The good news: Vermont consistently ranks among the country’s healthiest states. The bad news: Nearly 6 percent of adults, asked about their well-being in the past year, cited a serious mental illness — significantly higher than the national average.
The good news: Vermont added more than 4,000 food-related jobs between 2009 and 2013. The bad news: Although the number of farms increased, almost 60 percent reported net losses.
The good news: Vermont guarantees 3- and 4-year-olds universal access to preschool. The bad news: The state ranks last for the percentage of low-income children who participate in outside academic and enrichment programs.
When the Vermont Community Foundation decided to reveal those and other equally conflicting facts in a new report, it knew readers might react with consternation.
“As people think about issues,” foundation spokesman Felipe Rivera says, “the question comes to mind, ‘What can I as an individual do?’”
That’s why the state’s largest philanthropic organization has titled its findings “Opportunity: 11 Critical Paths for Philanthropy in Vermont” and punctuated its list of societal problems with just as many potential solutions.
“The answer is, in many cases, there’s a lot you could do,” Rivera says. “That’s what this report is meant to address.”
The findings outlined on the foundation’s website culled from interviews with philanthropic, nonprofit and community leaders — start with four trends:
- “An expanding ‘opportunity gap’ that makes it harder for people to break the cycle of disadvantage and threatens one of the fundamental tenets of our society here in America: that with hard work and perseverance, one can get ahead.”
- “A need to re-energize civil society, strengthening and building social capital in our communities.”
- “A shifting demographic, which in Vermont is most characterized by an aging population and to a lesser extent, an out-migration of youth.”
- “A set of challenges resulting from climate change, for which we are not fully prepared and that have the potential to disrupt everything from the quality of our water, to the availability of affordable housing, to our tourism revenue.”
The report then focuses on 11 specific targets. First and foremost: Helping the estimated 46,000 working families — nearly one in four in the state — who aren’t earning enough to make ends meet.
“Their pocketbooks are strained,” the report says, “by rising food and energy costs, problems exacerbated by climate change, and by Vermont’s high cost of living — the ninth highest in the nation.”
Nearly three out of five Vermonters pay more than 30 percent of their income for housing, statistics show, while one in five households that rent spend more than 50 percent to do so. Compounding that, the state’s housing stock is the second oldest in the nation, resulting in higher fees for heat and maintenance.
“The tactics for lifting the working poor out of poverty look different than those designed to provide safety nets for the very poor,” the report says. “Some of these, like minimum wage improvements and paid sick days, require policy changes. Other approaches include teaching financial literacy or providing access to more affordable and energy-efficient housing.”
The report is filled with equally disconcerting facts about a wide range of demographic groups:
- Nearly half of Vermonters with depression don’t seek help.
- Nationally, up to 65 percent of all jobs in the next decade will require a college degree, yet less than one-third of Vermont ninth-graders are expected to obtain one.
- Nearly half of Vermont woodlands are privately owned by seniors, “creating an uncertain future for a large amount of forest in the state.”
- Up to 80 percent of inmates in state prisons are serving time for drug use or associated crimes, yet access to treatment is severely limited.
To address this spectrum of issues, the foundation is exploring what it calls “intersectional giving” that connects related problems with shared solutions.
“Past public policy in many areas of the country often put affordable housing at a distance from most job opportunities, on the edges of towns, or on marginal land,” the report notes. “This strategy virtually required low-income families to own and maintain often unreliable vehicles which are both bad for job security and for air quality. The problem is compounded by low or no access to public transportation in rural communities. Funding intersectional work that connects, say, a community action agency, a housing authority, and an environmental organization to address these multiple pathways together is often a more effective strategy than funding each to separately address a single issue in isolation.”
The report highlights several “promising approaches” for each problem area. In the case of housing, for example, it informs readers about HomeShare Vermont, a nonprofit organization that pairs seniors and people with disabilities with low-income residents who need an affordable place to live.
To help with family dynamics, it spotlights Working Bridges programs that provide on-the-job support to workers facing financial or social stresses ranging from reliable transportation to mounting medical bills.
“We selected the opportunities that have a strong economic benefit and a particularly meaningful role for philanthropy,” foundation president Stuart Comstock-Gay writes in the report. “These are important considerations in an environment where public funds for basic human needs continue to decrease, where there is more recognition than ever about how a strong local economy helps residents thrive, and where philanthropy needs to be increasingly nimble in the work it undertakes.”
The foundation cautions that the causes showcased in its report are just a sampling of the hundreds of community charities Vermonters can support.
“We don’t pretend to have all the answers,” Comstock-Gay writes, “but our hope is that we can spark dialogue and stimulate new thinking so that we’re able to take full advantage of the opportunities that are in front of us.”
Kevin O’Connor, a former staffer of the Rutland Herald and Barre-Montpelier Times Argus, is a Brattleboro-based writer. Email: kevinoconnorvt@gmail.com
