tested positive. Regardless of why they end up homeless, these youth have found themselves with nowhere to call home and that is really the only beginning of their problems. Every youth I have worked with has had a rough start to life. They have not had loving families who taught them basic life skills. They have not had supportive adults who guided, encouraged and believed in them. They have never had the chance to succeed. They lack the most basic skills like how to clean an apartment, grocery shop, do laundry or cook a meal. Not only do they lack basic life skills, but most of these youth have experienced significant trauma. I've worked with youth who witnessed frequent violence in their homes. They suffered constant verbal attacks as well as physical and sexual abuse or severe neglect since early childhood. Adding to that trauma is the constant uncertainty and fear that this pandemic brings. As a result, these youth carry a trauma response around with them like a backpack. They become easily irritable, are suspicious of others, have difficulty following through with tasks, feel tired all the time and have difficulty focusing. These things become a barrier to every goal a youth sets for themselves. The exhaustion, depression and anxiety they experience gets in the way of their learning and can make it nearly impossible for them to be successful in school or to show up regularly for school or work. The irritability they struggle with can give them a short fuse when frustrated so they just end up dropping out of school. They quit jobs frequently and end meaningful relationships. These youth are often alone having burned every bridge ever offered to them and they are lost. They didn't drop out of school or quit their last job because they are lazy. They're doing the best they know how to do yet we expect them to finish high school, hold down a job, maybe even two, find their own apartment and then live independently on their own ignoring every barrier they must overcome. Unlike some who experience homelessness, handing a youth a housing voucher isn't the solution. Even if they had the skills to succeed in independent living, which they don't, they are frequently unable to secure an apartment. We all know there's not enough affordable housing options in our state and in Washington County right now it is nearly impossible to find an apartment for a reasonable rate because we overwhelm the market with CARES vouchers. When an apartment does become available, landlords are flooded with applications within days of posting the unit and out of all the applications they receive, landlords are not going to choose the youth who has never had a lease in their name so they have no housing references, they have no credit history and minimal work history if any. Adding to the unlikelihood that they'll be offered an apartment is the stigma around how youth might act while in an apartment, not following the rules outlined in the lease, having a lot of guests and throwing parties using substances, playing music loudly, disturbing other tenants, the list goes on and on. So youth are skipped over for apartment after apartment even when they have a voucher that would pay the entirety of their rent because they are not currently working. I have youth had, sorry, I have had youth give up their vouchers because no matter how many hours they've spent looking for an apartment, how many applications we filled out or how many units they went and looked at, they were never offered an apartment and they felt it just wasn't worth it to keep trying. So instead, they continue to couch surf, begging friends and family to let them spend just one more night on their couch, constantly having to look for the next available bed and when they can't find one, they sleep in their cars or outside. They end up only being able to focus on finding a place to sleep that night and getting food to eat. They are in full survival mode and do not have the bandwidth to focus on anything except surviving. Education becomes a luxury they can't afford. These youth become an easy target for adults who take advantage of them in exchange for a place to stay. I have heard over and over again that youth I work with should just get a job and I understand that not everyone gets the privilege of having these youth be vulnerable and open with them. Youth have shared their heartbreaking struggles with me in a way that humbles me and it allows me a perspective on why they have a hard time finishing high school and securing and maintaining employment that most will never have. I feel honored every single time a youth trust me enough to share their experience. I also often feel frustrated with the lack of resources available to meet their needs. And even with the limited capacity I have to serve the large homeless youth population in this county. Right now I have more than 30 youth on my wait list. That's at least 30 youth who are homeless or who will be soon whom I cannot serve because I simply do not have the capacity. They don't just need housing vouchers. They need the wraparound intensive case management. They need someone to show up for them, to guide them, to give them consistent support like they've never had before. If they do not learn the basic life skills they lack, get connected with and receive mental health treatment for the traumas they've experienced and have someone to advocate on their behalf when they face discrimination in the housing market, what chance do they possibly have of getting out of homelessness? When support is available, it does make a difference. I worked with one youth. When I met her, she was being housed