Category Archives: Housing

The Press Coverage of the Shelter Situation Has Been Terrible. We All Need to Take Some Responsibility for That.

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The media coverage of this week’s Scott administration temporary shelter ClusterfuckTM has been dispiritingly spotty and incomplete. This has helped the admin play a little game of “Hey, look! A Squirrel!” with the press. Gov. Phil Scott came out swinging in his Wednesday press conference, bashing the Legislature for allegedly failing to address Act 250 reform when, in fact, the legislative process is a lengthy one and it’s way too early to declare victory or defeat. Since the environmental and development lobbies seem to be unified behind the effort, there is every reason to believe that significant reform will be enacted and Scott’s panic will prove unwarranted.

But all the whining and finger-pointing diverted press attention from the simultaneous rollout of the shelter plan, which involves kicking 500 vulnerable Vermonters out of state-paid motel rooms and into hastily-constructed temporary shelters that will (a) only be open at night and (b) will only be in operation for one week. Or less.

Starting tonight.

The press took a while to get in gear on the shelter issue. It’s a complicated situation, and most of the stories failed to get a full grasp of it. Some weren’t much better than water carriers for administration policy.

I was prepared to write a scathing critique of our press corps, and I will, but then I listened to a really good podcast this morning about the fallen state of journalism today. It made me realize that every one of us plays a part in the health of our media ecosystem, and that I should do something about it as well as complain about it.

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I Think We Should Call This “Winters Hall”

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This, my friends, is what the Scott administration thinks is an acceptable shelter space for dozens of our most vulnerable Vermonters. This is the Agency of Natural Resources Annex building, technically in Berlin but closer to Montpelier than anything. Starting tonight, if the administration has its way, this will be one of four nighttime-only temporary shelters meant to house a total of roughly 500 people being booted from their state-paid motel rooms. For no good reason. Bureaucratic mumbo-jumbo, pitched in multisyllabic words intended to drain all the human emotion from the matter.

(Note: Vermont Legal Aid is going to court to try to block the mass exiting operation. I kind of doubt they’ll succeed; this plan is cruel, obnoxious and heartless, but it’s within the purview of state decision-making authority. But we can hope.

Otherwise, what are we looking at here?

I haven’t been inside the Annex, so I can’t witness to the quality of the decor. Probably not great; it’s been used for general storage by various state agencies, which have apparently been busily clearing out all the stuff that’s been sitting around. I can’t swear to the bathroom or shower facilities, although I have heard that the building contains two single-stall bathrooms. For dozens of people?)

Food service? Refrigeration? Privacy? Personal storage? Need we ask?

Did I mention it’s in the Winooski River flood plain and that it was flooded last summer?

Opens at 7:00 p.m. Closes for the day at 7:00 a.m. It’s about a half-hour walk from the Statehouse. (Bitter irony alert: It’s almost directly across the river from a tent encampment that’s been occupied by unhoused folk throughout the winter.) There is no bus service on this industrial roadway that probably gets more heavy-truck traffic than anything else. Perhaps some, or many, of the residents will find day shelter in the Statehouse’s welcoming cafeteria. They sure won’t gain access to the governor’s own offices in the closely-guarded, entry-by-pass-only Pavilion Building.

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The Shelter Clusterfuck, Continued: Now With More Ridiculousness

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This is a follow-up to my previous post on the Scott administration’s plan to exit 500 homeless Vermonters from state-paid motel rooms on Friday and into temporary congregate night-only shelters.

Which seems slightly less devious but even more absurd with the news that the governor signed the Budget Adjustment Act on Wednesday afternoon. My proposition that he’d delayed signing so he’d have a pretext for exiting all those people was inaccurate.

But the signing raises new questions. The biggest of which is, why in Hell did he wait so long? The bill passed the Legislature on March 1. I’m sure it took a few days to reach his desk, but the language had been agreed to. There was no need to sit on the bill. And since he did, his officials were left without firm direction on how to extend, or not, voucher accommodation for those being housed under the Adverse Weather Condition program. It meant, according to Commissioner Chris Winters of the Department of Children and Families, that state officials had little to no contact with AWC clients until Wednesday.

