Category Archives: Housing

This Is the Easy Part

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Gov. Phil Scott is getting positive reviews for standing tall in the public eye, projecting an aura of confidence and strength, displaying leadership in a time of crisis.

All good things, to be sure. But I remember in 2011 when his predecessor Peter Shumlin got the same kind of plaudits for his handling of Tropical Storm Irene. But it turned out that Shumlin was a much less skillful administrator in the absence of a crisis. From this I learned that crises are not the true test of a leader. You need definite skills in such moments, but they are not the same skills that make someone an effective manager in “normal” times or a visionary who can steer the ship of state in a positive direction.

Phil Scott’s true test will come after the immediate crisis, when he will have to learn the right lessons from the Flood of 2023 and craft policies to minimize the chances of similar disasters in the future. And to do so even if it means re-examining his own beliefs and preconceptions, something that hasn’t been his strong suit in the past.

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Have Our “Most Vulnerable” Become Our “Most Disposable”?

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The scene above is on Elm Street in Montpelier, one block over from Main. It’s a low-lying stretch running parallel to the North Branch of the WInooski River. And it’s one of thousands of similar city and town streets where poor and working class people live.

Or used to, anyway. Where they live now, I have no idea.

Vermont’s cities and towns were largely built along waterways, which were used as open sewers for industries of all kinds. That’s why your typical Vermont town has its back to the river. Nobody wanted to be anywhere near it.

So, of course, that’s where the poor and working class people lived while their bosses took the high ground. You didn’t see any mounds of trash, each one representing a ruined life, in front of the stately homes on College Street, now did you?

And still today, the poor and working class people live in low-lying areas prone to flooding because that’s where the affordable housing is. Those areas are more and more flood-prone as climate change bears its fangs. It’s a huge and largely unspoken climate justice issue that we have yet to address in any comprehensive or meaningful way.

In the meantime, how many of those people have just joined the ranks of the unhoused — just as Our Betters have shut down eligibility to the motel voucher program except in rare circumstances?

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Sure, Hundreds Have Been Unsheltered, But Let’s Not Forget the Real Tragedy: Important People Have Had Their Feelings Hurt

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There’s a great deal of desperate history-rewriting going on after the disheartening political debate over emergency housing. Everybody is shifting blame. No wonder; the outcome was not a solution to the crisis, but a patchwork of compromises intended to carefully balance the suffering of the unhoused against the comfort level of Our Political Betters. It’s nothing that anybody can take pride in.

The Scott administration is blaming the Legislature for, I don’t know, failing to defy the governor’s insistence on ending the program as scheduled. Legislative leaders who were happy to kill the program until it got too embarrassing are now blaming the administration for failing to plan a transition, which is true enough but doesn’t absolve Statehouse leadership from their failure to heed the warnings coming from housing advocates and, well, people like me.

There’s one thing both sides can agree on: The real villain is Brenda Siegel.

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Why Don’t We Govern As If People Mattered?

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Two stories on a common theme appeared Monday morning on VTDigger. The first was about a “spate” (their term) of deaths in Vermont’s prison system, mainly at the Springfield facility. The second was about another rise in opioid-related deaths that puts us on track to break the all-time record set in 2022.

In both, I heard echoes of the lamentable deal struck by the Legislature and Scott administration for a partial extension of the motel voucher program — an extension loaded with poison pills. Not only does the program leave 800 or so households without shelter, it also makes the voucher experience as unpleasant as possible for its clients from now on. Who are, just a reminder, some of Vermont’s most vulnerable. You know, the ones Gov. Phil Scott likes to say he’s committed to protecting. Echoes also of a fundamental approach toward human services programs for the poor: Make the experience difficult and unpleasant so recipients are incentivized to GTFO, one way or another.

It’s like a soup kitchen that dumps vinegar into its food because if it tastes good, people won’t be incentivized to get their own damn dinner. Mind you, not enough vinegar to make anyone sick; just enough to discourage them from partaking unless they’re truly desperate.

This approach is all too common in our social programs. It’s a lousy way to meet the needs of our most vulnerable. It’s morally questionable, and if you’re not into the “morality” stuff, it’s also counterproductive in terms of financials and outcomes. People suffer needlessly and face tougher barriers to achieving self-sufficiency, which I think is what we’re supposedly aiming for.

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This Is Not Going Away

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One of the lesser aftereffects of The Great Unhousing (Abridged) is the fact that the fine old Vermont pastime of “camping” is now a euphemism for “no shelter for YOU!” So there’s that.

Otherwise, I’m sure Our Political Betters are hoping that the issue will Just Go Away, Already now that they’ve managed to squeeze out a partial, inadequate offramp for the motel voucher program.

News flash: It’s not going away. We may have avoided unhousing 2,000-odd households, at least for now, but we’ve done nothing for the 800 or so households who were kicked out of their motel rooms this month. And the deal between the Legislature and the Scott administration sets the stage for a drip, drip, drip of unhousing over the next several months due to the mean-spirited restrictions put on the extended program. You know, avoid the big one-day eviction events, the media doesn’t notice, the unhoused disappear into their cars or unsanctioned campsites or wherever the hell they go as long as they go somewhere, and the political headaches are manageable.

That’s right, our goal is not to help the vulnerable and alleviate suffering, it’s to keep the issue off the radar. But some of us are planning to keep making noise.

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Vermont Democrats Spend a Pleasant Tuesday Slappin’ Around the Most Popular Governor in the Country

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Well, that didn’t take long. The Legislature had scheduled a three-day session to try to override the eight vetoes delivered this year by Gov. Phil Scott. Turns out they only needed one single day.

