In one of his novels, Vermont’s own crime novelist Archer Mayor chose the well-kept, comfortable town of Middlebury as the scene of a Hollywood-style gun battle with the goodies and baddies firing away at each other as they drove through the center of town. Many years ago I interviewed him about the book, and he confessed to a certain sly pleasure at foisting his fictional violence on that tony, tweedy community.

Well, now the good folk of Middlebury are suddenly experiencing, if not volleys of hot lead, an uncharacteristic feeling of insecurity. And we can lay this directly at the feet of state leaders, executive and legislative, who have failed to come to grips with our crises of homelessness, substance use, and mental health.

Remember last winter when housing advocates predicted dire consequences if the state were to end its emergency motel voucher program, and warned that the short-term savings from killing the program would be far outweighed by the costs of dealing with the fallout?

Welcome to Middlebury, where unhoused folk are camping on public land. There have been incidents of vandalism. People feel unsafe. Merchants are installing cameras and exterior lights and worrying about lost business. Police are overextended. Helping agencies are struggling with too many cases and too few resources.

It all came to a head at the October 10 meeting of the town selectboard, viewable on YouTube and recounted quite skillfully by John Flowers of the Addison Independent in a story entitled “Local Merchants Rail Against Uptick in Downtown Crime.” And rail they surely did.

The discussion was sparked by a brace of letters to the selectboard from downtown merchants. In written and spoken testimony, many offered sympathetic noises about the unfortunates in their midst, but made it clear that they wanted the problems resolved by any means necessary. John Flowers:

They pointed to specific cases of their businesses’ windows and doors being smashed, illegal dumping, the theft of cash, campfires wafting smoke into outdoor dining areas, threatening, harassment, stalking, car vandalism, public nudity and drinking, trespassing and other infractions.

The meeting is a case study in the psychological and emotional toll on a community unaccustomed to the kinds of unpleasantness they normally experience only at a safe distance, like on TV or in the pages of a Joe Gunther novel. It’s not so easy to be even-tempered when it’s on your doorstep.

And so, alongside concerns for the welfare of the unhoused, we heard a real live actual reference to “terrorism,” courtesy of realtor Amey Ryan. Her comments were made before Hamas’ attack on Israel, so not as tasteless as they now appear. But still, “terrorism”?

There was also an unhelpful commingling, in the minds of merchants and others, of homelessness with misbehavior, vandalism, threats, and substance use. It happens when people feel insecure. Especially those accustomed to high levels of security.

In fact, most of the unhoused are there because of unfortunate circumstances. Well, circumstances plus official state neglect. Heidi Lacey of the Charter House Emergency Shelter said the unhoused are just as upset as anyone else with those committing crimes, and added that “They just want to be safe.”

Little nuances like that tend to get lost in the fog of fear. Officials cautioned that there are no easy or quick fixes. You can’t just make inconvenient people disappear or — unlike in the Good Old Days of the eugenics movement — pre-emptively commit them into perpetual custody.

So, tempers are already short in Middlebury, and solutions are both elusive and beyond the powers and resources of town officials faced with the anger of their constituents. Where this goes from here I don’t know, but I fear it won’t be anywhere good.