in a motel through economic services. Her daughter had been removed from the home by DCF. She had dropped out of high school and was unemployed. I helped secure her a rapid rehousing voucher through the Youth Homelessness Demonstration Program, and she has now been stably housed for over a year. She has graduated from high school, secured part-time employment and has regained full custody of her daughter and they are both doing amazing. I'm not here because I have all the answers on how to address youth homelessness but because I can shine a light on the unique challenges that these youth are facing and help to dispel some of the misconceptions about why youth become homeless and why they struggle to get out of it. My hope is that as you move forward and make decisions, you will keep in mind that there are youth in every county of the state who are struggling. They're doing the best they know how to do and still they are homeless. They are lost, unsure where to go or what to do. They need guidance, but more than anything, they need compassion. We cannot ignore the discrimination they face, their fundamental lack of basic life skills and that backpack of trauma that they're carrying around. We have a responsibility to make sure that they are not forgotten just because they are young and able-bodied. I wanna just thank you again for the opportunity to speak and share, speak for the youth in our state. Thank you so much, Hannah. Next up, Martina Newell. Welcome. Hello and good morning. Oh, I froze, I think. Hello and good morning and thank you to the Vermont Coalition to End Homelessness and the Vermont Affordable Housing Coalition for allowing me to provide my testimony for Homeless Awareness Day. Also, I'd like to thank the members of the House General Housing and Militaries Affairs Committee and the House Human Services Committee. My name is Martina Newell and I'm the Direct Services Manager for the Samaritan House in St. Alden. The Samaritan House provides emergency shelter, on-site hotel staff and housing case management to people experiencing homelessness in Northwest Vermont. Our mission is to empower people experiencing homelessness in our community to access safe housing and support. We believe that safe housing is a human right. I have worked at the Samaritan House and served in this community for the last three years. I can confidently say that not one day is ever the same. So explaining our day-to-day operations is kind of like trying to fit a circle into a square. However, what I can say is that when clients that walk through our doors, they are hoping that we can help provide them with a sense of security. An overwhelming majority of our clients have no other resources to turn to and that is why they enter our doors, looking for our help. They lack support from family or friends, those who are unable to provide their means during their time of need. From our administrative offices to our shelter or transitional housing, our clients are supported through their challenges. Our staff participate in many roles during one client interaction such as advocate, resume builder, scheduler or even mediator, et cetera. All of these barriers have to be overcome while they focus on trying to find affordable and permanent housing. Our goal at the Samaritan House is to make our services as easy and accessible for all as possible. As a first-generation college student, a person of lived experience with homelessness, a cancer survivor and a single parent of a six-year-old, I know how necessary a system of support is needed for survival. I am forever thankful for the support that I've received from community organizations or state systems such as VSAC, Samaritan House, Economic Services and CVOEO. Like many of our clients, I had to reach out and rely on this assistance to help me navigate my way through those barriers that are caused when dealing with housing or financial insecurity. When you lack security, you feel vulnerable and it takes away your sense of independence. This is what makes organizations like ours and others providers in our state so crucial. We are here to restore that for our clients and help them take back their independence. In closing, I'd like to leave with you the most important part of this testimony and what really convinced me to look beyond my fear of public speaking. I'm here to ask for your continued support of funding that gives shelter providers or community-based organizations the stability to deliver to clients the services that they truly need. As the world adapts, so does the needs of our clients and the circumstances that they face when experiencing homelessness. Their situations become more complex and require more resources from designated agencies. It is extremely important that we are able to retain those services that have been proven successful as many as the people before have discussed in detail about and to retain our staff who carry historical knowledge of programs and service delivery. As an almost film major in college that I was, I'd like to present a visual from one of my favorite movies, hopefully you all seen it, National Lampoon's Vegas Vacation. There was a scene where he takes his family into the dam and he's looking around and he starts going through the tunnel and he's looking at the rocks and he picks a rock and all of a sudden water starts pouring out. He goes over and you start to try to patch it up with the gum that's in his mouth, but to his horror more and more holes open and water starts shooting out. The gum he takes keeps filling up with water and then he just starts using everything and anything that he possibly can