Daily Archives: March 19, 2024

Where Did You Sleep Last Night?

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Yesterday evening I did what no member of the press corps has seemingly bothered to do: I visited the the Agency of Natural Resources Annex, d/b/a Winters Hall, one of the Scott administration’s four hastily-assembled temporary shelters.

And this is what’s inside all that steel and concrete: 20 cots, each with its own flimsy plastic-wrapped blanket.

And… well, that’s about all. (There used to be more cots, but some have been removed due to lack of usage.)

Oh, there are three porta-potties just outside the entrance. Because, I was told, the indoor facilities aren’t working. The building was flooded last July, and apparently the facilities have been offline since.

Credit to the Vermont National Guard for doing their best to prepare the space. The shelter was clean and orderly, though it remains disquietingly industrial. There was no sign of flood damage or mold, at least not in the section of the building being used as shelter. The Guard were helpful and polite during my visit. They were carrying out the mission: Responding to situations to the best of their ability with the resources they are given.

But c’mon, this is a disgrace. Don’t blame the Guard; blame the Scott administration. This was their idea.

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Touch a Name on the Wall

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The most important piece among all the missing pieces in press coverage of Gov. Phil Scott’s “manufactured crisis” of mass unhousing is the experience of those displaced people. VTDigger’s preview piece about “Just Getting By,” a new documentary about Vermonters living on the edge, gives these people far more of a voice than all the press coverage of the unhousing combined. And that’s a fucking disgrace on the part of Vermont’s media outlets.

Another missing presence: the on-the-ground service providers who were already up to their necks in helping the unhoused. The governor’s deliberate policy choices effectively rip at the fabric of the social safety net, and he tacitly expects these providers to catch anyone who falls through the holes.

So I paid a visit this morning to a place I’ve driven by about 8,000 times without ever noticing it. Not surprising, since it’s in a nondescript house tucked into a driveway off Barre Street in Montpelier. Another Way describes itself as “a sanctuary for those with psychiatric disabilities.” As you might expect, many of its clients are or have been homeless.

Some of those present had been kicked out of their state-paid motel rooms last Friday, including one couple who actually qualified for an extended motel stay but weren’t approved in time to avoid eviction. They plan to join Vermont Legal Aid’s lawsuit against the Scott administration.

You probably have expectations for what you’d experience if you walked into a house full of “those with psychiatric disabilities.” Well, go ahead and dump all those images out your earhole.

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