“They are building a prison, not a shelter”

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Hearty congratulations to the good people of Hyde Park, who have “amicably resolved” a dispute over the siting of a homeless shelter. “Amicably” is the word chosen by VTDigger’s social media poster to describe a deal that will severely restrict the civil rights of shelter residents, so the amicability does not extend to the unhoused.

The story as a whole, originally posted by the News & Citizen of Lamoille County, betrays a complete blind spot where the unhoused are concerned. Nowhere are their thoughts or feelings expressed, nowhere are they seen as anything other than pawns in a game. And I must confess a similar blind spot; the import of the story didn’t hit me until housing activist Josh Lisenby pointed it out on Twitter, which I refuse to call X. In fact, I borrowed the headline of this post from one of Lisenby’s tweets.

The tale of this amicable resolution is a tawdry one all round. It begins with Lamoille Community House proposing to open a shelter at what is now the Forest Hill Residential Care Home. That much is fine; cue the tawdriness, in the unshocking form of a California tech entrepreneur who looks, well, exactly how you’d expect he looks.

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Something Great is Happening Today in Ohio. It Wouldn’t Be Possible Here.

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Voters are reportedly flocking to the polls in Ohio today, as part of a drive to enshrine reproductive rights in its constitution. A similar effort could not possibly have happened in Vermont thanks to our paternalistic, top-down system of government.

In case you haven’t heard the story, abortion rights advocates in Ohio mounted a successful petition drive to put a reproductive rights amendment on the state ballot in November. Republicans in control of state government, realizing the amendment was polling very strongly, ginned up their own ballot question to try to derail the November vote. “Issue 1” would raise the bar for constitutional referenda from 50% to 60%. (Last November, Michigan voters approved a reproductive rights amendment with 57% support.) Republicans then scheduled the Issue 1 vote for today in hopes of winning a low-turnout election. But early turnout has been very strong, and it looks like the Republican chicanery won’t work.

Point is, Ohio is on track to hand a stinging defeat to the anti-abortion movement thanks to a governmental process that doesn’t exist in Vermont because our founders decided to protect We, the People from ourselves. They did not create a mechanism for the public to gain access to the ballot.

Regarding reproductive rights, things have worked out just fine in Vermont because the Legislature was like-minded. But what if it wasn’t?

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Former VTGOP Chair Picks a Fight with Front Porch Forum

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For all their fetishizing of the Constitution, conservatives sure have a funny notion of what the First Amendment means. Take Deb Billado. [Cue Henny Youngman voice] Please, take her!

Billado, the ex-chair of the Vermont Republican Party, is now the CEO of the Vermont Institute for Human Flourishing, a conservative religion-oriented nonprofit that promises to “work to restore the traditional family to its central, pivotal, and honored place in civil society.” The VIHF gets the bulk of its funding from none other than Lenore Broughton, devoted backer of ultraconservative lost causes like the defunct True North Reports and, well, the VTGOP itself.

This fall, the Institute plans to hold its second annual “Restoring Our Faith” summit, which was born out of the notion that the Covid pandemic enabled the secular takeover of society. This year’s Summit will feature discussions on these troubling cultural trends and the critical role of faith, marriage, and the importance of protecting children in a flourishing society. featuring a motley crew of D-list conservative ranters. The announced lineup is a decided step down from last year, when the keynote speaker was the somewhat unobscure Dennis Prager, panjandrum of Prager University, last seen getting approval from the Florida Board of Education for its curriculum materials that, among other things, teaches that slavery wasn’t such a bad thing because slaves learned potentially useful skills and never mind the whipping, sexual assaults, forced separation of families, and, well, that whole being enslaved thing.

More on this year’s “featured” speakers later. The issue before us now is that Billado is in a frenzy because Front Porch Forum apparently rejected an inquiry about advertising the summit to FPF subscribers throughout Vermont.

According to The Williston Observer, FPF rejected the inquiry based on its rigorously enforced Terms of Service, which are designed to keep the forums civil and community-focused. And this, sez Billado, is A VIOLATION OF HER CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS, waah waah waah.

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Promoting a Worthy Cause? Opportunism? Or a Little of Both?

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Let’s start with this: VTDigger has been doing yeoman’s work since the skies parted and the rains descended on July 10. They’ve ramped up their coverage to meet the need for information and insight, and that’s been absolutely critical in this age of ever-diminishing traditional media. And as a nonprofit organization, Digger has to meet its costs somehow or other.