to fill it up including his gum wrappers. So this visual is an analogy of what it's like to try to serve a growing population of clients year after year. Each year there are more holes which represent clients and their complex needs. These holes which may at one time have been able to be fixed with bubblegum aka our services such as a day in the emergency shelter or a few weeks, a phone card, a hot meal are now filling up with water, which are clients with extensive mental health diagnosis, major health conditions, traumas or even extensive substance use. The gum that we used to use is no longer effective and without more solid materials we are unable to eliminate those problems altogether. This is true when budgets change and our funding or programs are eliminated. What doesn't change though is the constant flow of clients that come through our offices and those that we serve. We are faced with more clients who need more resources, which then turns into more staff. More staff requires more time and more organizations which are small like ours that have a staff of 12 struggle to find the ability to keep up with our need. Our hope and what we wish for as you continue is to see legislative priorities that match the need of our organizations that allow us to maintain and increase our stability to have adequate access to funding, affordable housing options for our clients, benefits and salaries to retain our extraordinary staff members and the ability to create systems which are accessible to our clients that they can continue to use even as they're stabilizing and permanent housing. We appreciate the resources that have already been dedicated to permanent affordable housing and just ask that you recognize the urgent need that is still needed in the meantime while those are being developed. We do wanna thank you so much for all the hard work you've done in the last year and for taking the time out to hear our testimony. I do look forward to working together in the future as we continue our work to help end homelessness. Thank you. Thank you so much, Martina. We'll now be watching that movie with a completely different viewpoint. Thank you. Next up, we have John Parran. John, are you with us? Will you be able to come on screen or you, John is a veteran who has experienced homelessness and Ron, if you may be able to unmute Ron or John. He has to unmute himself, I can't do it. Okay, can you hear me? I can hear you, John, welcome. Thank you. I'm grateful to give this opportunity to give my testimony for one person who has lived in and out of motels and homelessness. The programs that I am in, pathways and SSBA have taken me from living in a condemned room in a motel through the state in New York to living in a one bedroom apartment at the Juniper house. This is the first time I have ever lived in an apartment that I can actually say I was the first person to take a shower in my shower. And I think the organizations that have helped me, it's not just the one organization, it's a group of people. And in order to get that, the people that I have worked with, I believe are the front runners in getting me where I'm at today. Like I say, from going from homelessness to addictions and stuff and now living in a one bedroom apartment is so awesome. It was a God sent to me, it was a blessing. But in order for all of these organizations to work together for me, so I did not become homeless and live on the street on our couch serving, you have to be willing to do some of the legwork, not very much, but in the organizations that I've worked with, it's not just the organization, it's the individuals in these organizations that are like guardian angels to me, because if they wouldn't have worked so hard to work together and me putting my trust in the people that I didn't really know, it was a little difficult. But then I came around to the more that they know about me and my situation the better off I am, and the better off that they can help people with the same issues that I have. And I think people who have experienced this are people that should be talking to other people about what the programs have done for them. Because a lot of people don't trust some organizations because they have been put with the back burner and stuff, and that to me is not right. So I mean, and the five people that I have in my group through Pathways and SSDA, like I say, they didn't look down on me, they helped me with, when I moved from New York to Vermont, they helped me with my housing, with my state insurance, my mental health. I could not believe that within a year going from a condemned room to living in a one bedroom apartment, a brand new one bedroom apartment. And like I say, these people that I worked with that worked with me, the funding and the community, they need to find more housing like the one that I'm living in. I know Burlington has a lot of vacant buildings that they can be doing this with. And the people in these organizations need a lot of help because they are, in my opinion, are helping so many people that one, they could be understaffed because everybody's leaving to go do other things. But the people that I had stuck by me and it was just like I say, this was the God sent to me. I mean, these homeless awareness organizations need the help, they need the funding. They need the people to help understand that homelessness is like the pandemic. Okay, if somebody has a drug issue or a criminal past and stuff like that, I agree with some of the people that have spoken before me that one, they're getting labeled because they don't have any type of references. And one thing, one lady was saying that she has teams that don't have any social skills or whatever. And I think if they team up with people who have been in their situation, the older people who have been in their situation, I think it would come across not just as a case manager, but as a friend, as a colleague, because when I was homeless, there was a group of us and we all stuck together to make sure we were all okay. And that helped tremendously. And I think the funding for these programs is a necessity.  