Tag Archives: Department of Children and Families

VSEA Alleges “Authoritarian Environment” in the Economic Services Division

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The Vermont State Employees Association isn’t exactly the International Workers of the World. It generally tries to avoid rocking the boat, and comes in for a fair bit of criticism from more progressive elements of the labor movement in Vermont.

Which made it all the more remarkable when two top VSEA officials went before the House Human Services Committee last Thursday to deliver harsh accusations against the Department of Children and Families’ Economic Services Division in general and its top official, Deputy Commissioner Miranda Gray, in particular. Gray, they said, has created “an authoritarian, top-down environment in which fear is used as a weapon,” leaving employees “demoralized and fearful.”

VSEA President Aimee Bertrand (pictured above), a longtime ESD employee, told her own tale of harassment, retaliation, and punitive actions that led her and the union to file an unfair labor practice charge with the Vermont Labor Relations Board. That filing, she said, led to further retaliatory actions. All of which would appear to violate terms of the union’s contract and/or state law.

It was a stunning event. I’ve been in and around the Statehouse for over a decade, and rarely have I seen such dramatic testimony. I don’t think I’ve ever seen such serious accusations made by VSEA against a unit of state government.

You may not have noticed any of this, because the media coverage was pitifully inadequate.

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Scott to Drowning Man: “A Rising Tide Lifts All Boats”

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When pondering a title for this post, I was tempted to borrow one of the most famous headlines ever written: the New York Daily News’ encapsulation of then-president Gerald Ford’s refusal to consider a federal bailout for New York City, which was then at risk of bankruptcy. But this post is about Vermont’s homelessness crisis and people are literally dying for lack of shelter, so I chose a slightly less on-the-nose title than “Scott to Homeless: Drop Dead.”

The point remains. People are going without shelter, people are dying, people are suffering, and Gov. Phil Scott doesn’t care. At least he doesn’t care enough to actually do anything about it. After setting up two Potemkin village “family shelters” capable of housing 17 whole families, the Scott administration has done nothing further to increase shelter capacity or give aid to the helping agencies that are doing their absolute best to keep people from freezing.

The governor has had time to put together significant new proposals on the public education system and on housing, which is to his credit, but there has been no similar effort for the homeless.

Meanwhile, we’re in the middle of another cold snap with nighttime temperatures well below freezing and daytime temps being frigid enough to pose a danger to human life.

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Scott to Homeless: Talk to the Hand

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Alleged “nice guy” Gov. Phil Scott has done more than his share of garbagey things. The constant belittling of the Legislature, the persistent passive-aggressiveness, the blame-shifting and refusal to take responsibility for anything that happens, the stubborn adherence to policies that don’t work even as problems continue to worsen, just off the top of my head. But I don’t know if anything tops — bottoms? — what his administration did on Wednesday about the state’s deliberate mass unsheltering of vulnerable Vermonters.

What it did — well, what it actually did was nothing whatsoever. What it hinted that it was planning to do, in off-the-record leaks to Vermont’s two biggest TV news operations, is set up “at least two shelters for families, with a projected completion date of Nov. 1″ according to WPTZ, which reported that the shelters would accommodate “11 families, including 21 children.” (WCAX reported that “three new shelters for homeless families” were in the works.)

This is just despicable on a number of levels. First, it’s so inadequate that it’s practically an insult. Hundreds of households, totaling at least 1,500 vulnerable people, have been unsheltered since mid-September, and the state’s plan is to provide for about 30 of them?

Second, WCAX reported that state officials are “aware of”… “at least 21” children left unsheltered. That’s bullshit. There are far more children than that who’ve been affected by new limits on the GA housing program. And they know it. (They admitted it this morning. See below.)

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Whistling Past the Encampment

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We’re a few days into our latest mass unsheltering, and the devastation wrought by Our Political Betters’ mishandling of the situation is fully as bad as expected, if not worse. People on the front lines, trying to help vulnerable Vermonters no longer eligible for state-paid motel rooms, are working their asses off and trying to hold back the tears as they do it. Problem is, they are so committed and dedicated, that they can’t help but push themselves to the brink.

