Following his boffo turn unveiling the Scott administration’s short-term plan for dealing with homelessness, Commissioner Chris Winters was back before the House Human Services Committee today to go over the FY2025 budget for his Department of Children and Families. The biggest area of concern: the administration’s plan for dealing with Vermont’s homelessness crisis.

Which, as usual, was a sad exercise in prioritizing cost over humanity. And after Winters was done, committee chair Theresa Wood let him have it. “I’m trying to figure out how to be polite,” she began. “We recognize that money is not unlimited, but we think it’s not responsible for us to consider implementing what you proposed. I think that’s exactly what you expected to hear form us.”

Wow. By budget hearing standards, that’s a big ol’ slap in the puss. And I’m pretty much certain that Winters was, indeed, expecting to get exactly that sort of response. By extension it seems likely that Winters himself doesn’t think much of this budget, but he’s a member of the Scott administration and he has to act within its parameters. “I know you receive instructions from the fifth floor,” Wood told Winters, using the customary shorthand for Scott’s office on the top floor of the Pavilion Building.

Winters’ DCF budget presentation (downloadable here) continued the administration’s years-long campaign to end the motel voucher program come hell or high water. It provided a slightly less evil version of Winters’ “There’s going to be a cliff at some point” remark. Instead of a sheer cliff for all, the DCF budget would extend an extremely reduced version of the voucher program while creating a totally inadequate number of new shelter beds, plus thoughts and prayers for those about to be unhoused. The apparent goal, once again, is to avoid a singular and spectacular unhousing event by spreading the pain over a longer period of time. In short, they’re trying to solve the optics problem, not the homelessness problem.

The details. Eligibility for the GA motel voucher program would be capped at 28 days, down from the current 84. As for the adverse weather program, which provides housing for people from late fall to early spring, criteria would be tightened so that only families with children, people with disabilities, and the elderly would qualify. Winters estimated that that would reduce eligibility from the current 1600 people to about 1100. The other 500 would not be eligible for adverse weather housing, not even on the coldest night of the year.

As you may recall, the administration has proposed creating roughly 200 new shelter beds on a temporary basis, from April 1 to June 30. Its FY25 budget would fund continued operation of about 180 beds from July 1 onward. It’s an absurdly small and inadequate plan.

Say, did anyone notice that in his budget address, Governor Nice Guy listed his three top priorities as affordability, public safety, housing? Gee, whatever happened to “protecting the most vulnerable”? I guess that has become, as Ron Ziegler would say, inoperative.

One more note. The GA appropriation assumes a cap of $100 per household per night. Since the DCF budget proposal was drafted, the House included a voucher extension capped at $75 per night. Winters noted that the lower price point could allow for more vouchers in the new fiscal year.

Which is nice, but kind of gives the game away. The administration doesn’t mind housing more people as long as it’s cost-neutral. In short, they set a price tag instead of fashioning a reasonable policy.

The situation leaves the Human Services Committee in the tough position of devising its own housing program, which is not a legislative panel’s strong suit. The administration has battalions of state employees at its beck and call; the Legislature has a handful of lawyers, economists and aides. Today’s adventure in performative budgeting was perhaps a nice diversion, but it leaves a huge amount of work to be done and it throws the issue on the shoulders of the Legislature.