But you can put a big debt into it. And these organizations that are helping these people, that's what they need.  And I mean, like I say, I've gone from living in New York and their social service department, their solution was to send me to Albany, check me into the VA hospital under mental health issues, and then basically pawn me off to somebody else. But SSVF stepped in and within two days of me talking to a caseworker, my new caseworker, she had gotten me from, like I say, a cockroach black mold infested apartment, which the state was paying to the quality in in Platsford. It was like going from the planted cabin to their new home. I mean, I felt like I struck oil. I mean, and when I moved to Vermont, it was the same way.  I mean, and I think it's awesome that my agency that I worked with is the same agency, the same person that I was working with in New York. And when I came to Vermont, I worked with him also. So I got a new group of people and understanding what the process is is a big part of what people need to know. And if people don't feel confident and the people that are trying to help them, it's not gonna work. And as far as I've got a buddy that's homeless and he says, he's allergic to sheet rock. He doesn't wanna live in a motel. He wants to live in a tent. And I think camps need to be looked at more, but housing these people is essential to what the homeless awareness programs are all about. I just wanna say thank you to the committee for giving them this time to get my testimony. I hope this helps a lot more people. And I am, like I said, I am so grateful for the programs that have helped me get into this brand new building and living my life, not on the streets, not addicted to drugs, being independently and my healthcare. I mean, just for example, like my A1C when I moved to Vermont was 13. something. Okay, now that I'm living in an apartment, I have a stove, an oven and a full-sized refrigerator. My A1C is under eight. So I mean, it is, I mean, one organization can help tremendously with the homelessness because it gives people the ability to fend for themselves. And I think if they join organizations or if each organization kind of interlaps with each other, I think that the homelessness will drop tremendously. You can't just put people in a motel for six months and then all of a sudden say, oh, okay, June, it's warm weather, we're gonna kick you out and you guys can defend for themselves. And then call whether it's again and you have all the same problems. I think housing and organizations with SASH, because the building I'm living in has SASH coordinators, a SASH nurse. I mean, and these people are here to help everybody. I mean, I live in a 70 apartment building. There's like 84 of us, 55 and older, but I think combining the youth with the elderly would be a great option for some of these kids because teaching them responsibility, cooking, cleaning, making appointments and all that stuff. During the summer, I went to city hall park and I talked to people about, why don't you get into these programs? Well, because there is such a long list of people and a short number of people that can help them, again, I think the organizations are underfunded, undermanned and they need to really look at what the long term is gonna be, not just the short term. And again, I just wanna say thank you to the committee for allowing me to testify this morning. I hope this helps the homeless awareness groups because as one of their participants, I am grateful and I am so blessed that I was one person that I can actually say I'm a success story in these organizations. Well, thank you so much, John.  I think we are all grateful and appreciate your story of getting through on your journey so far. And thank you for sharing it. Thank you for your service to the military. Thank you for sharing today with us. An incredible story and very important for us to hear from someone who's been through this ringer and gotten to where you are. Well, and I won't say it was a short journey, but it wasn't a long, tough journey because my case managers knew that I didn't want to live in motels. When I moved to Vermont, the first thing I told them, I'm tired of living the motel life. I want my own place. And again, when this place opened, brand new, I was one of the first people to move into this place. I mean, we have gotten boxes. We have community help with everything, so. Thank you. Next up, we have Reverend Beth Ann Mayer, MD, from Vermont Interfaith Action. Beth Ann, welcome back. It's good to see you. Thank you. I sound a little over-credentialed there. I wouldn't have put all those letters there, but I participate in faith-based community organizing through Vermont Interfaith Action. And I had arranged to have two people use this space in the testimony who are living the experience. But sadly, today they are both quite ill with COVID and can barely speak. Fortunately, they're on the downside of their illness and I think they'll do well, but it's gonna take them a while. I'll attempt to faithfully represent them. This was an outbreak of COVID that happened within their motel. They've been living in GA housing for