So why does its joint fundraising campaign with the Vermont Community Foundation make me a little bit queasy inside?

Because, I think, it either crosses an ethical line or comes very close to it.

The details: Digger and VCF are raising money by selling a line of “Better Together” merch. The proceeds, minus the cost of the goods, is split 50/50 between the two entities. VCF devotes its half to flood relief, while Digger covers the cost of flood reportage with its share. The graphic design is, to my uneducated eye, kind of lame — of a piece with Digger’s recent website reboot. But that’s beside the point, and I’m sure the simple, direct design has its adherents. I don’t do TikTok either.

As a longtime denizen of public radio, I’ve spent more than my share of time dancing around this particular line between journalism and fundraising. During pledge drives, I’d be delivering the news one minute and begging for donations the next. Still, this Digger/VCF arrangement feels different, I think because it’s happening in the middle of a dire emergency — and looks like it’s capitalizing on the crisis. I’ve been part of public radio pledge drives, which take huge amounts of planning and organization, that were halted or postponed because of breaking news.

So I asked Digger CEO Sky Barsch about it, and she offered a strong rationale for the joint campaign. I wasn’t completely mollified, but I see her argument.

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Draft Phil Scott, We Barely Knew Ye

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We have apparently seen the last of the invisible-except-on-Twitter “Draft Phil Scott” effort, which put forth a plausibly earnest belief in the potential national appeal of our indisputably popular Republican governor. I never took it seriously because, well, I see no path forward for Scott or any candidate who’s not a creature of the far right.

The arguments in favor of Scott: He’s the most popular governor in the country (true); he’s a real man of the people (that’s his image, certainly); he is particularly popular in the Connecticut River valley (okay); that popularity would give him a shot at success in the historically pivotal New Hampshire primary (nah); and a strong showing in the Granite State could make him the candidate of choice for those seeking an alternative to arch-criminal Donald Trump.

Well, if I hadn’t jumped off the bandwagon before then, that last imaginative leap would definitely lose me. Because the Republican Party of DPS’ imagination hasn’t existed since a lifetime ago. And I’m talking the lifetime of senior-discount-takin’ Yours Truly, not any of you young whippersnappers.

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The VTGOP is Finally a Trendsetter — But Not in a Good Way

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Is there such a thing as Chronic Wasting Disease among political parties? Because if there is, an epidemic is brewing among state Republican parties. Suddenly, in several key states, GOP coffers are alarmingly empty in a way that calls to mind the Vermont GOP’s underperformance over the last several years.

Last week, the conservative National Review published a piece called “The Quiet Collapse of Four Key State Republican Parties” that chronicled the woes of the GOP in Arizona, Colorado, Michigan and Minnesota — states “that would be tantalizing targets in a good year.” In addition, the Georgia GOP “is spending a small fortune on the legal fees of those ‘alternate’ Republican electors from the 2020 presidential election.”

The problem, according to the National Review’s Jim Geraghty, is “the replacement of competent, boring, regular state-party officials with quite exciting, blustering nutjobs” more concerned with culture war and ideological purity than the tedious work of party-building.

Sample nutjob: in my home state of Michigan, formerly the home of bland conservatives like Fred Upton and Gerald Ford, the state GOP is now helmed by election conspiratorialist Kristina Karamo, who not only believes that the 2020 presidential election was stolen, but so was the 2022 election in which she lost her bid to become secretary of state by a mere 14 percentage points.

The result of such leadership: Parties in battleground states that are racked by infighting and barely have two nickels to rub together.

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One “Minor” Consequence of the Flood: A Dramatic Shortage of Legal Representation for Renters

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Even in the best of times, the court system is stacked against renters. When landlord/tenant disputes arise, property owners can afford lawyers while renters cannot. The flood will seriously exacerbate this imbalance. As I predicted back on July 14 and VTDigger reported on, ahem, July 31, the flood “disproportionately hit Vermont’s affordable housing stock.”

All those renters occupying flood-ravaged housing will find legal resources very difficult to come by. The scope of this problem has yet to unfurl, and it’s going to be bad for months to come. At minimum. A lot of tenants are going to get screwed.

“There are very few private attorneys who will represent tenants, who are generally low income and unable to pay,” said Sam Abel-Palmer, Executive Director of Legal Services Vermont, a nonprofit focused on civil litigation. His organization and Vermont Legal Aid try to make up for the failure of the free market, but they can offer perhaps 10 full-time attorneys to help all the renters in Vermont. Besides that, there are a few private lawyers who take some cases on a pro bono basis and the state Bar Association pays reduced fees to some members who represent renters.

