Well, another press conference today about our ongoing, self-inflicted homelessness crisis. This one featured Burlington Mayor Emma Mulvaney-Stanak (above), who gave us the title for this post, along with a crew of The Usual Suspects including Brenda Siegel of End Homelessness Vermont (left, above), Falko Schilling of the ACLU of Vermont (right, above) right, Frank Knaack of the Vermont Coalition to End Homelessness, and Julie Bond of the Good Samaritan Haven.
They made the familiar plea: Hundreds upon hundreds of vulnerable Vermonters are being exited from the General Assistance voucher program, while available shelters and support services are at or beyond capacity. You can find more comprehensive reports on the presser elsewhere; I’d like to emphasize a few key points.
First, the situation was already critical even before cuts in the voucher program began taking their toll on September 15. It has gotten worse since then, and will continue to get worse for at least the next two weeks as recipients hit their maximum stays. The pain has only just begun. And all of those affected have been classed as vulnerable. There are no able-bodied freeloaders here.
Second, the speakers emphasized their desire to move beyond the blame game. “We must set aside our political and policy differences,” Siegel said, in order to craft a humane resolution to the crisis.
Third, there is one and only one person who can get this ball rolling: Gov. Phil Scott.
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The Vermont Political Observer. 