over 20 months. And they want me to tell you how very, very grateful they are for having the hotel housing available for the privacy and the warmth of their motel rooms. But there have been problems. They've been arbitrarily moved from motel to motel at times in this 20 month period. They've been moved away from their families, their healthcare providers, their connections to social services with very limited access to transportation. So this is a struggle for all of the people who are living in motel housing. For over 20 months, they've tried to meet their nutritional needs with a motel mini fridge and a microwave. They are people that have spent their working careers in low paying human service jobs as AIDS and mental health in nursing homes and in childcare. And their homelessness is the result of that lifetime on the margins of poverty without any reserve. I'm a retired pediatrician and I have watched families struggle on the border of poverty in Vermont for over 40 years. Many of the decisions made within the legislature have directly contributed to their struggle. Many have helped, but many have directly contributed. Among them, we continue to make decisions that allow people to go to work all day and not earn enough to meet their family's basic needs. We've continued for over 20 years to underfund our housing system and allow our housing to become unsafe and inhabitable. And now there is no place for, and we own that outcome. Homelessness for over 2,000 Vermonters. We have a moral responsibility to see them through this time with dignity and safety until permanent affordable housing is available. 20 years ago, I sat in my office seeing a previously healthy eight-year-old for the third time because abdominal pain had caused her to miss several weeks of school. Before I consigned her to the many thousand dollars worth of medical studies that I can enact with my pen, I asked her for the third time if there was anything happening in her life that was unusually stressful.  And they would not be able to keep their child's beloved pet and they would be homeless within two days. So stomach aches and children are not a new problem in Vermont and homelessness is not a new problem in Vermont. And it is often just being on the wrong side of a lucky roll of the dice that causes a family to tumble into homelessness. I often wonder where that child is now. Did the trauma of homelessness snowball through her life? How has it affected her children's life? How much has that one episode of homelessness cost the state of Vermont over the last 20 years? So I urge you to make decisions that are proactive, not reactive. Make decisions that you want to see for a healthy Vermont 20 years from now. As Paul Dragon said, those without homes right now are diverse and they reflect us. They are grandmothers, they are grandchildren. They are our sons and daughters. And they are us and reflect all of our abilities to make poor choices as well as to be resilient. Many in hotel housing have the skills and desire to turn vacant buildings into well-run group homes. We need to tap into the skills and abilities of those with lived experience and enlist them in the solutions. Meanwhile, we make these three requests. Continue to not only provide emergency housing support until permanent housing becomes available, but immediately stand up living spaces that are safer, healthier and more responsive to their needs. Address the safety issues that are escalating in many of the hotel settings. Within one hallway, we have elderly, disabled and vulnerable individuals as well as people prone to violent and predatory behavior. Create an ombudsman for those that are engaged with government and nonprofit services as they try to find a place to live. They have been engaged in the struggle and stress for over 20 months. The service providers have similarly been struggling and are stressed. We absolutely need to celebrate the triumphs when some of those have become housed, but we also need to listen to those who have not. Mistakes have been made, confidentiality has been breached. People need a point of contact to hear their stories and bring them to you, the decision makers. Thank you. Thank you Bethanne. Next up we have Angus Cheney, the executive director of the Homeless Prevention Center in Greenland. Welcome back Angus, good to see you. Thank you so much. And thank you very much members of the committee for the opportunity to talk about homelessness in Vermont today. And for all the eloquent speakers who have preceded me, it's great to see you. I agree with Martin that the work you're doing is heroic. And it's nice to see that you're how you're meeting the challenge in your communities. For the record, my name is Angus Cheney, executive director of the Homeless Prevention Center. We're a community-based nonprofit which has provided housing assistance and essential services to people in Rutland County for over 20 years. And last year we assisted 634 of our monitors who were homeless or at risk of homelessness. Locally we chair the local continuum of care for Rutland County. That's one of the groups that Martin mentioned and that Will will speak about in a minute. And our services reach people at all points along the continuum of care from homelessness to stable housing. So to go quickly through our list, homelessness outreach and engagement, assessments, homelessness prevention and rapid rehousing, youth housing navigation, housing case management. We have a few emergency apartments. We do some transitional housing and we are partners in some permanent supportive housing for both single individuals and adults. I wanna