Tag Archives: Carly Berlin

The Phil Scott Shelter Clusterfuck Takes Another Bad Turn (Plus, Bonus Eclipse-Related Unsheltering)

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No foolin’ this time: April 1 brought yet another mass unsheltering for no good reason whatsoever, and the blame appears to fall on the Scott administration’s failure to communicate with clients of the motel voucher program.

It seems that somebody realized sometime last week that roughly 800 households — which, by the standard calculation of 1.6 persons per household, would be about 1,280 individuals — were eligible to stay in their state-paid motel rooms, but in order to do so they had to apply for reauthorization by April 1. And they hadn’t done so.

According to designated unsheltering pool reporter Carly Berlin, a mad scramble ensued. Well, she used “scramble.” The “mad” part is mine. Berlin:

The [Department of Children and Families]’ pleas were captured in an email sent to service providers on Friday afternoon, in which a DCF official said more than half of the 1,600 households “have an authorization that ends on 4/1/24 that has yet to be renewed.” In the message, Lily Sojourner, interim director of the Office of Economic Opportunity, asked for providers’ help in securing residents’ renewals.

To clarify: Sojourner “asked for providers’ help in doing the job DCF should have done.” Ugh.

The scramble brought the number of evictions down to about 360 households (570 individuals) as of early Monday afternoon. Great!

On top of this comes the cheery news from Seven Days that in Chittenden County, “more than 150 households” (at least 240 individuals) will lose their rooms on Saturday and Sunday nights so motel operators can rent ’em out to eclipse tourists at extortionate rates. It’s unknown how many will lose their shelter outside of Chittenden County. There are eight other counties in the totality zone, so the total unsheltered could be much higher.

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Come On Down to Big Phil’s Policy Lot!

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Automotive metaphors are always a temptation when writing about the man behind the wheel of #14, Gov. Phil Scott, but sometimes you gotta go with it. Now, the governor doesn’t look like a used car salesman when he’s holding court in his ceremonial office. He can sound convincing when he tells you about this sweet little number, low mileage, owned by a little old lady who only drove it to church on Sunday. You’ll look great behind the wheel of this baby!

But if you drive it off the lot, pretty soon it’s leaking fluids and making funny sounds and belching smoke out the tailpipe.

Which brings us to, you guessed it, the governor’s shambolic temporary shelter “plan.” He calls it “a successful mission” and gives himself top marks: “I think we did a good job.” His sales associate, Human Services Secretary Jenney Samuelson, is effusive about how her people were all over the state, keeping in close contact with those about to lose their motel rooms, “actively communicating, going door to door last week,” and being “really flexible” about helping folks fill out the necessary waivers to achieve eligibility for continued motel vouchers.

Get into the real world, though, and this thing starts looking like a complete lemon.

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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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Shock, Dismay Over Completely Predictable Consequence

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Well, it’s looking like the Legislature’s plan for extending the emergency housing program is in danger of falling apart for reasons that were pretty obvious from jump. As I put it at the time, “I’ll be pleasantly surprised if this thing actually works.”

As Carly Berlin, Designated Homelessness Correspondent for both Vermont Public and VTDigger, reports, motel owners are balking at a proposed $75 or $80 per night cap on GA housing vouchers. The former figure is in the House plan; the latter is in the version passed last week by the Senate.

As a reminder, the current average nightly voucher is $132 per night. And that figure was achieved after months and months of bargaining by the state, which was directed by the Legislature to negotiate lower rates for vouchers.

And hey, extra bonus fail points: The new cap would take effect on March 1 — a mere 15 days from now.

That bit hadn’t been reported before. Top marks to Ms. Berlin for catching it.

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