This commentary is by Andre Clark. He is a student in UVM’s Master of Public Health program, and founded a local volunteer organization, Street CATs-Burlington, which provides street-level outreach and partners with local organizations to get clothes, snacks, water and other needed supplies to the unhoused population. He experienced homelessness and housing instability from the ages of 13-25.
Vermont is in a housing crisis. Vermont has the second-highest per-capita rate of homelessness in the country based on the latest data from the U.S Department of Housing and Urban Development. The number of unhoused people is increasing as the motel program winds down, and the state does not have a solid plan in place moving forward. The state recently attempted to open 4 temporary shelters, but the low census count was evidence of a failed strategy to address the housing crisis. It is inhumane to move back to a model of mass congregate shelters.
Congregate shelters put people at higher risk of infectious disease, strip them of privacy and create safety concerns. I have seen the benefits of non-congregate shelter models during my time working in homeless services during the Covid-19 pandemic. I have seen the smiling faces and the renewal of hope in people who are often stigmatized and forgotten by the community. We have an ethical obligation to ensure that people are housed with dignity.
Housing Vermonters requires immediate short-term solutions in conjunction with long-term plans for affordable housing. We need to expand non-congregate housing and ensure medical and social services are included on site. Sanctioned camping on public and private land should be coordinated and allowed throughout the state. Encampments must meet the basic needs of residents including potable drinking water, solid waste disposal and recycling, toilets, handwashing stations and connections to housing and other social services. Building more affordable housing and changing zoning regulations to allow for more housing are important long term.
Homelessness affects people in every corner of the state, and solutions require the collective will of the Vermont community. This is who we are. Vermonters take care of each other, they support their community, and they act when crisis hits. We need to ensure the responsibility of sheltering our unhoused neighbors does not fall on a few select cities. We need to expand shelter options outside major cities; to ensure equitable access to shelter, encampment policies must be enacted statewide.
Opponents of creating more shelters and allowing sanctioned encampments believe they create more homelessness and encourage people to come to Vermont to take advantage of “free housing.” Most of the unhoused population is local, and expanding shelter does not create more homelessness, it creates a pathway to housing. If we do not act, we will be faced with increasingly visible homelessness which creates frustration and environmental hazards for business owners, the local community and tourists.
We need coordinated and collaborative action at the state and local levels to implement short- and long-term solutions to end homelessness. We cannot go back to mass congregate shelters or return to criminalizing unsheltered homelessness. We know that this model strips people of dignity and that it does not reduce homelessness. We have the power to house all members of our community, now we just need the will to act. I believe we are up to the task.
Read the story on VTDigger here: Andre Clark: Ending homelessness is up to us.