[B]URLINGTON — While overall homelessness dropped in Chittenden County from 2018 to 2019, the county saw a sharp rise in the number of “chronically homeless” individuals this year.
The Chittenden County Homeless Alliance announced the results of the annual “Point in Time” count of homeless individuals Monday. The total number of homeless individuals dropped from 359 in 2018 to 309 this year during the count, which occurred on Jan. 23.
However, the number of “chronically homeless” individuals — defined as people living with disabilities who experience extended periods of homelessness — rose drastically over the past year, from 48 in 2018 to 74 in 2019. This reverses a consistent downward trend over the past five years.
Margaret Bozik, the director of asset management and special initiatives for the Champlain Housing Trust, said the increase in chronically homeless individuals in Chittenden County was “disturbing.”
Bozik said that while there was enough funding in rental subsidies for those experiencing chronic homelessness, the lack of adequate funding for supportive services and lack of available apartments led to the increase.
“The vouchers need to be used in conjunction with supportive services, and there’s not enough funding for the service capacity needed to match the subsidy,” she said. “As a result, we have a significant amount of rental subsidies that actually are going unused.”
In Chittenden County, even those who do have rental subsidies and the services they need have a hard time finding studio and one-bedroom apartments due to the region’s housing crunch, she said.
Bozik said that while progress had been made in recent years, it appears to have hit a wall.
“As you keep more and more people housed, the need for services gets larger and larger,” she said. “You’re housing more and more people. You need more services to help the people you’ve already housed and you need services to support the people you are trying to get housed.”
Bozik said there was enough rental subsidy funds to serve most, if not all, of the 74 chronically homeless individuals in the county. But there is only enough capacity in services for around 20 of them, she said.
“There’s a huge gap on the service capacity side,” she said.
Mayor Miro Weinberger said while the decrease in the overall number of homeless individuals was encouraging, he was concerned with the significant increase in the number of chronically homeless individuals.
Weinberger said the city pays close attention to the chronic homeless count, and believed it had been making progress.
“This does seem like a step backwards,” Weinberger said. “We’re working with our partner agencies to try to understand what could be causing that.”
The city is optimistic that “housing first” policies — prioritizing placing people in housing and concurrently providing services — and efforts to fund facilities have been working, Weinberger said.
For example, the city paid to keep the low-barrier shelter open later this year. It also contributed funds from its Housing Trust Fund and federal funding it administers to the COTS building on North Avenue, which includes 14 affordable apartments, and the Laurentide Building at Cambrian Rise that includes a portion of units for previously homeless individuals.
Weinberger said there was not yet a consensus explanation to account for the increase in chronically homeless individuals, and that he was looking forward to discussing and evaluating the findings with community partners.
The statewide point in time count found that there were 1,089 total homeless Vermonters, a 15 percent decrease from 2018. The count was the lowest number of homeless individuals in nine years.
Washington County had the second highest total of homeless individuals, with 141, while Windham County was third with 98.
The point in time count for Chittenden County showed a 46 percent increase in the number of homeless adults reporting a severe mental illness and a 33 percent increase in homeless adults reporting a substance use disorder.
The count determined that there are fewer families and fewer veterans who are homeless in Chittenden County. The number of homeless families dropped from 33 to 25, and the number of homeless veterans dropped from 29 to 17.
Bozik said the Statewide Veteran’s Committee has worked to identify the homeless veterans in the state to match them up with available resources. There are more federal resources available to veterans than some other populations, she said.
The Burlington Housing Authority has focused its rental subsidies to help homeless families, Bozik said, which contributed to the decrease. There are also more two- and three-bedroom apartments available in Burlington than one-bedrooms, she said.
Federal funding sources are limited. While Bozik said an increase in state funding for social services is needed to help address the chronic homelessness problem, the Legislature is not poised to make a major investment this session as it concludes this week.
“What I would hope is that in the next session, there would be a possibility for some significant action,” she said.
