Tag Archives: House Human Services Committee

Vermont Republicans Seem to be Just Fine with a Mass Unsheltering

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The House Human Services Committee tried its best to devise a solution for our looming, self-induced homelessness crisis. The committee consulted with Scott administration officials to put together a plan that would extend the motel voucher program through June 30 with some major changes. Eligibility would be expanded to include those in the General Assistance program plus the “adverse weather” program that kicks in when temperatures get low, but it would set a questionably realistic $75 per night cap on motel reimbursements. (Motels are currently getting an average of $132 per night.) I don’t think much of the plan, but it was an honest effort to reach consensus and keep people sheltered at least through June 30.

But now the Republicans are saying “No, thanks. We prefer the mass unsheltering.”

Human Services’ plan went to the House Appropriations Committee on Friday. At the end of the day, the committee took a straw poll in its revised version of the FY2024 Budget Adjustment Act, which included the Human Services plan. The informal, nonbinding vote was 12-0.

Fast forward to Monday afternoon, when Approps took its actual vote on the Act. And whaddyaknow, the committee’s four Republicans changed their votes. The BAA still passed by an 8-4 margin, but the Republican switcheroo meant the Act passed on a party line vote with no GOP support. And according to a report by Vermont Public, administration officials are throwing cold water on the Human Services plan.

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Welp, We’ve Got Another “Fix” for the Motel Voucher Program

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And good Lord, I hope it works, but I’m not optimistic.

Last week, while the Statehouse press corps was doing God knows what, state lawmakers and Scott administration officials were hashing out another baling-wire-and-duct-tape extension of the General Assistance emergency housing program, which is scheduled to expire on April 1. The scheme was devised in the House Human Services Committee downloadable here) and forwarded on Friday to the House Appropriations Committee as a recommended amendment to the FY2024 Budget Adjustment Act. On Monday, Approps voted 8-4 along party lines to approve the amended BAA, including the emergency housing plan. It will go before the full House later this week.

Reminder: Hundreds of Vermonters are due to lose their vouchers on March 15 when the “adverse weather” program shuts down for the season. Over a thousand more are due to be unhoused on April 1 when the GA voucher program will expire.

The Human Services amendment, now approved by Appropriations, would roll all recipients into a single class and mandate that they all be housed, one way or another, through the end of the fiscal year on June 30. (The program’s future after that will be decided in the FY2025 budget.)

Sounds like great news. Human Services deserves credit for working very hard to try to avoid a mass unsheltering event. But the devil is in the details. And I’ll be pleasantly surprised if this thing actually works.

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Representation or Tokenism? We Shall Soon Find Out

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Today is, for those who celebrate, Homelessness Awareness Day at the Statehouse. Among the scheduled festivities: A joint hearing of the House General/Housing and House Human Services Committees, with a roster of witnesses that included not one, not two, but three people with what the agenda terms the “lived experience” of being unhoused. (One of the three, Bryan Plant, is seen above after he testified before a legislative hearing last fall.)

With these kinds of events, the proof is in the pudding. It’s what happens after The Special Day that counts. If this is an opportunity to get lawmakers in their feelings by briefly opening the door to Real People, then it’s worthless. If they actually listen to the testimony and do something about it, then it’s all good.

And we’re gonna find out in a hurry, as House Human Services is about to issue its memo to House Appropriations about what to do with emergency housing in the rest of the fiscal year. Human Services was supposed to release its memo last week. It did not. On Tuesday, it approved a memo that excluded emergency housing from its consideration of the Agency of Human Services’ budget request for the remainder of FY24. As of this moment, we’re still waiting to see what the committee will do about housing.

They seem intent on extending the motel voucher program through June instead of approving the Scott administration’s shambolic request for $4 million to provide shelter for a fraction of those currently getting vouchers. But given the repeated delays, I’m guessing they’re having trouble putting together a solid plan and providing the necessary funding. If they fall short, today’s testimony will unfortunately fall into the “tokenism” category.

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“It’s Not Fair!” Maybe, But It Doesn’t Matter

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The player on the left is the Vermont Legislature. The player on the right is Gov. Phil Scott. The potato in question is the emergency motel voucher program for the unhoused.

When last we met, I was castigating House leadership for proceeding, full speed ahead, toward the cliff at the end of the voucher program. I take none of that back. It’s a disaster, morally, politically and economically.

However, in fairness, it must be said that the real failure here is the governor’s. His administration has had two-plus years to devise an offramp from vouchers to adequate shelter/housing. It has not done so.

The Legislature gets to intervene in such things at budget time. It can try to craft policy and implementation and as badly as the House Human Services Committee has failed to address the end of the program, it has at least tried to build an offramp on the far side of the canyon in front of us. That’s more than the Scott administration has done.

That said, it doesn’t matter. The Legislature has the hot potato, and will get more than its share of the blame if they let the program expire without an adequate substitute. It’s not fair, but who said life is fair?

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Here’s the Early Favorite for 2023’s Saddest Piece of Legislative Testimony

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Pictured above: Members of the House Human Services Committee, giving themselves a round of applause after unanimously passing H.222, a bill that would do quite a few good things on overdose prevention. The bill would make it easier for providers to prescribe buprenorphine without going through the cumbersome process of getting prior authorization* from the state Health Department; improve access to needle and syringe disposal programs and pay for it with a fee charged to prescription drug makers; make it easier to site recovery residences; give reasonable protection against lawsuits for those who administer overdose treatments; and set up some studies on how to best administer treatment and reduce opioid-related deaths.

*Stick a pin in that. We’ll circle back to it in time, and you won’t want to miss it.

All reasonable. And all acceptable to the entire panel. The “Yes” votes included Republicans Anne Donahue and James Gregoire and right-of-center independent Kelly Pajala.

Which brings us to this guy.

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Shocker! Politician Discovers Politics In… Politics!

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Rep. Anne Donahue is having a sad.

According to VTDigger’s excellent Final Reading, Donahue believes she’s the victim of political retaliation.

During the campaign, Donahue was the primary public voice of the anti-abortion movement seeking to defeat Article 22, the reproductive rights amendment. It struck me as a bit risky. After all, Donahue has long been a respected presence, known for her capacity for hard work and her tenacious activism on mental health issues. She’s served on two committees — Human Services and Health Care — that touch on those issues, which was a recognition of her skills and expertise. She was even elevated to vice chair of Health Care, a notable achievement for a member of the minority caucus.

But now she finds herself shuffled back to Human Services and stripped of committee leadership. And she’s crying foul. She believes the change is a simple matter of political retaliation for her strong opposition to Article 22.

Maybe she’s right. I don’t know. But if she is right, so what?

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