Monthly Archives: November 2023

A Thoroughly Grim Outlook on Vermont’s Housing Crisis

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If the above image looks a little fuzzy, thank the limitations of the Legislature’s system for recording and livestreaming its hearings. But it reflects the situation we face on housing: Our public leaders seem small and indistinct when discussing the enormity of Vermont’s housing shortage, and their explication of the crisis was long on broad pronouncements and short on specifics.

The Scott administration’s A-team, pictured above, appeared before the Legislature’s Joint Fiscal Committee and delivered a gloomy overview that has to rank as one of the most depressing events I’ve experienced in my 12-ish years following #vtpoli. Doesn’t quite top Peter Shumlin’s surrender on health care reform or his near defeat at the hands of Scott Milne, but it’s not far behind.

The big takeaway: The housing crisis is even worse than we thought. From top to bottom, end to end, from the most basic of living spaces to the most extravagant, we don’t have nearly enough. Oh, and the epidemic of unsheltered homelessness that Our Leaders assured us was all taken care of last winter? That’s going to get even worse before it has a hope of getting better. And the “getting better” is going to take years.

And the interim solution, if they can manage to pull it off, is a massive increase in emergency shelters, most likely of the congregate variety. That, for a population ill-suited for such arrangements.

Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?

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We Still Can’t Wind Down the Motel Voucher Program

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The Scott administration has published its monthly report on the GA emergency housing program (as mandated by the Legislature), and it’s nothing but bad news.

The report is downloadable (look for “Pandemic-Era Housing Reporting – October”) from the website of the Legislature’s Joint Fiscal Committee, which will take up the report at its meeting on Tuesday, November 7. I suspect we’ll be in for more earnest expressions of concern, sad head-shaking, and fresh statements of determination to find answers.

The numbers tell a story of stasis. Barely any discernible progress in creating new housing or shelter, only the slightest dent in the number of people staying in state-paid motel rooms, and only a relative handful who managed to find alternative housing in October. This, despite an evident push by administration officials to move people out of the prgram, as reflected in the continuing efforts by former gubernatorial candidate and housing advocate Brenda Siegel, who just received the ACLU of Vermont’s David W. Curtis Civil Liberties Award. Her Twitter feed continues to feature stories of people who are obviously and painfully needy, but who are nonetheless losing their eligibility for motel vouchers.

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Responsibilities and Obligations in the Bristol Shooting Case

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There must have been some serious conversations in Vermont newsrooms on Tuesday. Good God, I surely hope so. Because the results were split, unusually: Our three commercial television news outlets and Seven Days chose to reveal the name and face of the 14-year-old accused in the fatal shooting of a fellow teen, while VTDigger and Vermont Public opted to keep his identity out of it.

There is no hard and fast rule in journalism, or in the law. But identifying a juvenile offender is generally approached with great care and deliberation. The Associated Press’ policy is to not identify juvenile suspects, but there are exceptions: “It may depend on the severity of the alleged crime; whether police have formally released the juvenile’s name; and whether the juvenile has been formally charged as an adult.”

At first, this case seemed to fit the AP’s criteria. The suspect was charged as an adult, a conviction could bring a life sentence, and authorities did nothing to guard his identity. In court on Tuesday, he was wearing shackles and a bright red prison jumpsuit.

Problem is, the circumstances may change in a way that would have argued for concealing his identity. The prosecutor, Addison County State’s Attorney Eva Vekos, seems to be struggling to explain her rationale for bringing a murder charge and treating the suspect as an adult.

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