That’s about all. It falls short of meeting the need, even in the absence of a major disaster. “We sometimes can take cases, sometimes we can offer advice,” said Abel-Palmer.

And now?

“It’s not remotely enough,” Abel-Palmer said.

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From the Dept. of Utterly Predictable: Small Towns Dealing with Rise in Homelessness (UPDATED)

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This space, April 11, regarding the Legislature’s intent to end the motel voucher program:

Much of the impact will fall on municipalities. You’d think the Vermont League of Cities and Towns might declare an interest in preventing their members from taking it in the shorts. You’d think the mayors would be tramping to the Statehouse to beg the state to bear the responsibility instead of fobbing it off.

Well, the mayors did not, in fact, tramp to the Statehouse, nor did the very influential VLCT bring its considerable muscle to bear. Cue the consequences.

WCAX: “Smaller Vt. Towns Now Coping with Unhoused Population.” Comment from St. Johnsbury Town Manager Chad Whitehead: “This is happening across the entire state. I have talked with numerous town managers, and many population centers have been having this issue.”

The Journal Opinion: “For the second time this month, community members asked the Bradford Selectboard for help in addressing escalating homelessness in town.”

UPDATE. WCAX just ran a piece about downtown Burlington merchants “experiencing some challenges with foot traffic,” according to Colin Hilliard of the Burlington Business Association. One merchant reported “an increased population” of the unhoused on Church Street because of changes in the voucher program.

Yep, those merchants and their organizations should have been in there fighting for shelter, but they weren’t.

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Montpelier Is on the Edge of a Doom Loop

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Got a haircut this morning.

“Bully for you,” I hear you say. “Want a lollipop?”

Well, no. I bring it up because a classic barbershop conversation brought home a grim reality: Downtown Montpelier is in serious trouble and will never be the same. This, despite the robust community support for many businesses and the prospect of state and federal relief.

My barber plied her wares on Elm Street until July 10. After the flood, she quickly found new quarters on the Barre-Montpelier Road.

And she has no plans to move back, even though her business has “Elm Street” right in its name.

While I was in the chair, a familiar gent came in and sat down. Turned out he was the owner of Capitol Copy, a long-established downtown business we’ve patronized for years. He made it clear he had no plans to reopen, a decision he made easily and without regret. He also said he’d heard that another major downtown business was not going to reopen, in part because the landlord apparently had no plans to restore the property, which also contains two other businesses.

The press accounts of Montpelier’s recovery have tended to emphasize the positive: the robust community response, the doughty merchants rolling up their sleeves and getting down to work. But this encounter made me think that the real picture is much darker — that despite all the happy stories and successful fundraisers, Montpelier’s business district is in serious trouble.

In fact, the heart of downtown is in danger of emptying out unless serious changes are made in construction practices, zoning, planning, and land use — not only in Montpelier itself, but throughout central Vermont. It’s going to take some serious work to save Montpelier, not to mention all the other river-adjacent communities that don’t enjoy the same level of community support as our capital city.

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Anything for the Unhoused? Anything at All?

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The news is full of stories about the aftermath of the great flood. Our political leaders are fully engaged on the issues of flood relief. We hear about the plight of homeowners, renters, small businesses, and the various public and private efforts to help them in time of need. But there’s one group we hear little to nothing about.

It’s the people who had no home or shelter when the rains came on July 10.

The attitude among our leaders appears to be that after all, the unhoused had nothing before the flood, so did they really lose anything?

That may strike you as an unfair characterization, but it’s kind of baked into the disaster relief system. People and businesses get help based on tangible, reportable property losses. No property, no losses, right?

This includes the 750 or so households we sentenced to homelessness on June 1 when Gov. Phil Scott and Legislature tightened eligibility standards for the motel voucher program. The state made no particular effort to track those people after their forced exit. No one seems to know where they are or what their living conditions are like.

WCAX-TV just ran a story entitled “Where are evicted hotel-motel program recipients staying?” Unfortunately, it made no real effort to answer its own question. There were estimates from Burlington about the increase in the unhoused population since June 1, but nothing beyond the city limits.

And now we’ve added God knows how many more to their number. I’m sure God knows, but I don’t see any effort by our earthly leaders to track the newly unhoused. Have there been any efforts to expand shelters that were at or near capacity before the first drop of rain fell? Has anything been done for them besides handing out tents?

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