Category Archives: Housing

What the Hell, Vermont

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Man, VTDigger couldn’t have picked a worse possible day to literally slap a smiley face on a map of Vermont. Because it happened on the very day that “over 800 people — including nearly 300 children” were deliberately unsheltered, on one of the hottest days of the year so far, by an uncaring Scott administration. That’s on top of another 138 unsheltered in late June because they had timed out their administration-ordained eligibility limits for motel vouchers. (Further evidence, says I, that the governor doesn’t give a fuck about the homeless.)

This latest offense against humanity was triggered by an administration decision in early June to impose those limits on an extension of winter eligibility into the spring. The decision came as a surprise to helping agencies, advocates, and more than a few members of the Legislature. And it meant that a whole bunch of recipients suddenly found themselves S.O.L. at the end of June.

Including Samantha Burnett, whose shocking story is recounted by Keith Whitcomb Jr. of the Times Argus and Rutland Herald.

“I’m eight-months pregnant. I’m literally due any day,” said Samantha Burnett, 23, during a downpour outside the Econo Lodge in Rutland City.

She said she has been living at the hotel since November. Burnett said she’s from Addison County and lost her job two months ago because her employer wouldn’t approve maternity leave. She has a friend who will let her cook food at her place, but is relying on another friend to find her a rundown vehicle she can sleep in.

Despite her own troubles, she’s most concerned with what will happen to her baby. She’s afraid the state will put the newborn out for adoption because, well, she’s homeless. It wouldn’t matter that she’s homeless because of the state’s own policy choices.

What the hell, Vermont. Is this who we are? Letting an expectant mother sleep in an abandoned car?

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Phil Scott Doesn’t Give a Fuck About the Homeless

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I try to limit my use of bad language, I really do. But there are times, and this is one of them.

Gov. Phil Scott, alleged “nice guy” and “moderate” who has insisted that protecting Vermont’s most vulnerable is a pillar of administration policy, just went and did what we expected him to do all along: He vetoed H.91, the Legislature’s carefully crafted replacement for the motel voucher system Scott has been complaining about for years.

Our mainstream media outlets have been saying for weeks that Scott’s stance on H.91 was unclear. In doing so, they ignored the obvious signal from Human Services Secretary Jenney Samuelson that a veto was in the cards from jump street. Almost a month ago, Samuelson delivered a memo to legislative leaders expressing serious concerns about H.91. That should have been all the foreshadowing needed to conclude that we were inevitably going to end up where we are today, with Scott killing a good-faith effort by the Legislature to do the thing he and his administration should have done long ago: Propose a voucher replacement plan of his own.

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Jenney Samuelson Comes to the Table in a Spirit of Bipartisanshi — Wait, What’s That in Her Hand?

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Phil Scott has been a denizen of the Statehouse for almost a quarter century. He was first elected to the state Senate in 2000, taking office in January 2001. He was a senator for 10 years, and served as vice chair of one committee and chair of another*. He then served three terms as lieutenant governor, whose duties include presiding over the Senate. Then he became governor, where he’s been ever since.

*His Wikipedia bio mentions, as the signature achievement of his time as chair of the Senate Institutions Committee, that he “redesigned the Vermont Statehouse cafeteria to increase efficiency.” Really? Is that the biggest thing he accomplished as a committee chair? Huh.

So it’s safe to say that if anyone knows how the Statehouse works, it’s Phil Scott. He has seen and done it all. He knows how stuff gets done, and how stuff doesn’t get done.

Which makes it all the more curious, or downright stinky if you prefer, that one of his top officials tried to blow up a legislative debate at the last possible minute. It was a thouroughly counterproductive tactic, unless the goal was to deliver a killshot to the bill in question.

The top official is one Jenney Samuelson, Secretary of the Agency of Human Services. On Friday, May 17 she delivered a memo seemingly aimed at derailing H.91, which would create a replacement to the oft-maligned General Assistance Emergency Housing program, a.k.a. the motel voucher system. For those just tuning in, that’s the system Scott and Samuelson have been criticizing nonstop for years without ever proposing an alternative of their own. This year, the House’s patience finally came to an end. It put forward a plan of its own in the form of H.91.

