Tag Archives: Capstone Community Action

Touch a Name on the Wall

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The most important piece among all the missing pieces in press coverage of Gov. Phil Scott’s “manufactured crisis” of mass unhousing is the experience of those displaced people. VTDigger’s preview piece about “Just Getting By,” a new documentary about Vermonters living on the edge, gives these people far more of a voice than all the press coverage of the unhousing combined. And that’s a fucking disgrace on the part of Vermont’s media outlets.

Another missing presence: the on-the-ground service providers who were already up to their necks in helping the unhoused. The governor’s deliberate policy choices effectively rip at the fabric of the social safety net, and he tacitly expects these providers to catch anyone who falls through the holes.

So I paid a visit this morning to a place I’ve driven by about 8,000 times without ever noticing it. Not surprising, since it’s in a nondescript house tucked into a driveway off Barre Street in Montpelier. Another Way describes itself as “a sanctuary for those with psychiatric disabilities.” As you might expect, many of its clients are or have been homeless.

Some of those present had been kicked out of their state-paid motel rooms last Friday, including one couple who actually qualified for an extended motel stay but weren’t approved in time to avoid eviction. They plan to join Vermont Legal Aid’s lawsuit against the Scott administration.

You probably have expectations for what you’d experience if you walked into a house full of “those with psychiatric disabilities.” Well, go ahead and dump all those images out your earhole.

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“Lived Experience,” What a Concept

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Two legislative committees got a metaphorical bucket of cold water dumped over their heads today by people who are trying, and largely failing, to deal with Vermont’s crisis of homelessness. And then a pair of just plain ordinary folks took the stage and tossed an equally metaphorical grenade into the room with their real-life experiences of homelessness and the frustrations of dealing with social service bureaucracy.

Guys like Bryan Plant, pictured above, are rarely featured in legislative hearings, and that’s a damn shame. He’s smart, articulate, and his input is crucial. The absence of voices like his makes for myopic policymaking, with no attention to how the system affects those on the receiving end.

Plant and Rebecca Duprey were the two witnesses labeled as “Lived Experience” on the docket for today’s joint hearing of House Human Services and Senate Health & Welfare. The two committees were examining the implementation of Act 81, the extension of the motel voucher program hastily negotiated at the end of June by legislative leadership and the Scott administration.

Plant and Duprey told stories of encountering barrier after barrier: “a mountain of paperwork,” much of it incomprehensible and repetitive, an unresponsive bureaucracy, poor to nonexistent coordination between government programs, constant turnover among case workers (Plant was assigned to 11 different “service coordinators” in three years, so you can imagine how coordinated his services were). It all added up to, in Duprey’s words, a system of “inexcusable cruelty” to people in the direst of circumstances. “You have no idea how damaging this is to people,” Plant told the committees.

The topper: Plant and Duprey are two of the rare success stories of Act 81. Unlike the vast majority of voucher clients, they have managed to find good housing. They struggled their way through a system that seems more designed to frustrate its clients than to help them regain their footing in life.

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It’s Going to Get Late Early Out There

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I went to Shaw’s earlier this week, and was met by this massive display of Halloween candy occupying a giant bloc of high-traffic real estate almost three months before the holiday. Thought it was funny, took a pic and posted it on The Platform Formerly Known as Twitter.

It’s awfully early to be laying in the holiday treats. But it’s rapidly getting late for those trying to restore flood-damaged homes. Cold weather is just around the corner, and with it will come “the second wave of the disaster,” as homeowners and renters who can stay where they are for now could be displaced when the leaves turn and thermometers drop toward the freezing mark.

“The second wave” is how Barre attorney John Valsangiacomo, chair of the board of Capstone Community Action, expressed his concern over what’s coming in a matter of weeks. His words ring true, and there may be no way to avoid another massive displacement on top of what we’ve already seen.

Valsangiacomo was a guest on the August 9 edition of “Vermont Viewpoint,” broadcast on WDEV Radio and now available as a podcast. The show came to you live from Nelson’s Ace Hardware in downtown Barre, where host Kevin Ellis skillfully brought us the experiences and views of civic leaders and Main Street merchants.

There is much to say about the show, as well as Ellis’ equally insightful August 2 broadcast from downtown Montpelier. For now, let’s stick with Valsangiacomo’s words of warning.

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With all due respect to Hal Cohen…

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So yesterday Governor Shumlin filled two vacancies in his cabinet. Justin Johnston was announced, in a brief flurry of bad Aussie jokes, as Jeb Spaulding’s replacement in the role of Shumlin’s Rasputin Secretary of Administration.

And Hal Cohen will become Human Services Secretary.

Justin Johnson, Gov. Shumlin, and -- barely visible in back - -Hal Cohen.

Justin Johnson, Gov. Shumlin, and — barely visible in back — Hal Cohen.

Now, I’m sure Hal Cohen is a nice guy and he’s clearly dedicated to the field of social services, having served as head of Capstone Community Action for 18 years. You don’t keep that job for that long unless you’re committed to the mission.

But is he really the best guy for the biggest agency in state government? And even worse, an agency facing an immediate mandate to cut its current-year budget by ten million bucks?

I know virtually nothing about Hal Cohen. But here are a few numbers that portray his challenge in very stark terms.

AHS: 3,500 staff. Annual budget, from general fund: nearly $600,000,000.

Capstone: 180 staff. Annual budget, $16,000,000.

In short, Hal Cohen is making a quantum leap as a manager. At a time when he will face a massive management challenge from Day One.

Cohen does bring some positive qualities to the job. He is deeply involved in delivering services to those in need, which is a very good thing. He has managed a nonprofit social services agency for a long time, and that’s a very good thing.

But he has never managed an organization anywhere near the size and complexity of AHS. When you manage a staff of 180, you do a lot of hands-on, day-to-day management. You have a personal relationship with a sizeable chunk of your employees, and you probably know them all by name.

When you manage a staff of 3,500, you’re delegating almost all of the work. You’re managing the managers — or, more likely, managing the managers’ managers. And if you spend time building personal relationships with your staff, you’re probably not doing your job.

That’s the basic challenge in making this quantum leap.

And then you add the fact that, between this year’s budget and the next, he may well be asked to make spending cuts equivalent to the entire annual budget of Capstone.  

I’m sure that if Shumlin had pulled someone out of the business world, or out of some other state agency, we’d all be howling about hiring a bean-counter who cares more about the bottom line than helping people. (For example: Johnston saying that the primary goal of the budget is “affordability.” Meaning no new taxes.) But I have to wonder if Cohen is the right person for this job at this time. And I also have to wonder, with all due respect to Hal Cohen, how many other people might have said “no” to the idea of becoming the head of an overstretched agency facing major budget cuts. It’s hard to imagine that Cohen was the first name on the list.

I hope, for the sake of Vermont’s poor, that my misgivings are proven to be groundless.