[B]URLINGTON — It’s just days before Christmas and last minute shoppers meander down Church Street. Standing on the corner are three homeless people, huddled in warm clothing. A woman offers one of them a gift card she’s just filled with funds.
“People are giving more since it’s the holidays,” said Robert, a 32-year-old homeless man wearing a 50-pound backpack. “I’ll be sitting right here for Christmas. All you can do is laugh about it.”
Robert has been homeless in Burlington for two years. He said that when his housing situation fell through he was able to keep his job working construction and pick up temporary work while sleeping near railroad tracks, but both were seasonal. Since those jobs have ended it’s been hard for him to find a place to sleep, let alone a place to work.
Because Robert does not seek refuge in one of Burlington’s homeless shelters he sleeps in the parking garage in town, other nights in the doorways of churches. On especially cold nights, he said he’s nearly frozen to death.
When the temperature dipped below freezing most recently he called Vermont 2-1-1, a confidential phone line that provides information about emergency food and shelter options. The operator can lead people to state run programs that include hotel vouchers.
“It’s not always easy to get the vouchers,” said Becky Holt, Development and Communications Director for the Committee on Temporary Shelter. “If it’s late or the beds are full (at shelters), sometimes the reality is there are not a lot of options.”
COTS can house approximately 28 men and eight women in its single adult shelter. The organization also runs two family shelters, which can accommodate about 15 families. Other emergency shelters in town include A New Place, a faith-based organization that has 20 beds, and the Community Health Center of Burlington’s warming shelter, with 35 beds.
During the 2016 annual Point in Time Count of homelessness, the Vermont Coalition to End Homelessness counted 332 total homeless persons in Chittenden County on a given night. The count saw a 28 percent decrease in the number of homeless persons statewide since the 2015 count.
While the numbers of homeless people may be down statewide, the Chittenden County Emergency Food Shelf, a nonprofit organization funded partially by the national United Way, several state wide private donors, as well as towns and cities, has seen an increase in people using its services, especially this time of year.
The Food Shelf feeds approximately 12,000 people per year, according to Director Rob Meehan.
The Food Shelf sees its highest number of donations and volunteers from Thanksgiving through the New Year, but the amount of food the organization sees coming in is down since recent years.
This year a private company solicited 3,000 pounds of food for the Food Shelf. In 2007, that a similar food drive yielded nearly 30,000 pounds.
While the food shelf strives to alleviate hunger, the holiday season itself is often a difficult time emotionally for people who are living on the streets.
“We’re mindful about the holidays,” Meehan said. “Trying to make a child happy, trying to stay sober, recover and just survive. Add the holidays to it; being able to provide food right now can alleviate some of those stresses.”
Rick is a homeless man in his 40s who eats breakfast at the Food Shelf. He’s been living on and off the streets for over a decade. Currently, he has a bed at one of the shelters in Burlington. He’s an alcoholic but has been sober for nearly a month, which has allowed him to get into a local housing program and find a job.
“I was in hell 22 days ago,” he said. “I was in a tent on Pine Street, alone. I spent Thanksgiving on two milk crates with a Slim Jim. That was my Thanksgiving night. I knew then it was time for me to get out of the woods and get sober.”
Since then Rick has been able to save enough money to send a Christmas present to his mother in Missouri for the first time in several years.
While the image of the homeless person in a tent with a cart of belongings may be what homelessness looks like for many people, 64 families, including 109 children, stayed at the COTS family shelter in 2015.
“Overall our staff works especially hard this time of year to provide as much normalcy as possible,” Holt said “It’s not an extravagant holiday, but we try to make it normal.”
COTS has held a toy drive where children’s wish lists were provided to donors, and have set up a “shop” in its family shelters where parents can select gifts for their children. The organization also provides events for kids so that when they return to school after the break, they too can recount something special they did over the holidays.
Lisa, a 46-year-old homeless woman standing on the corner of Church and Main Street, at just five-feet-tall in an oversized down jacket, works at a grocery store in South Burlington. She stays at the COTS shelter for single adults. She said she was able to solicit some food donations, like a turkey and vegetables, and is going to make a Christmas dinner for people at the shelter.
“If not, I don’t know where else people would go,” she said.
While organizations like COTS and the Food Shelf see an increase in charitable action this time of year, Food Shelf employee Emmet Moseley, who runs a food truck that helps feed the homeless community, sees holiday inspired consideration for those less fortunate as only the beginning.
“The reality is 365 days per year people are in poverty,” Moseley said “Thinking about it at Christmas is great, but we need that all year round. It’s really easy to think you can check off the boxes at Christmas time.”