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I’ve Been Told That Elections have Consequences

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Every spring there comes a moment when you suddenly realize, “Wow, the legislative session is just about over.” For me, that moment came last week, with a bunch of stories about progress on major bills. A look at the calendar made me realize that in many other years,adjournment would have already adjourned. We’re well into overtime already.

We’re also getting a pretty clear idea of what history will make of the 2025 session, and it’s exactly what we all could have predicted last November 6, when Republicans decimated the Democrats’ veto-proof legislative majorities. No longer was the majority secure in its ability to override vetoes.

And they have legislated accordingly, trying to pass major bills that would be acceptable to the all-time record holder for vetoes by a Vermont governor. Scott, meanwhile, has pursued his customary course: Sitting in the balcony, tossing Jujubes at the stage, and emitting a squid-ink cloud of uncertainty around what he’d be willing to accept.

The result is a disappointment to anyone hoping for progressive lawmaking, but an entirely predictable one. What else could the Legislature do, really?

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VSEA Alleges “Authoritarian Environment” in the Economic Services Division

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The Vermont State Employees Association isn’t exactly the International Workers of the World. It generally tries to avoid rocking the boat, and comes in for a fair bit of criticism from more progressive elements of the labor movement in Vermont.

Which made it all the more remarkable when two top VSEA officials went before the House Human Services Committee last Thursday to deliver harsh accusations against the Department of Children and Families’ Economic Services Division in general and its top official, Deputy Commissioner Miranda Gray, in particular. Gray, they said, has created “an authoritarian, top-down environment in which fear is used as a weapon,” leaving employees “demoralized and fearful.”

VSEA President Aimee Bertrand (pictured above), a longtime ESD employee, told her own tale of harassment, retaliation, and punitive actions that led her and the union to file an unfair labor practice charge with the Vermont Labor Relations Board. That filing, she said, led to further retaliatory actions. All of which would appear to violate terms of the union’s contract and/or state law.

It was a stunning event. I’ve been in and around the Statehouse for over a decade, and rarely have I seen such dramatic testimony. I don’t think I’ve ever seen such serious accusations made by VSEA against a unit of state government.

You may not have noticed any of this, because the media coverage was pitifully inadequate.

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One Weird Trick to Save Your Local School

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Over the weekend, VTDigger posted a story about the good people of Westford bemoaning the potential fate of their local school. The Essex-Westford district is discussing a plan to move the sixth through eighth grades from Westford to the Essex Middle School, and some Westfordians (Ed: Reference needed) fear it’s the first step toward their school being closed entirely, a move that a town official described as “disastrous” for the town’s future.

They are right to be concerned. But there’s one big thing they could do to try to save their local school: Go all in on housing.

Single-family homes, preferably at moderate prices? Yes! Condos? Yes! Apartments? Yes! Trailer parks? Well, sure. More of everything, please. YIMBY, YIMBY, YIMBY.

Look. Westford is a tiny place, population a tick north of 2,000. But it’s absolutely close enough to Burlington to capitalize on the region’s overheated housing market, especially housing for young families. It’s about five miles east of Milton, which is rapidly becoming a bedroom community for Burlington. It’s about 10 miles north of Essex Junction. It’s less convenient to Burlington than either of those communities, but that wouldn’t keep people from moving there if the, uhh, town’s median housing price wasn’t MORE THAN HALF A MILLION DOLLARS, good God in heaven.

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The House Does a Big Thing that Phil Scott Won’t Do

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The Vermont House of Representatives did something kind of impressive a couple weeks ago. Not that the media paid much attention, due in part to all Trump all the time — and I let it pass by for that same reason, but I can play catchup when events call for it. So here I am, belatedly.

Way back on April 2, the House approved H.91, the “Vermont Homeless Emergency Assistance and Responsive Transition to Housing Program.” Quite a mouthful, but the acronym is VHEARTH, which is catchy indeed.

