I won’t try to convince you that I hate to say “I told you so,” but it’s true that I hate to have to tell you I told you so. Way back on March 26, when legislative leaders were assuring us that the end of the motel voucher program was being prepared for, that there’s no way we’d actually leave thousands of Vermonters without shelter, I wrote this:
When we see pictures of mass evictions, stories about struggling Vermonters suddenly tossed into the void, and coverage of human service providers despairing at the chasm between demand and supply, the Democrats will not be able to shirk responsibility for it.
Well, today was Day One of The Great Unhousing, and our print and broadcast media are full of stories about people having nowhere to go and pictures of desolate evictees surrounded by their possessions. VTDigger: a distraught young woman sits on a curb with hastily-packed items in bags on the pavement and no idea where she’s going. The Bennington Banner: an older woman loads her belongings into her car, where she’s planning to sleep into the indefinite future. WCAX: a young man says he’s “probably [sleeping] in the street.” Channel 22/44: A young mother says “we don’t know what’s next” and “it’s terrifying.” WPTZ: A middle-aged man talks of “reaching out to friends, seeing if anyone has a room available.” The Rutland Herald: Small towns in Rutland County struggle to prepare for a possible influx of the unhoused. Vermont Public: an outreach worker in Burlington describes a demand for tents, cooking supplies, and other necessities of outdoor living.
Oh, and also on Vermont Public: vaunted nice guy Gov. Phil Scott talks of how “some choose to maybe set up a tent somewhere.”
“Choose.” As if they were given a choice. Good God.
(Vermont Public’s story, by the way, quoted shelter organizers and other helpers plus the governor, but gave no voice to the actual homeless.)
The story is, as predicted, dominating the local media and squeezing out other state political news. Various Vermont Democrats took to Twitter today boasting of policy accomplishments elsewhere, and Scott tweeted about preparing to launch his meager paid family leave program; no one paid much attention. Scott and House Speaker Jill Krowinski both issued “Happy Pride” tweets, which seems bitterly ironic on a day when both should be ashamed over the beginning of The Great Unhousing.
We’re also getting a nice little burst of bad national publicity. The Wall Street Journal has a story about Vermont deliberately unhousing scores of people, highlighting the story of a woman who fled from an abusive relationship and is about to lose the temporary shelter she found in a motel. The Nation today posted an essay by 2022 gubvernatorial candidate Brenda Siegel “publicly pleading with the party that chose me as its standard-bearer to reverse” course on ending the voucher program. Two weeks ago, Fox News ran a piece highlighting a working couple who can’t find affordable housing and are likely to start living in their car.
This is the narrative, locally, statewide and nationally: Vermont, the deep-blue home of Bernie Sanders, is doing the unthinkable: it’s kicking the stability out from under its most vulnerable residents. State officials like to claim that the unproven remote worker grant program has more than paid for itself in good publicity; well, now we’re getting a hell of a lot of negative press.
Still, the immediate impact of today’s unhousing has been at least moderated thanks to the frantic efforts of local nonprofits, the spreading out of the mass eviction over the next two months, plus a handful of unlikely heroes: owners of some participating motels have offered free 15-day stays to their voucher clients. This includes two of the major motel participants in central Vermont, and that’s likely to keep most clients in the area sheltered until mid-June.
But despite all the best efforts of a lot of dedicated people, the beginning of this process was random, chaotic, shot through with uncertainty, not to mention cruel and destructive. Housing stability is a prerequisite for people seeking to craft a solid life foundation, get and keep a job, and protect themselves and their families. We’re taking that away from people who most need our help. If the harm is being spread out over several weeks and isn’t quite as bad as it might have been, the fact remains that all of this is unspooling exactly as predicted and none of it was necessary.
It was a choice made by our political leaders to be penny-wise and pound-foolish, and ignore the moral imperatives that ought to guide them in their deliberations. It is our shame, and it should come as a surprise to absolutely no one.
The Vermont Political Observer. 
Our state government owns this one. It is their fault and they will have to eat it, all of it. What’s really sad is that, except for those reps/senators going against the grain, so many of the democrats we through were our friends turned out to be our enemies. We will remember this in 2024.
The very reason this and many other recent legislative developments in this vein are happening (think the unaffordable heat act or the child care tax) is that, indeed, people who are in love with the idea of a deep blue state who constantly votes to send socialists like Bernie Sanders to Washington are voting for socialism in Vermont. And this is what socialism looks like. When we vote to place a supermajority of far-left Democrats and Progressives in Montpelier, we will get socialist legislation and the totally false compassion of socialism in return. Just wait. The effects on ordinary Vermonters haven’t even begun to be felt. Not just homeless Vermonters. All of us. We will all be eating Marie Antoinette’s cake very soon. Stop promoting leftist liberalism and socialism in Vermont by our votes and then complaining about the results. These legislators are out-of-control socialists. We are looking more like Venezuela every day.
As a stranger and Californian dropping in to comment, and being honest, a socialist as well, I wish to say that this isn’t socialism, but it is neoliberalism.
Too often our politicians use the soft, friendly façade of what can be called democratic socialism, but drop the mask and show their true neoliberal face, which supports acts of brutality in the name of money. The modern Republicans are just more honest about it.
Oh look, here come the fascists out of the woodwork.
Not that this one would know Socialism if they ever live long enough to receive Social Security. Vermont is not dominated by socialists and this isn’t what Socialism leads to. This is out of touch capitalists who can’t be bothered to help the poor and unhoused because they are too busy with their own “Hard Work” virtue signalling.
“You keep using that word… I do not think it means what you think it means.”
Also, I don’t know who told you that Democrats are “far-left” or that “leftist liberalism” is a totally real and not made-up phrase, but they are having a belly laugh at your expense right now. Your “side” is playing you for a fool.
So, Touch Grass, what do YOU think the word socialism means? Democrats ARE far left. They are been drifting to the left for years. Please. This state elects a leftist Democratic Socialist to federal office year after year, as just one example. Socialism and far-left-ism are contrary to the U.S. Constitution. Vermont policies are NOT constitutional. And if “far left” or “leftist liberalism” is a made-up phrase, then so is “ultra MAGA Republican”. That last phrase was coined by Democrats.
I volunteer to deliver food to some people housed in these motels in Brattleboro. I have no idea how many of them will still be housed on my route today. The staff at the food bank are scrambling to figure out where to send food so that people on the street can get it. Maybe we will start delivering to the tent cities Scott seems to be advocating. A wretched decision by everyone involved.
Ouais!
Qu’ils mangent de la brioche!
Qu’ils mangent de la sirop d’érable breveté du Vermont!
Qu’ils mangent du fromage Vermont!
Qu’ils mangent des montagnes vertes!
Stop whining, Vermont. Stop blaming the very facile banal vacant unaware deluded virtue-signaling self-serving apathetic incompetent politicians that you elected and support and continue to reelect and send to U.S. Congress.
I’ll donate a tent to help out. It has Governor Phil Scott’s name emblazoned on the side. It’s his for the keeping if he agrees to live side by side with those Vermonters who have also “chosen” to live in tents on the streets of Vermont until January 1, 2024.
Vermonsters created this dehumanizing tragedy.
Be proud, and own it, Vermont!
And Vermonters — be sure to wave to those who are “unsheltered” when you pass by those tents full of homeless families who “choose” to live in a tent under an I91 overpass.
“And this is what socialism looks like. ”
How many democratic socialist countries have a homeless problem as bad as ours?