actually just focus on one thing today. I just wanna focus on one of those partnerships, one project with a great local partner. And this is something new. So we continue to run the programs that I just list but through the support of the legislature and the administration and working together in the federal government, we have been able to bring more resources to the challenge. And so what I wanted to talk about today just with a focus on new projects and partnerships is called Lincoln Place. So Lincoln Place has been in the works for at least three years now and it's really now just starting to hit its stride. It is permanent affordable housing. It's developed by the Housing Trust of Rutland County. It really is their project to come and brag about. So if you feel inclined, invite them to your committee later in the session and Mary Cohen can speak more eloquently to this complex project. So that's permanent supportive housing to house 19 households, mostly singles who are income eligible for the Section 8 program. It's a former school. It was connected to one of the local Catholic churches and it's on Lincoln Avenue, hence the name. So 10 of these units are gonna be for people who are currently homeless in Rutland County and half of those 10 will be for people who are chronically homeless. I speak to the math quickly because I think it's really important as we develop new housing for people that are homeless that we take the step to integrate it into neighborhoods, into other buildings that we don't just create a building that's all for one type of person or all for one type of need. That's your really courting stigma, I think, if you do that. The remaining units will just be for people who are income eligible for Section 8. Tenants began moving into Lincoln Place in late November. As of today, with a lease up happening today, 14 of those 19 will be leased up. The services model. So services are available on site and are optional, not required. So we have our organization has people there, the homeless prevention center, we're more of a focus on housing case management and we're involved most at the front end of identifying people who are appropriate for it interested in this model, helping them with housing case management while they're there and through quite a bit of work that happens before somebody can actually move in through interview application appeal if necessary. Rural and mental health services also has a part-time person on site to offer access to the other programs in our portfolio but also just to have sort of a non-clinical, what I call non-categorical case management. So a non-clinical presence, which can help create some community around meals and activities, the rental subsidies. So that's it's project-based section eight rental assistance through our local Rutland Housing Authority and some of those vouchers are mainstream vouchers. Those are targeted to people 18 to 62, I think it is with a disability. So the key local partners and there are so many more but I'm just gonna go through the sort of the ones that have been involved from early on in the planning stage, I know there are many more. So Housing Trust of Rutland County is really the lead. They are the developer owner and manager. Rutland Mental Health Services is there to offer those optional services as I mentioned. Rutland Housing Authority, they bring the subsidy. Homeless Prevention Center, we're doing the screening assessment outreach application interview appeal, lease up, move in and then housing case management once people are there. And the Bouse Health Trust and that's a local, that's connected to the local hospital here and they have helped support our work in the whole profession center. Through some of those items I mentioned as well as getting the little office there set up and supporting a three year evaluation of this project. The idea is let's make this the best thing we can and learn a lot from it. And then we've got a kit that might be out there if other communities are interested in replicating. So we're already sort of learning things and I think just the planning process has been really educational for me. The big focus is gonna be sustainability. I think people, there's a way people approach something when it's in that sort of theoretical and then there's, what really matters is once you're actually operating and you have tenants and it's not going great because there are times, right? How do you cope with that? How do the partners plan for that? So I just made a couple of quick notes here in terms of already, we don't have an evaluation done yet but just the sort of the things I'm making note of if folks are interested in how this model might work in your community. I think it's really key to establish clarity at the outset and what the project is and who it's gonna serve. Once we have people in mind we can bring a lot of understandable emotion to why can't this person get that? Why? And it's really understanding at the outset who the program is intended for. Have your debates early. Assume there's gonna be conflict and build a partnership which is strong enough to weather that. Establish clear roles in communication between organizations and within organizations. And then just briefly on the physical space. I really commend the trust here that that's the housing trust of Relic County for their work as they were designing this to really make this client centered and to learn even from other supportive housing models in Vermont about shared space for instance that tenants often don't want a big cavernous multi-purpose room that can feel overwhelming. They're looking for more