Tag Archives: Phil Scott

The Shelter Clusterfuck, Continued: Now With More Ridiculousness

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This is a follow-up to my previous post on the Scott administration’s plan to exit 500 homeless Vermonters from state-paid motel rooms on Friday and into temporary congregate night-only shelters.

Which seems slightly less devious but even more absurd with the news that the governor signed the Budget Adjustment Act on Wednesday afternoon. My proposition that he’d delayed signing so he’d have a pretext for exiting all those people was inaccurate.

But the signing raises new questions. The biggest of which is, why in Hell did he wait so long? The bill passed the Legislature on March 1. I’m sure it took a few days to reach his desk, but the language had been agreed to. There was no need to sit on the bill. And since he did, his officials were left without firm direction on how to extend, or not, voucher accommodation for those being housed under the Adverse Weather Condition program. It meant, according to Commissioner Chris Winters of the Department of Children and Families, that state officials had little to no contact with AWC clients until Wednesday.

The only previous communication had been a letter warning clients that they might have to exit their motels on March 15. That’s all.

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“A Manufactured Crisis”

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Gov. Phil Scott’s treatment of the emergency housing program has been a case study in mismanagement with more than a hint of deliberate cruelty. But today, his administration outdid itself.

Extra bonus: He is openly defying the will of the Legislature as expressed in clear language that his own officials agreed to.

Let’s address the on-the-ground reality stuff first, and then we’ll circle back to process.

On Friday, the Adverse Weather Conditions (AWC, pronounced like a raptor call) program expires for the season. As it stands, roughly 500 people now housed in state-paid motel rooms will lose their shelter. And so the state is patching together a handful of temporary congregate shelters (think cots, communal bathrooms, and no known provision for food) in four cities across the state: Bennington, Berlin, Burlington, and Rutland.

But wait, there’s more! The shelters are nighttime-only. They will be open from 7:00 p.m. to 7:00 a.m. During the daytime? You’re on your own.

But wait, there’s even more! They are only going to operate for one week, more or less.

But that’s not all! The shelters will be staffed by hastily-trained National Guard personnel with security duty contracted to local law enforcement, whose officers will be armed.

A reminder that most of these people would qualify for extended motel stays due to disability status, old age, youth, or other criteria.

Were they trying to create the worst possible program? It sure seems that way.

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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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Day Drinkin’ Time

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Got a bad case of climate dysphoria today. It’s about 40 degrees colder than yesterday; Burlington saw new record high temperatures each of the past two days; in less than 24 hours we went from flood watch to gale force winds to freezing cold; and the newly-formed ruts on my dirt road have frozen into fascinatingly unpredictable configurations. It’s like art that can screw up your suspension.

Otherwise, well, there’s very real concern that we’ll have a mass unhousing tomorrow, Governor Nice Guy is turning heel, and Our Leaders don’t seem to have the vision to meet the various crises besetting us on all sides. Meanwhile, I’m sitting in my home office wearing a jacket. Indoors. I can’t imagine what it’s like for the involuntary “campers” our state’s policies have scattered across Vermont.

Oh, and I’m working on a really depressing story about the impact of bigotry in a Vermont town.

So yeah, third cup of coffee so far today. And by “cup,” I mean “22-ounce travel mug.”

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Nikki Haley Organizes Vermont Team

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A few days ago, the Nikki Haley campaign announced the formation of a Vermont State Leadership Team. I didn’t take much notice at the time because it’s not going to make the least bit of difference. Donald Trump is going to steamroll his way to probably all of Vermont’s 17 delegates as he grinds along to his inevitable nomination.

The only things that can stop him are (a) a quick and decisive criminal conviction or (b) a clear and obvious slide into dementia. Haley’s not going to do it, and her newly formed Vermont committee doesn’t have a prayer of carrying her to a primary win.

I wasn’t going to bother covering it at all until a Haley supporter took to The Formerly Robust Platform Formerly Known as Twitter to complain that there had been no coverage of the Vermont announcement. “Shameful that press has not covered this news in Vermont — it’s a big deal,” wrote Court Mattison. “Haley would help win down ballot and bring balance to #montp.”

