Tag Archives: emergency housing

The Press Coverage of the Temporary Shelters Is Somehow Even Worse than I Thought

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The Gods of Time were very kind to Gov. Phil Scott when they arranged for March 15 to fall on a Friday this year. The 15th was the expiration date for the Adverse Weather Conditions emergency housing program, and that’s when the governor, in all his infinite wisdom and alleged niceness, deliberately unsheltered nearly 500 vulnerable Vermonters.

And partly because it happened on a Friday, the press coverage was scant and woefully incomplete. Almost to the point of moral bankruptcy.

It was bad enough that the coverage of Scott’s decision was slanted pretty strongly in his direction. But the lack of attention to the details of his slapped-together temporary shelter “system” may well let him off the hook entirely for an administrative failure of the worst kind

Friday afternoon is the beginning of the long, dark, largely journalism-free weekend. Staffing is minimal at best. Our biggest outlets (VTDigger, Seven Days, Vermont Public) may have a designated reporter who’s on call to cover big breaking news, and the bar is pretty high for that. The TV stations have smaller staffs but still maintain a weekend presence because they’ve got airtime to fill. But don’t expect their A-Team, such as it is. Any coverage from Friday afternoon to Monday will mainly focus on fires, crashes and crime.

With the background set, what did we get for shelter coverage from Friday evening, when the shelters opened, until now? Damn near next to nothing.

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Shameless Mendacity Seems to Have Earned a Page in the Phil Scott Playbook

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I don’t know exactly when it happened, but the administration of Governor Nice Guy has developed a habit of lying. I know, I know, some of you are saying “So, what’s new, John?” But this isn’t just run-of-the-mill fudging the truth. It’s more like easily checkable whoppers emerging from the fifth floor and associated precincts with disturbing frequency.

We first take you back to mid-December, on the eve of a session in which the Legislature was set to consider a bill banning neonicotinoid pesticides. The Agency of Agriculture issued a report boasting that the number of honeybee colonies in Vermont had risen by 43% between 2016 and 2023.

Great news, right? Colony collapse might not be a problem anymore. Maybe we don’t need the ban after all.

Except that Vermont beekeepers completely disagreed. They say the report lumped together stationary and migratory hives. The latter are imported from elsewhere for the warm months. That 43% increase is due to a dramatic rise in migratory hives. Vermont’s own bees are still in trouble.

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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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A Stain on the Senate

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The Senate Appropriations Committee is a distillation of everything I don’t like about the Senate as a whole. It’s heavily weighted toward seniority. The senior solons get near-total deference from any junior colleague who manages to wedge their way onto the committee. Those veteran members are a knowledgeable lot — but they think they’re smarter, wiser and more knowledgeable than they actually are, and they sometimes reflect antediluvian opinions on current political issues. And they frequently express disdain, if not contempt, for the work of the House.

But the worst of the lot is Sen. Bobby Starr. He’s really been on one this week, as Appropriations considers whether to extend emergency housing programs for the well over 2,000 Vermonters who face unsheltering within the next two months. When it comes to homelessness, he crosses the line from “roguish bumpkin” to “hateful bigot.” Repeatedly.

Starr is allegedly a Democrat, and he does cast some useful votes. But the things that come out of his mouth are a stain on the Senate and on the Vermont Democratic Party, and both institutions would be better off without him. Even if his Northeast Kingdom district were to choose a conservative Republican to replace him, I’d prefer that. At least it’d be honest, and at least we wouldn’t have to deal with a Democrat displaying rank ignorance and prejudice in high office.

So what has he been up to this week? Well, let me tell you.

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The Great Emergency Housing Post-Election Newsdump

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A curious thing happened one week after Election Day. The Scott administration, after much delay, released its rules for this winter’s emergency housing program. This is the thing that puts shelterless people in available motel rooms at state expense. .

The rules appear designed to minimize cost by putting strict limits on the program and giving the state plenty of reasons to reject applicants.

Hmm. The governor was running against Brenda Siegel, best known for her 2021 Statehouse protest over emergency housing… and his officials didn’t issue these rules until she was safely out of the way. The timing is too convenient to believe it was pure coincidence.

The delay does have consequences. These rules came out just as the program was opening for business. Recipients and administrators have had no time to digest them. It’s especially bad since we’ve slammed headlong into the first winter storm of the season.

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