cloistered spaces throughout the building where small conversations twos and threes. So that was an interesting and that played into the design. I have a comment here about embrace idiosyncrasies. So this is a mid-century school building. It's at the center is a large gym and a stage and it's historic. And rather than try to hide that and cover it with sheet rock, they've embraced that and they're gonna maintain at least half the gym and the stage. And there you have a sort of a natural core to build some community around. It was, I also think that the physical space even though we weren't the lead on it, the housing trust was great about asking us what our clients were gonna want, what we were gonna need as staff there. And it was pretty neat to when Mary Cohen came to me with sort of, so what's the wish list? What do you need? And we were able to offer some input on lighting. Let's have lighting that makes people feel good about themselves, not depressed. Let's have a lot of windows and let's have meeting rooms that feel more homey and less clinical. And then most importantly, can we get a foosball table there? I didn't think she'd actually take me serious on that. So it was a treat at the ribbon cutting on November 2nd to walk in and see there was a foosball table that pretty much had my name on it. I wanna leave you with one quick story because all of this, who, what, when, where and why, you can't see it yet. And so I just wanna leave you my last visit over at Lincoln Place. It's sort of half moved in. It has that feeling of a college dorm room in late August, early September as people are returning from the fall. And a couple of, by great staff and I were over there meeting with two of our clients and dropping off new pots and pans and dishes and things that they'll need for their new home. And in one gentleman's apartment, we walked in beautiful. So high ceilings, lots of light, everything's clean. They did a fantastic work, the builders. And it's such a positive feeling space. And he was looking good. He was dressed up. You would not know this man was homeless and he's been homeless a long time. Appreciate the state that they've kept him in a motel. So he would make it safely through until then.  I could tell it's almost like, is this real? It's like pinch me, is this real? Am I really in, this guy's been almost a long time. I'm just gonna say that again. And he is in this beautiful light filled, high ceiling room that's clean, that everything works in and it's all his. And he's got a lease, he's a tenant. There's no sort of transitional thing here. But we could tell he just needed a little time. He's got some mental health issues that he copes with. He copes really well with that. But we could tell he just needed a little time. We went down the hall, we met his neighbor. And when he learned there was a foosball table, we couldn't hold him back. And in a pretty short order, we were playing doubles in the gym on the foosball table and talking about our favorite classic rock bands. And it is so cool to meet these guys. I don't meet enough of the people we work with. And just those little glimpses. That's what I wanna leave you with. Once somebody's housed you pretty quickly, you wouldn't know they were homeless. That's the, a big part of our mission is, not only helping people ending homelessness, but ending hopelessness. And that's, and I saw real hope in those two guys there today. So thanks again very much. I probably talk too much, but thank you very much. Thank you Angus. Got national influence vacation and foosball. That is real good indicators of today. We'll finish up our testimony with Will Town from Spectrum. Will, welcome. Awesome, thank you. And I would echo the sentiment that foosball tables are very effective as a youth provider with multiple drop-in centers. Well, thank you very much again for granting me this opportunity in this time. I will do my best to keep this brief and not duplicate what others have said because we heard a lot of great and powerful testimony today. So as mentioned, my name is Will Town and I'm the director of housing and operations at Spectrum Youth and Family Services in Burlington, as well as the chair of the Chittenden County Homeless Alliance. For those of you who may not know about Spectrum, we are a youth serving agency with programs, including shelters, drop-in centers in both Burlington and now St. Alvin's mental health and substance use counseling, which has expanded exponentially over the last year due to significantly increased demand. We have a social enterprise, which is a car detailing business that employs the youth that we serve, as well as a multicultural youth program, mentoring program, and a number of different case management programs. In fiscal year 21, we served around a thousand individual youth across all of our programs, but today we wanna focus on those who are actively experiencing homelessness. As we have heard from the testimony today, as well as the news over the last year plus, homelessness is an issue that we have not come close to solving and the youth population is one that is not immune to this. I'd like to tell a story about an experience of a youth and just everything that he has gone through and is currently going through and how that has impacted his life as well as our staff. So this youth came to us by being discharged from a mental health facility and ended up at one of our shelters. His first day arriving in Burlington, he was so motivated and enthusiastic that this was his opportunity to make a positive change in his life. He felt like it was a welcoming environment, that there's the