Tag Archives: Alex Farrell

Self-Described Non-Politician Does Something Nakedly Political

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Here we go again. Gov. Phil Scott has pulled a maneuver that will have little practical impact, but should suit his political purposes very well.

At his weekly press conference Wednesday, Scott signed an executive order aimed at boosting Vermont’s housing supply. And there was his cabinet’s top housing official, Alex Farrell, boasting that the order “will make a real difference immediately.”

Yeah, well, bullshit.

Scott’s authority to make policy changes without legislative input is quite limited. The items in his executive order might make some incremental difference — eventually — but it’s laughable to claim that this move will resolve our housing crisis or make any measurable progress in the next few months.

The order was less about housing, in fact, than about political positioning. In that respect, it’s already a success.

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The Administration Does Have a Housing Plan But It’s Incomplete and, So Far, Mainly Hypothetical

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Earlier this week I gave Gov. Phil Scott’s plan to address the housing crisis a failing grade. Today, two of his top officials briefed the House Appropriations Committee on a report (downloadable here) prepared by the administration’s Council on Housing & Homelessness.

It was useful and informative. A lot of good work has been done, and a lot of good ideas are included in the report. Which is not to say I was wrong in my earlier assessment; the report is lacking in two crucial ways.

First, it does little to address our current explosion of homelessness. Its focus is on “prevention,” which seems to mean preventing future unhousings while doing not much for those already without a dependable roof over their heads.

Second, virtually none of it is in Scott’s FY2025 budget, which means that all its recommendations are just that. Recommendations. There’s been no commitment to implementation, not even an actual proposal. That doesn’t mean the report will be memory-holed, but there’s no proof that it won’t be.

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Phil Scott’s Big Fat Housing FAIL

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Hey, remember last fall, when the Scott administration delivered a grim assessment of Vermont’s housing crisis? Top officials outlined a dire situation with shortages in all sectors of the housing market, from shelters and subsidized rentals to single-family homes to top-end residences. In response, the administration convened an informal task force to confront Vermont’s housing crisis. A multiagency group was going to gather once a week throughout the fall to come up with big, comprehensive solutions.

Well, whatever has become of that?

Two things, and only two things, both of which completely fail to meet the moment. First, we have a joke of a temporary shelter expansion that might net a couple hundred beds for a few months. Second, we have a push for regulatory reform.

And… that’s it. No significant public investment in housing. Phil Scott is failing to address the crisis. He is failing to lead on the issue that he himself spotlighted as the state’s biggest challenge.

This has been obvious for a while, but it was hammered home during a brief legislative hearing on Friday afternoon that wasn’t even on the schedule.

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A Thoroughly Grim Outlook on Vermont’s Housing Crisis

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If the above image looks a little fuzzy, thank the limitations of the Legislature’s system for recording and livestreaming its hearings. But it reflects the situation we face on housing: Our public leaders seem small and indistinct when discussing the enormity of Vermont’s housing shortage, and their explication of the crisis was long on broad pronouncements and short on specifics.

The Scott administration’s A-team, pictured above, appeared before the Legislature’s Joint Fiscal Committee and delivered a gloomy overview that has to rank as one of the most depressing events I’ve experienced in my 12-ish years following #vtpoli. Doesn’t quite top Peter Shumlin’s surrender on health care reform or his near defeat at the hands of Scott Milne, but it’s not far behind.

The big takeaway: The housing crisis is even worse than we thought. From top to bottom, end to end, from the most basic of living spaces to the most extravagant, we don’t have nearly enough. Oh, and the epidemic of unsheltered homelessness that Our Leaders assured us was all taken care of last winter? That’s going to get even worse before it has a hope of getting better. And the “getting better” is going to take years.

And the interim solution, if they can manage to pull it off, is a massive increase in emergency shelters, most likely of the congregate variety. That, for a population ill-suited for such arrangements.

Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?

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