The city of Burlington is reduced to seeking donations of tents and camping gear because THE STATE CAN’T EVEN BRING ITSELF TO DO THAT SIMPLE INADEQUATE THING. Municipalities around the state are begging the state to lift a goddamn finger, and gotten nothing from Gov. Phil Scott in response. Helping agencies are seeking donations* to enable them to conduct the vital work they’re doing because, again, THE STATE IS SHOWING THE BACK OF ITS HAND TO THE UNSHELTERED.

*Organizations worthy of support include End Homelessness Vermont and, in my neck of the woods, Good Samaritan Haven.

The governor, I must remind you, is the guy who has insisted since Day One of his administration that he has three strategic priorities: Grow the economy, make Vermont more affordable, and protect the must vulnerable.

I guess we can cross off that last one, because clearly he isn’t committed to it anymore. Hundreds of our most vulnerable have been kicked to the curb under his watch, and hundreds more will follow in the coming weeks.

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The Humanitarian Crisis Is Almost Upon Us, and Official Vermont Is Doing Nothing About It

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Nothing has changed since my August 18 post about pending reductions in the state’s emergency housing program. Well, that’s not exactly true. Nothing has changed in terms of the official response, but there are all kinds of ways in which the situation is looking even worse than previously thought. That light you see at the end of the tunnel? That’s the headlight of the train headed right for us. Today is September 6; hundreds of people in state-paid motel rooms will see their eligibility expire beginning in mid-September, at the same time a cap on the number of motel rooms will take effect.

That cap is 1,100. At last count, there were more than 1,400 households in the program — and a waiting list of hundreds more. Om case you’d forgotten, eligibility had already been restricted to the truly vulnerable: People with young children or disabilities, people who had suffered a natural disaster or are fleeing domestic abuse.

Remember when Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Jane Kitchel sought reassurance that no one in a wheelchair would be put out on the street if the voucher program were cut back, and Department of Children and Families Commissioner Chris Winters replied “Hopefully not”? Well, turns out we definitely will be kicking out people in wheelchairs, and others with severe disabilities, and generally, people with nowhere else to turn.

In Friday’s mail was the latest edition of The Montpelier Bridge and its two front-page articles: “City Moves to Clear Country Club Road Encampment” and “Motel Program Restrictions Mean 100 Local People To Be Ousted.” Yeah, welcome to the greatest nation on Earth.

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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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There’s Probably a Humanitarian Disaster Happening, But the Judge Said It Was Okay

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Truly bizarre happenings over the last 24 hours, even by the bizarre standards of this seemingly never-ending crisis of housing and homelessness. We’ll get to the judge’s decision allowing Gov. Phil Scott’s ridiculous policy to go forward, but first a note from an official in the city of Burlington, timestamped 4:45 p.m. yesterday:

There are 192+ folks outside in Chittenden County; 0-5 motel rooms available.

This was after the Scott administration had decided to close its four temporary shelters on schedule Friday morning. And almost four hours before the administration reversed course, announcing at around 8:30 p.m. that the Burlington shelter would reopen at least for Friday and Saturday night.

I guess they decided it was a bad look to close a shelter in the face of a severe winter storm with close to 200 people known to be unsheltered in Vermont’s most prosperous county. Too often, it seems as though administration policy is designed to be cruel until the optics get too bad, and then they change course just enough to limit the damage. So they opened the shelter unexpectedly at 8:30 p.m. How many more people could have accessed the shelter if it had never closed in the first place? How many didn’t find out the shelter was available at all or couldn’t make their way to Cherry Street that late in the evening? Or, God have mercy on our souls, how many had already found a refrigerator box or an overpass or other makeshift shelter and didn’t want to lose their spot?

The good thing, from the administration’s point of view, is that this is all happening on a weekend when our news media are essentially unstaffed. As of Saturday afternoon I’d seen no coverage from VTDigger, Vermont Public or Seven Days. Don’t even ask about the Free Press, whose top story right now is “Chittenden County Irish Pub Closes.” There’s a brief item on WCAX-TV’s website announcing the shelter’s reopening, but that’s about all.

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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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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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