support necessary for him to really take forward steps. Step number one for him was getting a job. So he walked down the street to a business I was hiring and asked for an application. I actually happened to be in this business at the time that this happened, getting lunch. So this is witnessed by me. When he asked for an application, they laughed at him and told him not to bother while simultaneously standing next to a sign advertising that they were hiring. He did nothing wrong. He was polite. He was professional. But the reasons for that I can only assume this was his first experience after coming to us and it was devastating to him. From that point on, this youth continuously expressed hopelessness, feeling like he was worth nothing and that nobody was there for him. His behaviors began escalating as his mental health deteriorated, resulting in violent outbursts, suicidal ideation and threats and severe self-harm. One evening, I left the office and found him screaming in the parking lot while cutting himself. At this point, we felt like our only option was to get him to the hospital. Despite his refusal and assertions that these institutions and systems had failed him all these years, as we found out while a minor, he was bounced around for many of the residential treatment facilities and hospitals in the state, never feeling like his needs were being met. After spending the night, we spoke with the hospital who agreed wholeheartedly that he needed a much higher level of care than what we were able to provide in our shelter. The only problem was he was now 18. He would not meet the threshold to access such a program. And even if he did, there were 30 other people in the ED waiting on those beds. The only option was to simply discharge him back to our shelter. I wish that this story was unique. But it is something we are seeing more and more often, people who need high levels of care ending up in shelters or hotels or on the street where the ability to provide that level of care is impossible. For us at Spectrum, it is hard to watch this happen. Our goals are to help youth develop life skills and move on to independent living. How can we expect this of people that are never given any chance, whether it is by employers or the systems of care that are in place to help them? This story is a singular example of a youth experience. And while youth are significantly disadvantaged, these issues are shared across all populations. As chair of the CCHA, I routinely hear from our partners in Chittenden County that they are stretched to their limits in our nearing and breaking point. As an example of the demand providers are experiencing, the last time I was given the data, there were around 600 people on the Chittenden County coordinated entry list, which is a list of people experiencing homelessness that are waiting for housing assistance. As you know, there's an extreme staffing crisis right now. COVID has impacted our census and crucial positions remain open for months at a time without barely any applicants. We are having the same conversations with our frontline staff about housing that we do with our clients. And it is hard for us to justify them doing this work when the bagel shop down the street pays $20 an hour. We are all tired, we are all burnt out, and if we don't make changes quickly, we are at risk of not being able to deliver services at all, let alone the ones that go far beyond our intended scope of work. To summarize, I just ask that when we think of our homelessness response and strategies, we look at the entire system of care and we work to find something that is effective and sustainable for those that we serve, as well as those that are providing services. Thank you for your time and attention today, all of your hard work and your compassion as we continue to navigate these uncertainties. Thank you. Thank you, thank you all, each and every one of you who took time out from your lives, from doing the work of trying to find homes and not just houses for those who do not have a home. I think this has been an incredible morning where two legislative committees that work together are hearing from, we heard from state government, from private nonprofits, from providers, from people from advocates, and importantly from people with lived experiences, either in person or their stories. All of this was really important and helpful and will inform our work going forward. And some of you we may be asking to come back again. I notice that many of you were very articulate and if you were not speaking off the cuff, but in fact we're speaking from remarks that were prepared. If you would share those and send them to legislative council, Ron Wilde or Julie Tucker, we would appreciate that really greatly. I wanna say I know that many of us on our two committees welcome the invitation to join at noon. The virtual vigil and committee members, both House and Senate. You can find the link to that on your email. It was sent by VAHC and I tried to forward it to you all. So it's at the top of your list right now. Again, I wanna say thank you. This is a problem that is solvable, but we haven't figured it out yet. And we are here to take steps forward. So thank you, thank you all very much. And this ends the hearing today for Homelessness Awareness Day.


It's going to be from there, sorry. It's going to be two handed. You can't mess with this. All right, I'll load it. Mitchell, careful. Got to go.


over the water clear, back to the left. Okay, three o'clock right now. At the door. Boomerum in. I was at the door, Boomerum in. I just, a little halfway up. All right, they're at the door.