BURLINGTON — “I never have trouble sleeping, OK? Like, never. Nothing ever keeps me up at night,” said Kevin Pounds, executive director of Burlington homeless shelter Anew Place. “Until this.”
“I can’t stomach the thought of 40 to 50 people being on the streets of Burlington in the winter,” he said.
Pounds and other shelter leaders are desperately trying to prevent that possibility as Vermont’s unforgiving winter looms just around the corner. Because of social distancing, fewer people can be housed in existing locations. It will take many more places to meet the need.
So, shelter organizations are renovating places and finding new spaces altogether, given that the Covid-19 pandemic seemingly has no end in sight.
When the pandemic hit in March, shelters had to halve their bed availability to accommodate social distancing. Some had to shutter completely. So the state expanded its hotel voucher system so people experiencing homelessness could be housed in individual hotel rooms to allow for quarantining.
But the funding for that program runs only through September. Between March and August, it cost the state almost $16 million to expand the hotel voucher system. As of now, says Tricia Tyo, interim deputy commissioner of economic services, the state has been able to secure money from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to cover about $12 million of that total.
She said FEMA is expected to continue reimbursing the state for the hotel voucher program through Oct. 16, but she doesn’t know how much that will cost.
Tyo said she doesn’t know how the hotel voucher system will continue, or be funded, past mid-October. She said her division is trying to come up with a plan right now.
“We are in unprecedented territory. As you know, we moved quickly to provide non-congregate sheltering for the homeless population to keep people safe and keep virus transmission low. It is working and we recognize that it is expensive and unsustainable over the long term,” Tyo wrote in an email. “We have no immediate plans to end non-congregate housing for the homeless.”
Tyo said 374 adults and 52 children are currently housed in Burlington hotels. Across the state, she said, there are about 1,100, down from about 2,000 at the beginning of the summer. And while the state has succeeded in moving some people and families into longer-term housing, she said hotels are still reporting an influx of new people who recently lost their housing.
Micro sleeping units nixed
While there’s no immediate plan to end the hotel voucher program, Pounds knows his shelters will be in high demand come winter. The low-barrier winter warming shelter that Anew Place operates, and typically opens Nov. 1 every year, can’t reopen because it doesn’t have the enough space to allow for social distancing. The shelter had made 40 beds a night available for Vermonters to sleep during the coldest months.
Which is why Pounds, in partnership with local startup Beta Technologies, proposed setting up micro sleeping units made out of shipping containers on Sears Lane in Burlington, near a homeless campground. The units were going to be outfitted with running water and electricity and managed by Anew Place.
But the project was denied funding by the Vermont Housing Conservation Board. Pounds said too many residents voiced concerns about the project and alleged that the units would bring more crime and drug use to the area. One resident told a Seven Days reporter, in reference to the project and the residents “It’s just scary, and they’re dirty and disgusting.”
Pounds said that stigmatization led to the project’s demise.
“That was pretty crushing for us,” he said. “In areas where we run shelters, we don’t see an increase in crime, we don’t see complaints from our neighbors.”
Now, Anew Place is waiting for a decision from the housing board on funding a new facility that offers more space to establish a winter warming shelter. Pounds said the request is for $2.6 million to $2.7 million.
But time is running out to get a new facility running before winter. And the money that the Vermont Housing Conservation Board got from the state’s coronavirus relief fund has to be spent by the end of December, according to federal guidelines.
Pounds said he’s confident this second proposal will move forward, but anxiety is ever-present. “What happens if we don’t get this open in time?” he said.
COTS sees motel possibilities
Rita Markley, executive director of the Committee on Temporary Shelter, said the shelters her organization operates have overseen about $57,000 worth of renovations and improvements to keep clients safe. That money came from the state’s coronavirus relief fund, which was propped up by the $1.25 billion federal package the state received.
This money has funded plexiglass dividers, an air exchange system to improve ventilation, and new furniture that is easier to wipe down and disinfect. A bathroom was also added at one of COTS’ congregate housing programs.
To comply with CDC social distancing guidelines, COTS’ Main Street family shelter has had to cut its capacity almost in half — it used to house 10 or 11 families, Markley said. Now it can house only six. The Firehouse Family Shelter used to house five households; now that’s down to three. At COTS’ single adult shelter, the capacity was cut from 36 down to 17.
“What we have advocated for is funding to purchase some of the local motels in the county that are currently on the market,” Markley said, working with partners who would make the purchase. She said COTS is working with the Champlain Housing Trust to secure these properties, but nothing has been finalized yet. Chris Donnelly, director of community relations for the housing trust, said his organization has received $16 million from the coronavirus relief fund to put toward new housing and shelters.
The state has also made more housing vouchers available — 350 recently became available through the Department for Children and Families, in addition to another 100 that were made available through an expansion of the Vermont Rental Subsidy program. These vouchers don’t address the need for more housing stock, which is why the state has also opened up applications for landlords to receive grants to refurbish more housing units, in an effort to address the overwhelming demand for affordable housing.
Despite these efforts, Markley said the Chittenden County housing market has become even tighter over the past few months, as people are moving to Vermont and Burlington in droves because of its status as a Covid-19 safe haven. Because of this widespread housing precarity, Markley hopes the state won’t discontinue the hotel voucher program.
“I don’t think there’s any way that the state of Vermont could feasibly shut down the motel program without displacing 300 households,” Markley said.
Steps to End Domestic Violence is another shelter looking to move its operations entirely to accommodate Covid-19 safety precautions. Nicole Kubon, executive director of Steps, said her organization had to winnow its seven-room capacity — which can house single people or families — down to three to four rooms.
Kubon said that even before the pandemic, her shelter couldn’t keep up with the demand. That stress has only grown since the pandemic hit, as some victims of domestic violence became shut in with their abusers, another change Steps has had to work around to reach clients.
Steps can also house its clients through hotel vouchers under a state program called “safe home.” In March 2019, Steps had about 40 households in hotels. This March, that number went up about a third, to 62. Kubon said she suspects this number rose because victims of domestic violence couldn’t safely crash on the couch at a friend’s or relative’s home under Covid circumstances.
Kubon said Steps was awarded money to buy a larger shelter space, in collaboration with Champlain Housing Trust. The purchase hasn’t been finalized, so she couldn’t give more details, but she hopes the new shelter could accommodate 20 rooms or more.
“So that would meet, you know, half of the need,” Kubon said. “Whereas right now, we’re barely able to meet a quarter of it.”