The only previous communication had been a letter warning clients that they might have to exit their motels on March 15. That’s all.

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“A Manufactured Crisis”

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Gov. Phil Scott’s treatment of the emergency housing program has been a case study in mismanagement with more than a hint of deliberate cruelty. But today, his administration outdid itself.

Extra bonus: He is openly defying the will of the Legislature as expressed in clear language that his own officials agreed to.

Let’s address the on-the-ground reality stuff first, and then we’ll circle back to process.

On Friday, the Adverse Weather Conditions (AWC, pronounced like a raptor call) program expires for the season. As it stands, roughly 500 people now housed in state-paid motel rooms will lose their shelter. And so the state is patching together a handful of temporary congregate shelters (think cots, communal bathrooms, and no known provision for food) in four cities across the state: Bennington, Berlin, Burlington, and Rutland.

But wait, there’s more! The shelters are nighttime-only. They will be open from 7:00 p.m. to 7:00 a.m. During the daytime? You’re on your own.

But wait, there’s even more! They are only going to operate for one week, more or less.

But that’s not all! The shelters will be staffed by hastily-trained National Guard personnel with security duty contracted to local law enforcement, whose officers will be armed.

A reminder that most of these people would qualify for extended motel stays due to disability status, old age, youth, or other criteria.

Were they trying to create the worst possible program? It sure seems that way.

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Just Because You Drove Off a Cliff and Landed Softly in a Grove of Trees Doesn’t Mean It Was a Good Idea to Drive Off the Cliff

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We barely managed to evade another mass unhousing tonight, no thanks whatsoever to the Scott administration and only partial thanks to state lawmakers. They collectively thought it was a good idea to put a tight cap on motel vouchers and put it into effect immediately.

Technically it became effective before “immediately,” because Gov. Phil Scott has yet to sign the bill that imposes the cap. Yep, Our Glorious Leaders, going where no one has gone before, fracturing the time-space continuum. Again, as I wrote previously, I never want to hear anyone in the Statehouse cite a lack of time as an excuse for inaction. Hell, on this bill they had less than zero time and they still made it happen. Administration officials went ahead and implemented a policy that isn’t actually in law. At least not quite yet. Which might, now that I think of it, be technically illegal. But I’m not a lawyer, so.

By this (Friday) morning, the vast majority of motel operators had agreed to accept the $80 per night cap, so the vast majority of voucher clients still have roofs over their heads tonight.

Sure, an unknown but probably small number of households are without shelter. But it could have been thousands, and thankfully it wasn’t.

Who ought to get the credit? Why, Brenda Siegel, of course.

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Day Drinkin’ Time

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Got a bad case of climate dysphoria today. It’s about 40 degrees colder than yesterday; Burlington saw new record high temperatures each of the past two days; in less than 24 hours we went from flood watch to gale force winds to freezing cold; and the newly-formed ruts on my dirt road have frozen into fascinatingly unpredictable configurations. It’s like art that can screw up your suspension.

Otherwise, well, there’s very real concern that we’ll have a mass unhousing tomorrow, Governor Nice Guy is turning heel, and Our Leaders don’t seem to have the vision to meet the various crises besetting us on all sides. Meanwhile, I’m sitting in my home office wearing a jacket. Indoors. I can’t imagine what it’s like for the involuntary “campers” our state’s policies have scattered across Vermont.

Oh, and I’m working on a really depressing story about the impact of bigotry in a Vermont town.

So yeah, third cup of coffee so far today. And by “cup,” I mean “22-ounce travel mug.”

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So I Guess March 1 Is Just Fine, Tra La La

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In my previous post, I slammed Deputy Human Services Secretary Todd Daloz for insisting on a cap of $80 — to take effect the day after tomorrow — on motel vouchers under the GA housing program. Well, now I get to slam Democratic lawmakers because they, too, see no problem with this administrative and human rights absurdity. Yesterday, the House-Senate conference committee approved H.839, the Budget Adjustment Act, with more generous eligibility standards for the voucher program but also with that damned March 1 deadline.

