The scene above is on Elm Street in Montpelier, one block over from Main. It’s a low-lying stretch running parallel to the North Branch of the WInooski River. And it’s one of thousands of similar city and town streets where poor and working class people live.
Or used to, anyway. Where they live now, I have no idea.
Vermont’s cities and towns were largely built along waterways, which were used as open sewers for industries of all kinds. That’s why your typical Vermont town has its back to the river. Nobody wanted to be anywhere near it.
So, of course, that’s where the poor and working class people lived while their bosses took the high ground. You didn’t see any mounds of trash, each one representing a ruined life, in front of the stately homes on College Street, now did you?
And still today, the poor and working class people live in low-lying areas prone to flooding because that’s where the affordable housing is. Those areas are more and more flood-prone as climate change bears its fangs. It’s a huge and largely unspoken climate justice issue that we have yet to address in any comprehensive or meaningful way.
In the meantime, how many of those people have just joined the ranks of the unhoused — just as Our Betters have shut down eligibility to the motel voucher program except in rare circumstances?
We already had the second-highest homeless rate in the country. We’d evicted hundreds of households in June. Our Betters just created restrictive new rules for voucher eligibility designed to get people the hell out of the motels as quickly as possible.
How much of our completely inadequate rental stock is now unlivable? How much is unsalvageable? Do we know?
Maybe it’s too soon to expect that kind of comprehensive survey. But I do know this: There are thousands of Vermonters, or tens of thousands, who had stable housing arrangements on Sunday and lost them on Monday or Tuesday.
Our Betters told us over and over again that they simply couldn’t afford to keep the voucher program open until better arrangements could be made. They enacted a restrictive and punitive extension of the program — and didn’t appropriate any funds to pay for even that inadequate measure. Until this week, we could reasonably expect that there’d be enough money around to keep the vouchers coming. But now?
I know that federal disaster aid will pay for a lot of the recovery. But it will take time. Will we get money to reopen the voucher system? Will we get FEMA trailers? Will we get tents from the National Guard?
Possibly. Meanwhile, there’s a whole lot of unmitigated misery out there.
Oh, but what about Vermont Strong? Neighbors helping neighbors? Truckloads of emergency supplies being donated? People just showing up to work all day in punishing heat?
All true. But an inadequate substitute for a systematic approach, no matter how noble and selfless us True Vermonters might be. And in all the brave posturing at press conferences, we have yet to see how our government will respond to a massive exacerbation of a housing/homelessness problem that was already a stain on our carefully tended image.
Sooner or later, I suspect, we’re going to get a shrug of the collective shoulders. We’re doing what we can, Our Betters will say. We simply can’t afford to do more.
Okay, fine. But two things.
First, please take the same approach to restoring infrastructure and helping businesses.
Second, stop with the platitudes about Protecting the Most Vulnerable. Because you haven’t been, and I doubt you’re going to start now that the scope of the problem has broadened significantly.
Oops, one more. Third, devise a program to create abundant low-income housing that’s not in flood plains.
The Vermont Political Observer. 
“Second, stop with the platitudes about Protecting the Most Vulnerable.”
The first question is exactly who are “the most vulnerable?” in the eyes of “our betters,” as you so neatly put it. It certainly is not the most vulnerable. They are the most disposable in the eyes of “our betters.”
The poor, the homeless, and the flood victims are NOT Vermont’s most vulnerable or most disposable. Unborn babies are. They can be killed right up to the moment of birth for any and all — or even no — reason. That reprehensible piece of legislation was supported by an overwhelming majority of our legislators, and three out of four Vermont voters ratified that decision and approved adding the killing of unborn babies without limit to the Vermont Constitution. A state that has no conscience about killing its smallest and most vulnerable humans who are not politically correct has lost its moral authority to criticize others for not doing right by other vulnerable people groups whose assistance it deems more politically correct. Do you not see the connection, John? If all life is part of a web, the State and you yourself have made exceptions. I am no Bible prophet, but I can’t help but wonder if this flood was some kind of judgment from God following our terrible moral decisions. Those decisions DO have spiritual consequences. God sent a flood to the earth in Noah’s time to punish people for living wickedly. And no, I have no proof that this is what happened here, but trust me, MANY people are asking that question out here. You just probably don’t know any of them. God punished earth with a flood, and Sodom and Gomorrah with fire, for doing wicked things. Vermont has passed several really wicked pieces of legislation recently. We are mocking God and sticking our middle finger in His eye. So call me “over the edge” if you wish, but I have a right to ask the questions and wonder because I know what happened in the Bible in the past. All nations and states who do wicked things are punished eventually. I am just sorry that the people who voted against this wickedness suffered the same ill effects as everyone else. But it rains on the just and the unjust, as the saying goes. Vermont needs to repent and beg God for forgiveness. I am SO sorry for all the flood victims, but I am not God and I had nothing to do with this if it might be part of God’s judgment. I voted NO on the Constitutional amendment. One of the only 25 percent figure who did so. We have not seen the last of bad consequences happening in this state as we move farther away from God each day. I think this state might be under economic and other judgments. And once again, trust me, there are numerous people out here who are asking those questions. You just don’t know any of them (well, except me, perhaps). And you needn’t bother getting mad at me for asking them. I didn’t do it. But did God?
So Saint John, where were you helping the marginalized in Montpelier. Was on the streets for the last 3 days digging your emerald city out of the mud. A casual outsider’s view might call Vermont’s Homeless City. Didn’t see you anywhere volunteering, whether for the marginalized and vulnerable, nor the vermont wellborn you so love to write about. And while Montpelierites were contemplating immediate survival, just down the street in Northfield VT Rep. Anne Donnahue was enjoying a smoothie down Newspaper Cafe. You’re welcome for digging you vermonters out of the stinking mud.
My home was flooded, but thanks for asking.
Your Monpelier home was flooded?
So were the homes of your neighbors, and still many of them volunteered to help others.
That’s the way a society functions.
Who raised you, and where?
You are not the judge of me. I do not have to justify my existence or my actions to you.