Well, okay, your wish is my command. But be careful what you wish for.

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Shouldn’t We Be Thinking Big on Housing?

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As the Legislature pursues an actual housing policy in the absence of Gov. Phil Scott, who is focused solely on regulatory reform, there’s my question.

Shouldn’t we be thinking big?

Like “a record-breaking bond issue to jumpstart our supply of affordable housing” big.

Back in 2017 the Legislature and governor approved a $37 million affordable housing bond. In the ensuing two years, then-senator Michael Sirotkin, then chair of the Senate Economic Development Committee, proposed a second bond of $35 million (2019) or $50 million (2020). His efforts fell short, in part because then-treasurer Beth Pearce expressed concern about Vermont’s total indebtedness,

Well, it’s more than time to reopen that question and, honestly, push it as far as we possibly can. I’d aim high, maybe $250 million, and see what I could get. Why not? If we have a housing crisis, shouldn’t the response be proportionate?

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The Administration Does Have a Housing Plan But It’s Incomplete and, So Far, Mainly Hypothetical

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Earlier this week I gave Gov. Phil Scott’s plan to address the housing crisis a failing grade. Today, two of his top officials briefed the House Appropriations Committee on a report (downloadable here) prepared by the administration’s Council on Housing & Homelessness.

It was useful and informative. A lot of good work has been done, and a lot of good ideas are included in the report. Which is not to say I was wrong in my earlier assessment; the report is lacking in two crucial ways.

First, it does little to address our current explosion of homelessness. Its focus is on “prevention,” which seems to mean preventing future unhousings while doing not much for those already without a dependable roof over their heads.

Second, virtually none of it is in Scott’s FY2025 budget, which means that all its recommendations are just that. Recommendations. There’s been no commitment to implementation, not even an actual proposal. That doesn’t mean the report will be memory-holed, but there’s no proof that it won’t be.

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Phil Scott’s Big Fat Housing FAIL

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Hey, remember last fall, when the Scott administration delivered a grim assessment of Vermont’s housing crisis? Top officials outlined a dire situation with shortages in all sectors of the housing market, from shelters and subsidized rentals to single-family homes to top-end residences. In response, the administration convened an informal task force to confront Vermont’s housing crisis. A multiagency group was going to gather once a week throughout the fall to come up with big, comprehensive solutions.

Well, whatever has become of that?

Two things, and only two things, both of which completely fail to meet the moment. First, we have a joke of a temporary shelter expansion that might net a couple hundred beds for a few months. Second, we have a push for regulatory reform.

And… that’s it. No significant public investment in housing. Phil Scott is failing to address the crisis. He is failing to lead on the issue that he himself spotlighted as the state’s biggest challenge.

This has been obvious for a while, but it was hammered home during a brief legislative hearing on Friday afternoon that wasn’t even on the schedule.

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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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Hey, Let’s Take an Early Check on the Republican Ticket and… Oh.

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The Vermont Republican Party has a long record of losing statewide races except when the name “Phil Scott” is on the ballot. Scott is still undefeated for the entirety of his political career going all the way back to 2000, when he rode the anti-civil union wave* into the state Senate. Otherwise, it’s been solid goose eggs for the VTGOP in statewide contests since the Jim Douglas era, if memory serves.

*Seems unbelievable now, but the Republicans nearly swept Washington County’s three Senate seats that year. The late Bill Doyle** finished first, Scott second, and Republican J. Paul Giuliani almost ousted two-term incumbent Democrat Ann Cummings. But we were all much older then, we’re younger than that now.

**Correction: “The late Bill Doyle” is still with us at age 97. My apologies.

Otherwise, the top of the Republican ticket has featured tons of fringey no-hopers with a sprinkling of old-fashioned conservatives. Lately it’s been more of the former, as the far right has seized control of the VTGOP apparatus. And it’s looking like 2024 will be no exception. Not only do we have the soundly defeated Gerald Malloy making another bid for the U.S. Senate, but the even more soundly defeated Gregory Thayer has staked his claim to another bid for lieutenant governor. (The Vegas wise guys have set the over/under on joint campaign appearances featuring Thayer and Scott at… zero.)

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