But that’s not the impressive part. What the bill’s writers managed to do is create a new state program from scratch. VHEARTH is meant to replace the much-lamented and chronically underfunded General Assistance Emergency Housing Program, d/b/a/ the motel voucher program. Yep, legislative leaders had been begging Gov. Phil Scott to propose an alternative to vouchers for years. Seems they finally got tired of waiting for the chief executive to do his damn job.

I first learned of this five days later, when the Barre Montpelier Times Argus published a front-page story (paywalled, sorry) about H.91 gaining House approval. I was so surprised to learn of a major Statehouse development in my sadly reduced local paper that I had to check and double-check to make sure I hadn’t missed a story in the more customary outlets like VTDigger, Seven Days, or Vermont Public.

But I hadn’t. Those usually dependable organizations either missed a major piece of legislation achieving a milestone, or they deemed it unworthy of their attention. If it was the latter, well, they were sorely mistaken.

C

“A Disturbing Trend of Actions,” You Say

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Fortunately for the delicate balance of democratic government in Vermont, Gov. Phil Scott’s idea of executive overreach isn’t nearly as bad as Donald Trump’s. But that’s kind of like saying the flu is preferable to cancer. You’d rather not get either one, really.

But the governor’s unilateral imposition of new rules for the General Assistance Emergency Housing program prompted a sharp rebuke from the Legislature’s top lawyer. As reported by VTDigger/Vermont Public reporter Carly Berlin, Legislative Counsel director Brynn Hare has deemed Scott’s action “an unconstitutional encroachment on a core function of the Legislature.” Further, she said, his action is “the latest in a disturbing trend of actions by the Administration that flagrantly and unconstitutionally intrude on the authority of the General Assembly.” That trend also includes his appointment of Zoie Saunders as interim Education Secretary after the Senate had rejected her nomination, and his unilateral action authorizing the sale of “Vermont Strong” license plates after the flood of July 2023.

Which is ironic, don’t you think, considering that Scott has been obsessively jealous of the separation of powers when it’s in his interest. He has vetoed a whole bunch of bills on the sole basis that they allegedly intruded on the power of the executive. Well, shoe’s on the other foot now, governor.

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Congratulations to Senate Republicans for Making Phil Scott’s Fondest Wish Come True

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Hooray, Phil Scott is going to get what he wants. Again.

Every time there’s an inflection point in the General Assistance Emergency Housing program (d/b/a the motel voucher program), it’s always the same thing. Scott takes a hard line against spending a dime more on vouchers… we get close to a mass unsheltering… and then he does a last-minute walk-back, offering a compromise to keep at least some people in the program.

But he simply cannot include everyone. Some folks just HAVE to be unsheltered. It’s like his one and only bedrock principle when it comes to vouchers. Some folks have gotta lose.

And here we are again. Scott rejected the Legislature’s move to extend winter eligibility rules through June, and later — as he always does — he offered a partial extension, which belies his supposedly principled argument against spending any more money on vouchers.

This is nothing new. So for the rest of this post, my attention turns to the Republican Senate caucus’ role in backstopping the governor, and the deeply misleading press release put out after the vote by caucus leader Sen. Scott Beck.

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The Scott Administration Hits a New Low

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Gov. Phil Scott has dug in his heels on the General Assistance emergency housing program, and it’s not a pretty sight. He used his Wednesday news conference to decry the Legislature’s failure to “come to the table,” but the real meaning of that phrase, in his mind, is that they failed to do precisely what he wanted them to do.

I’m sorry, but that’s not coming to the table. That’s jumping up and down on the table and holding your breath until you turn blue.

Look. First, the Legislature adopted a Budget Adjustment Act that included at least 90% of the governor’s proposal plus a few additional items that were almost entirely offset by savings in the Treasurer’s budget. Scott vetoed the bill. The Legislature then passed a new BAA that stripped away almost all their adds on one condition, and only one: That Scott agree to extend winter eligibility rules for the voucher program from April 1 to June 30. By the Legislature’s revised reckoning, the Department of Children and Families already has enough money to make that happen.

And now Scott is stamping his feet and bellowing “No, no, no!”

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