Note: This is a sequel to my previous post, reflecting the newly-released September figures for the motel voucher program and the official reaction to it all.

Some people could have predicted this as far back as January if not farther. But the Scott administration and the Legislature insisted throughout the winter and spring that everything would be just fine if we ended the emergency housing motel voucher program on schedule at the end of June.

They were wrong, of course, and they had to cobble together a last-minute extension that minimized the scale of the own-goal disaster. Those who were dumped from the program before June 30 were excluded, and new restrictions were imposed on the remaining clientele that seemed designed to encourage slash bully slash force them to leave the motels as quickly as possible.

Well, during today’s meeting of the Joint Legislative Fiscal Committee, it became clear that administration and Legislature alike now know they have a real, sizeable, thorny problem on their hands, and that many a vulnerable Vermonter has paid a stiff price for their earlier choices. Shocker, I know.

The Department of Children and Families presented the monthly report on the voucher program as required by the Legislature, and it was pretty much same song, different verse as the previous two reports — but with a bit of what passes for good news.

Which is this: An uptick in the number of households that transitioned to other housing. That total was 68 in late August; it’s now up to 126. So we’ve gone from 5.4% success to, um, almost 10%. Still not great, but a step in the right direction. Not reflected in the figures: The quality of the new housing, since clients are required to accept the first placement they’re offered. Really, the low number of out-placements just reveals the scale and intractability of the crisis.

Other numbers. DCF has again raised its official number for the June 30 cohort, the households eligible for the extended voucher program. It was initially 1,250, then 1,266, and now 1,283. Administration officials offered a complicated explanation for the change, which I couldn’t entirely follow because of the poor quality of the Zoom audio.

Anyway. A total of 191 are categorized as having left the program “without notifying the state of their plans.” This is actually down a bit from late August’s 223. DCF Commissioner Chris Winters told the committee that there had been efforts to follow up with the departed, some of whom actually wound up back in the program. Also, a total of 49 households exited due to “misconduct” as defined by motel operators. That’s an increase of 18 from late August.

In short, a nice increase in the number of clients transitioning to other housing, but otherwise the picture remains the same: A program that Our Betters wanted to phase out in June has proven to be utterly necessary and awfully damn difficult to bring to an end without mass evictions.

One other bit of good news: Winters reported the hiring of a contractor to provide more call center operators for voucher clients trying to gain reauthorization for the program. The administration reported that on-hold times peaked in July at three hours, and were almost as high through August. The contractor was hired on September 1. Winters said that average wait times were about two minutes since staffing was improved. (It must be said that housing advocates still report long wait times for clients. Winters said that the onboarding process for operators is continuing.)

Great, but yet another case of the administration delaying action until a situation got really bad — and started getting news coverage. Reminded me of the early stages of the Covid pandemic when the unemployment system crashed and burned, and the administration waited weeks before hiring outside help for its call center. This time, a two-month period with very high hold times should have been recognized as unacceptable much sooner.

Lawmakers also questioned whether the eligibility standards are too stringent, having received entreaties from voucher clients and advocates about vulnerable people being excluded. If you follow former gubernatorial candidate and housing advocate Brenda Siegel’s social media feed, you know that she’s trying to raise money on Venmo to keep seriously disabled people from being kicked to the curb. That shouldn’t be happening. The question over eligibility didn’t really get a direct answer.

Looking ahead, Winters described a state Council on Housing and Homelessness that will spend the next several weeks devising a “tactical action plan” to improve supplies of both housing and shelter — with a nervous eye toward the currently scheduled end of the voucher program next April.

Which, again, is relatively good news. There’s a widespread acknowledgment in both executive and legislative branches that what we’ve been doing isn’t nearly enough, and that new strategies and tactics must be developed ASAP. Some lawmakers, notably including Senate Finance Committee chair Ann Cummings, seemed more than a little chastened by the reality that their policy choices have enabled.

Great, but at risk of beating a dead horse, housing advocates spent the entire 2023 legislative session desperately trying to sound the alarm. Lawmakers took a damnably long time to wake up and respond, and their response only mitigated a humanitarian crisis that could have been averted altogether.

This is not to let the administration off the hook. They carried on with the voucher program until federal Covid relief money ran out, and didn’t develop plans to meet an obvious need for shelter and affordable housing. They seemed to believe that when the pandemic eased, so would the numbers of unhoused. They were wrong, and are now working furiously to make up for their past neglect.

And that’s the takeaway. State officials are finally tackling this problem directly. Whether the new plans will get adequate funding is the next question. Finance Commissioner Adam Greshin has notified all state departments and agencies to develop spending plans for FY 2025 capped at a 3% increase — which, given increasing costs due to inflation and such, would mean program cuts.

Will there be room for a robust and long overdue investment in housing and shelter in such a budgetary climate? I can be hopeful, but I can’t really be optimistic.