The city of Rutland is home to a number of, shall we say, budget accommodations. That’s why Rutland has more motel voucher clients than any other Vermont community… and why it has a big problem on its hands with the end of the voucher program.

According to state data cited by VTDigger, nearly 500 households in the voucher program were located in Rutland. Roughly 200 were evicted on June 1; the remainder will be on the streets as of July 1 or July 29. It’s not too great a surprise, then, that part of the city’s plan for dealing with the outflux is to encourage the newly unhoused to leave town. This is part three of the city’s four-part plan for the June 1 cohort, but the same ideas will be in place for future evictees:

Yep, the answer is to ship ’em out of town. This is nothing new; communities across the country have actively sought to export their unhoused. And I understand Rutland’s position; the state took advantage of its cheap lodging supply and isn’t offering any help in dealing with the consequences. But still. This is not going to help people, it’s just going to shuffle them around.

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