In that day, the Legislature overrode five of Scott’s vetoes and deferred action on the others. They failed exactly zero times. They didn’t come close to failing. Five overrides in one day sets an all-time record and, as Lt. Gov. David Zuckerman pointed out in a post-session press release, “In Vermont’s history, there had only been 14 veto overrides. With these five overrides, the legislature has increased that number by more than 33%.”

All in a day’s work. Facing down the most popular governor in America.

Oh, and there was also the indignity of attaching metaphorical training wheels to Scott’s administrative bicycle. In the bill to extend the motel voucher program for some recipients, the Legislature imposed strict reporting requirements on Team Scott, as if lawmakers didn’t trust the admin’s ability or inclination to do its frickin’ job.

I mean, all they had to judge by was two years of administration failure on that front. No wonder they’re demanding receipts this time.

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The Voucher Deal: Better Than Nothing, Worse Than It Ought to Be

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On the eve of the Legislature’s veto override session, we now have the text of the bill extending the motel voucher program. It’s more or less what we thought it would be; its biggest shortcoming is the exclusion of the hundreds of Vermonters unsheltered this month. Ain’t a damn thing in it for them. And as we saw earlier, these may not be the neediest of our neediest, but they’ve got some pretty extreme needs and they’re going to suffer greatly as long as they’re unhoused.

The real sin of it all is that it wouldn’t cost much to include them, and we’ve got the money. Our fiscal experts continue to forecast revenue declines in the future, but for now we’re still collecting more than predicted every month. And the FY2024 budget puts $14 million in cold storage against future federal match opportunities. That seems like prudence except that we always find money for federal matches! Wait, let me put a little stank on that:

We. Always. Find. Money. For. Federal. Matches!

Missing out on federal largesse because we couldn’t come up with the scratch? It’s just not a thing that happens.

Banking funds against that highly unlikely occurrence while we’re sentencing hundreds to indefinite unsheltering? That’s a goddamn crime.

But this deal is almost certain to go through. It gives the House dissidents most of what they asked for, and they’re likely to give in and support the override of Gov. Phil Scott’s budget veto. Well, most of them will. The rest, in the world of legislative dealmaking, don’t matter. Nor do the unhoused who aren’t being helped.

So let’s take a closer look at the bill, including a few unexpected and unwelcome twists.

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When They Start Making Deals, Remember the Lives of Real People Are at Stake

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The Legislature’s veto override session convenes tomorrow. Multiple override attempts are likely, but the biggest deal is the FY2024 budget. With some Democrats and Progressives on record saying they won’t support a budget override without funding for the motel voucher program, leadership is putting together a plan to bring the dissidents back on board.

And in the process, rescue some actual living humans from the scrap heap we’ve consigned them to.

As best we know it, leadership’s plan would allow extended motel stays for the roughly 2,000 Vermonters scheduled to be unhoused in July. But it offers nothing to the hundreds who’ve already been evicted from motels — some on June 1, some last Friday.

These are people who can supposedly get by without state-funded shelter. But when you look at their circumstances, you realize two things: (1) These people are in desperate situations, often through no fault of their own, and (2) they have hopes, dreams, intelligence, and insights. They have value. They should not be discarded simply because it’s too hard to help them. When, in fact, it’s not too hard. Not at all.

The reality of the people we have chosen not to help has been chronicled by, you guessed it, housing advocate and 2022 Democratic gubernatorial candidate Brenda Siegel. She’s done the hard work of speaking with the folks we have abandoned, something the state hasn’t bothered to do. I’ll attach her findings to this post, and go over some key points after the jump.

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They Said It Couldn’t Be Done. Seriously. Over and Over. Guess It Was All Bullshit. (Updated)

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I don’t know exactly what changed their minds, but after months of insisting the motel voucher program was going to end on schedule come Hell or high water, leaders of the House and Senate are working on a deal to extend the program.

My reactions are all over the place. Wow. Finally. Thank goodness. What took you so long?

And… let’s not get carried away until we see the fine print.

Here’s what we know, courtesy of VTDigger’s Lola Duffort. The extension would apply to roughly 2,000 people scheduled to be unhoused in July. It’s an indefinite stay, meant to allow people to stay in motels until state officials can identify “alternate stable setting[s].” There will be a mandate for the Scott administration to regularly update lawmakers, which is embarrassing for Team Scott but utterly necessary due to its complete failure to plan any sort of transition before now.

And it will not apply to anyone unhoused on June 1. So, not only are those people SOL, it also means there will be another mass eviction on Thursday Friday. You may recall that hundreds of June 1 evictees were offered free two-week extensions by some motel owners. Those extensions expire tomorrow Friday. No reprieves on offer for those folks.

I don’t know why leadership is so firm on excluding the June 1 and June 16 unhoused, who number approximately 800. I guess that’s an acceptable level of human suffering.

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Rutland is Offering the Unhoused Bus Tickets Out of Town

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The city of Rutland is home to a number of, shall we say, budget accommodations. That’s why Rutland has more motel voucher clients than any other Vermont community… and why it has a big problem on its hands with the end of the voucher program.

According to state data cited by VTDigger, nearly 500 households in the voucher program were located in Rutland. Roughly 200 were evicted on June 1; the remainder will be on the streets as of July 1 or July 29. It’s not too great a surprise, then, that part of the city’s plan for dealing with the outflux is to encourage the newly unhoused to leave town. This is part three of the city’s four-part plan for the June 1 cohort, but the same ideas will be in place for future evictees:

Yep, the answer is to ship ’em out of town. This is nothing new; communities across the country have actively sought to export their unhoused. And I understand Rutland’s position; the state took advantage of its cheap lodging supply and isn’t offering any help in dealing with the consequences. But still. This is not going to help people, it’s just going to shuffle them around.

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