Two crises. Both involve the concept of “housing,” but they are not the same and we should not confuse the two. Which seems to be the willful intent of the Scott administration heading into a legislative session in which housing will be near the top of everyone’s priority list.
Remember the administration’s big presentation to the Joint Fiscal Committee in November? The one I called “a gloomy overview that has to rank as one of the most depressing events I’ve experienced in my 12-ish years following #vtpoli”? The whole intent of that presentation was to conflate the two crises and, well, subtly shift the focus toward housing and away from homelessness.
Administration officials have continued on that track ever since. The starkest example of this was the opinion piece co-authored by Human Services Secretary Jenney Samuelson and Commerce Secretary Lindsay Kurrle that focused almost entirely on housing policy and virtually ignored the rolling humanitarian crisis of unsheltered homelessness that state policy is creating.
I suspect we’ll get a heavy dose of the same in Gov. Scott’s state of the state address on Thursday. And we shouldn’t fall for it.
The housing crisis is hurting our economy, making Vermont far less affordable, and discouraging people from moving or staying here. It is a real crisis. It merits serious, concerted action to boost housing of all kinds.
But the homelessness crisis is far more immediate. It’s literally a matter of life and death. It’s a moral stain on our brave little state. The latest numbers (from January 2023) indicate that Vermont has the second-highest rate of homelessness in the country — and although we did relatively well at that point in time on preventing unsheltered homelessness, it’s virtually certain that we’re doing much worse now and will get even worse over the next several months. That’s because of the grim, deliberate phase-out of the motel voucher program, which has been largely responsible for our high rate of sheltered homeless.
Furthermore, the potential remedies for our two crises don’t really overlap that much. The housing crisis is going to be a long-term grind, a matter of changing public policy in ways that encourage housing. The homelessness crisis is crushingly urgent. At that November hearing, DCF Commissioner Chris Winters talked of creating 1,500 new shelter beds in less than six months. That’s a huge undertaking. Chances are it’s impossible. And we haven’t heard a peep about progress in the two months since then.
The voucher program is set to expire completely on April 1. The administration opposes any extension. I sincerely doubt that, in a tight budget year, the Legislature is going to have much stomach for throwing more money at the program. Will we have enough shelter beds? Will they be of any quality at all, or are we talking about mass numbers of cots in large indoor spaces?
There are solutions. There are ways to get this done. But it’s going to take real focus and determination. It shouldn’t be subsumed into a larger housing agenda. Eyes on the ball, folks.
The Vermont Political Observer. 
Great point, John. Irene
Vermont has spent more than $455 million in the last six years on its homeless citizens. The state pays nearly $60,000 per year to house just one homeless person in a motel. Emergency care visit cost on average $3,700; that’s $18,500 spent per year for the average person and $44,400 spent per year for the highest users of emergency departments in Vermont. The State of Vermont pays approximately $100 per day for each homeless, or unhoused person. The human costs and the costs to Vermont’s children and to Vermont’s future are incalculable.
A human body can be cryogenically frozen and stored indefinitely for as low as $28,000 by a commercial company. Surely, as we have the nation’s most popular governor, the State of Vermont could realize far greater efficiencies of economy. Freezing and stacking our neighbors like cord-wood is clearly not a permanent solution to homelessness in Vermont and is at best temporary. Such a project does allow Vermonters to do what they do best and that is to do nothing while pretending to do something, while feigning concern or moral outrage and ultimately passing on the responsibility to others at some other time.
The proposal could be funded off the state books as it were. Vermont’s legion of nonprofits that already soak up millions of dollars annually with no apparent return on investment could sponsor “unhoused” individuals, or indeed, entire families to be frozen, thereby increasing economy of scale. Local Vermont businesses could sponsor the freezing of those presently almost frozen anyway in the middle of a Vermont winter, who are presently defecating and fornicating in stolen tents outside their very doorsteps, or the woman and her child who were sleeping in the Montpelier visitors information center on State Street.
It is now over 100 years since the Vermont Legislature passed it’s first proposed eugenical sterilization law, which was later enacted into law. Despite sterilizing over 2,200 Vermonters, peaking in 1966 (yes, that’s documented) the dehumanizing brutalization of Vermont’s most marginalized citizens never accomplished anything other than the forced brutalization of other human beings and the attempted genocidal extermination of entire social classes in Vermont.
The Vermont Senate and House are back in their first session of 2024 today. Let’s this start this year off right and present a bill in the legislature to get the freeloading homeless, who are presently living the good Vermont lifestyle for free in a generously subsidized existence, off of the scenic hallowed streets of Vermont.
Freeze the Homeless!
Now this is real outside-the-box thinking.
An excellent proposal, one which incidentally provides you with a ready supply of fresh meat to feed the unfrozen whenever needed. Simply go out back to the pile and pry a small one off. For “A young healthy child well nursed is, at a year old, a most delicious nourishing and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked or boiled; and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricassee or a ragout.”
“that is to do nothing while pretending to do something, while feigning concern or moral outrage and ultimately passing on the responsibility to others at some other time.”
This is not just in Vermont, but this is the American way of thinking.