This story, by Report for America corps member Carly Berlin, was produced through a partnership between VTDigger and Vermont Public.
Amid an increasingly heated debate over Vermont’s motel voucher program, Gov. Phil Scott’s administration has rejected a compromise proposal on a midyear spending bill presented by Democratic legislative leaders late Tuesday.
In a terse letter addressed to a key House budget panel on Wednesday, Secretary of Administration Sarah Clark blasted legislators for making their proposal public yesterday “instead of continuing good faith negotiations” with the Scott administration.
Administration officials have continued to push back forcefully against a three-month extension – backed by Democrats – for all unhoused people living in state-sponsored motel rooms, when the emergency housing program’s winter rules expire April 1.
Clark’s letter suggests significantly narrowing which Vermonters experiencing homelessness would be eligible for an extension until June 30. Such an extension would apply to “children with families and medically vulnerable individuals,” and would cover 429 households, Clark wrote. (There are currently 1,429 households in the program).
“This represents a compromise as our experience and spending clearly demonstrate the ‘hotel/motel program’ is a failed program that is not evidenced based, does not protect the most vulnerable and diverts significant resources away from initiatives that would better support these Vermonters and actually solve homelessness,” Clark wrote.
The move complicates the path forward on the annual budget adjustment bill. Scott, a Republican, vetoed the legislation last week, citing two main objections: increased state spending as Vermont anticipates deep federal funding cuts, and the three-month extension for unhoused Vermonters.
In Democrats’ response to the veto on Tuesday, they agreed to punt on the spending decisions Scott had opposed — but held firm in their request to extend the motel program.
Last year, Democratic legislators agreed to new restrictions on the motel program that resulted in a mass wave of evictions in the fall, but after witnessing their impacts, have attempted to shift course. Scott, along with Republican lawmakers, have denounced that shift, calling the shelter benefit a “failed program” that has been expensive and ineffective. Scott’s administration put forward a late-in-the-game proposal several weeks ago to give municipalities $2.1 million to aid people leaving the motels next month, but legislators did not deem it worthy of serious consideration.
At a Statehouse press conference on Wednesday morning, homelessness advocates urged legislative leaders and the governor to find a path forward for the motel program extension.
“Those vulnerable Vermonters, those children, those seniors, those people fleeing domestic violence, those Vermonters with disabilities, are going to be exited into a homeless response system that has no capacity,” said Frank Knaack, executive director of the Housing and Homelessness Alliance of Vermont.
The state’s homeless shelters currently have space for 631 households, and all are full, he said.
But even before Clark’s letter landed Wednesday afternoon, the proposal brought forward by Speaker of the House Jill Krowinski, D-Burlington, and Senate President Pro Tem Phil Baruth, D/P-Chittenden Central, to continue the program appeared to lack widespread buy-in from Republican legislators, who have vowed to sustain Scott’s veto.
The Democrats’ new version of the bill went up for a vote before a key House budget panel on Wednesday morning. The committee advanced it on a nearly party-line vote (one Republican, Rep. John Kascenska, R-Burke, voted for the bill, while the committee’s three other Republican members voted against it).
“I’m really disappointed that we could not come to an agreement on this,” said Rep. Tiff Bluemle, D-Burlington, following the Appropriation Committee’s vote. “This doesn’t feel like compromise. This feels like intransigence on a single issue.”
Read the story on VTDigger here: Scott administration rejects compromise on motel housing funding.