And today the full Senate rammed it through on a voice vote. On to the House tomorrow, I suppose, and then to Gov. Phil Scott’s desk. He’d better sign it lickety-split so the ink will be dry before the cap takes effect.

ON FRIDAY.

Most, but not all, of the participating motels have agreed to accept $80 per household per night. On Tuesday, Daloz said that about 400 rooms might drop out of the program. And there’s already a shortage of rooms. So if this thing goes through — and the skids appear thoroughly greased — then hundreds of Vermonters face complete unsheltering THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW and hundreds more are likely to be shunted around the state with precious little notice.

Good God in Heaven, what are we doing?

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I Saved the Worst for Last: The Meanest, Absurdest, Most Ridiculous Thing Anyone Said at That Joint Fiscal Hearing

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The gent pictured above, bowtie rakishly askew, is Todd Daloz, Deputy Secretary of the Agency of Human Services. In a Tuesday hearing of the Legislature’s Joint Fiscal Committee, he staunchly defended Scott administration policy on emergency housing. I covered some of his remarks in my previous post, but there was one passage so incredible, so morally bankrupt, so blithely dismissive of basic calendrical logic, that it deserved a piece all to itself.

As you may recall, the single worst idea in the Legislature’s latest iteration of an emergency housing extension was the imposition of a motel voucher rate cap — to take effect on March 1 — of either $75 (House version) or $80 (Senate). That’s a drop of more than $50 from the current average rate. May I remind you that March 1 is a mere two days away.

It’s ridiculous. It’s absurd. It’s heartless. And extra bonus points, it’s just plain impossible in terms of governmental process. This is a provision in the FY2024 Budget Adjustment Act that still has to pass the House and Senate and gain Gov. Phil Scott’s signature, which is far from a sure thing.

I don’t see how all that can happen by March 1, much less all the necessary steps to implement the idea.

And yet, on Tuesday Mr. Daloz made a point of insisting that the March 1 rate cap must stand.

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Pointed Questions and Jazz Hands

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The Legislature’s Joint Fiscal Committee tried something different today. It didn’t really go that well.

The committee called a hearing that was kinda meant to embarrass the Scott administration over its utterly inadequate response to our crises of homelessness and affordable. Well, it was cast as part of the JFC’s responsibility to track the progress being made (or not) under Act 81, the Legislature’s last-minute extension of the General Assistance housing program approved in June 2023. But the intent was to put administration officials under a bright light and watch them squirm.

Problem was, said officials (including Miranda Gray of the Department of Children and Families and Agency of Human Services Deputy Secretary Todd Daloz, pictured above) came prepared with reams and reams of jargon. They filibustered the hearing. It wasn’t 100% successful, but it limited the committee’s capacity to ask questions. It also had the truly unfortunate effect of almost completely sidelining input from providers of shelter and services to the unhoused. On the agenda, the administration was allotted 45 minutes of the 90-minute hearing and three provider witnesses got a combined 30 minutes. In actual fact, the administration occupied an hour and fifteen minutes, while provider testimony was crammed into the final 10 minutes of the affair.

There were still some embarrassing moments for the administration and some good information from the providers. The hearing wasn’t a bust, but it was far less effective than it could have been.

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Shouldn’t We Be Thinking Big on Housing?

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As the Legislature pursues an actual housing policy in the absence of Gov. Phil Scott, who is focused solely on regulatory reform, there’s my question.

Shouldn’t we be thinking big?

Like “a record-breaking bond issue to jumpstart our supply of affordable housing” big.

Back in 2017 the Legislature and governor approved a $37 million affordable housing bond. In the ensuing two years, then-senator Michael Sirotkin, then chair of the Senate Economic Development Committee, proposed a second bond of $35 million (2019) or $50 million (2020). His efforts fell short, in part because then-treasurer Beth Pearce expressed concern about Vermont’s total indebtedness,

Well, it’s more than time to reopen that question and, honestly, push it as far as we possibly can. I’d aim high, maybe $250 million, and see what I could get. Why not? If we have a housing crisis, shouldn’t the response be proportionate?

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