This story, by Report for America corps member Carly Berlin, was produced through a partnership between VTDigger and Vermont Public.
As hundreds of unhoused people in Vermont lose their motel vouchers, municipal leaders are sending a loud and clear message to all branches of state government: take charge of the worsening homelessness crisis, now.
“We see what is about to happen, and we are not aware of the plan” for helping people transition out of motels and hotels, said Bill Fraser, Montpelier city manager, at a Wednesday press conference. “We suspect it’s going to fall 100% onto the local governments.”
About a dozen municipal leaders from across the state gathered at Montpelier City Hall on Wednesday to voice their demands. They called on state officials to immediately open up state-owned buildings for temporary shelters — an intervention the state implemented during a previous round of motel evictions in March — and to oversee sanctioned encampments on state land, among other requests.
The local leaders argued in a joint statement that Vermont’s system for approaching homelessness is “broken,” pointing to a shortage of shelter spaces, transitional housing, supportive services and outreach programs, along with a lack of “accountability for the individuals whose behavior disrupts the lives and well-being of fellow Vermonters.”
The burden of that fractured system has fallen on local governments that “do not have the capacity, the expertise, the resources, or the formal authority” to address the problems that have arisen, they said.
Following a round of emergency housing exits on Sunday, a new legislatively-imposed 80-day-limit on voucher stays will begin pushing more people out of motels and hotels tomorrow.
As of Wednesday afternoon, state officials anticipated that 232 households would reach their 80th night on Thursday, Sept. 19, and more than 400 additional households would reach their 80th night through mid-October, according to Miranda Gray, deputy commissioner of the Department for Children and Families’ economic services division. (Gray noted those numbers could change as people come and go from the program and the availability of rooms shifts).
Everyone currently sheltered in the emergency housing program has previously been deemed vulnerable by the state for one reason or another — because they have children, are elderly, or have a disability, for instance.
“People need a place. And that’s what it really comes down to,” said Rutland Mayor Mike Doenges, speaking about the need for shelters and sanctioned encampments. “There’s a long time between now and adverse weather,” he added – when the program will loosen up eligibility again, beginning in December.
At an unrelated press conference later on Wednesday, Gov. Phil Scott expressed hesitation when asked about these ideas. “I don’t know about state land for camping,” he said. He noted that when the state set up temporary shelters in March, few people made their way to them. (At the time, service providers said many people leaving motels and hotels hadn’t been informed of the shelters’ existence, or lacked transportation to get there.)
Broadly speaking, the Republican governor emphasized the need to “wean ourselves off” of the emergency housing program, which expanded greatly due to an influx of federal funds during the pandemic. “It’s just not sustainable,” he added.
The local officials called on the state to take a more active role in the creation and operation of shelters and to redirect its own staff to help local service providers fill gaps.
They outlined a list of long-term demands they insisted should be a top priority for lawmakers during the 2025 legislative session. Those include new funding for communities that host motel and hotel rooms through the emergency housing program, have shelters or major encampments – all of which the leaders argue have put a disproportionate financial strain on municipalities.
New funding could come from requiring the state to pay local option taxes on hotel and motel rooms through the emergency housing program, said Brattleboro Town Manager John Potter; currently the state does not pay meals and rooms tax, he said, denying local governments revenue to address the increased needs and costs associated with caring for people experiencing homelessness.
They also called on lawmakers to enact policies that will result in more affordable housing, including funding for infrastructure to support new housing, extending temporary exemptions from Act 250, and continuing to invest in building housing and in transitional and supportive housing programs.
Those reforms and investments would take time to have an impact. Fraser acknowledged that lawmakers are not in session, limiting the ability of the Legislature to act with urgency. That leaves action up to the executive branch – which he and the other municipal leaders stopped short of explicitly calling for. But they nonetheless emphasized that urgent action is needed.
If a natural disaster left large numbers of people displaced, “there would be a pretty aggressive action to deal with that, there would be some sort of czar handling the situation,” Fraser said. The situation now “is a crisis” that warrants a similar response, he suggested.
Several lawmakers attended the Montpelier press conference, including Rep. Jubilee McGill, D-Bridport, who is currently co-chairing a task force focused on the future of the emergency housing program. During the legislative session, she had registered her support for bills aimed at streamlining the emergency housing program and expanding funding for affordable housing, neither of which passed.
Faced with the emergency of this latest round of motel exits, she called on the Scott administration to act.
“Unfortunately, right now, the Legislature can’t do anything unless he calls us back or he takes executive action,” McGill said in an interview. “I think the moment calls for that.”
In a separate statement issued on Wednesday, the Chittenden County Homeless Alliance called for continuous shelter for vulnerable households.
“Our systems are not designed to respond to children sleeping in tents,” it read. “Our resources do not include mechanisms or policy to respond to the number of vulnerable people who have no other choice but to live on park benches, car lots, or the woods, because they no longer had access to shelter.”
The letter, signed by the cities of Burlington and Winooski, affordable housing providers and faith groups, “pleads” for “adequate funding to respond to the fall-out of failed policies.”
It ends with a call for compassion: “Above all, we ask community members to maintain collective empathy for our neighbors who are battling daily to survive.”
Read the story on VTDigger here: Vermont towns urge state to open up shelters, camping options for unhoused residents leaving motels.