Manchester town officials have asked the state not to place any more people enrolled in the state emergency housing program in the town’s motels, citing a lack of available resources to handle the program.
On social media, officials’ remarks have drawn some criticism from residents who ask where people who are experiencing homelessness would otherwise go.
At the beginning of the pandemic, Vermont devised the program — which houses people who need shelter at motels and hotels around the state — as an alternative to homeless shelters, where social distancing isn’t possible. Now, lodging facilities in Bennington County have reached capacity, and the state has sent people who typically live in Bennington and Rutland to Manchester, where hotels are abundant.
About 120 people experiencing homelessness now live in five motels in Manchester. Town Manager John O’Keefe said that’s equivalent to almost 3% of Manchester’s population, a larger percentage than other locations involved in the state program, such as Burlington and Bennington.
“That’s the major concern,” he said.
In an interview, he said Manchester has no public transportation or social service programs, and that’s a challenge for people who have been living at the motels for months and are cut off from essential supports.
He said Manchester now houses a similar number of people as Bennington, a town that’s three times larger.
According to Tricia Tyo, deputy commissioner of economic services with the Department for Children and Families, there isn’t anywhere else to send those who need shelter.
“The numbers are because of capacity, everywhere,” Tyo said. “Where we have people placed is where we have hotels. Manchester has a lot of hotels.”
Tyo said many people staying at the Manchester motels are Rutland and Bennington residents, but there are no available rooms in either community. She hopes to see capacity in both of those locations open up, and agreed with town officials that it would be better not to send people to Manchester when their lives are focused in other towns.
“A lot of the people are connected with services in Bennington, or their children go to school in Bennington,” she said. “So we would prefer that they be in Bennington, but because of capacity issues, there was availability in Manchester. We don’t want to grow that any further.”
The program is placing people at the Chalet, Econolodge, Four Winds, Palmer House and Weathervane. O’Keefe also said Manchester’s nine-member police department has received a 1,600% increase in its call volume at those locations since the program started, and arrests have also dramatically increased. Incidents have involved narcotics, break-ins and a situation involving firearms.
“When a number comes out, and it looks weird, you double-check it,” O’Keefe said. “1,600 seemed like a big number to me, so I went back and triple-checked it, and it is 1,600.”
VTDigger was unable to reach Manchester Police Chief Patrick Owens on Friday afternoon.
Town officials have also expressed concern about conditions at the motels, noting that children and families have limited space and amenities.
“We’re seeing a 400-square-foot apartment with over two people in them,” O’Keefe told VTDigger. “That means each person in that place has a box of 10 by 10 that is their personal space, and that includes the bathroom.”
In a letter Jan. 25 to the Agency of Human Services, town officials said they hadn’t been told that Manchester motels would house people enrolled in the program, which “has had a very significant impact on Manchester municipal services and represents a real cost shift from your program and the state to the town of Manchester.”
The same letter asked a number of questions, including whether the department could guarantee “appropriate levels of needed social services to those housed in Manchester under this program” and whether the program could help fund local emergency services.
It also asked what authority the department has to “house Vermonters in motel units, which surely constitute substandard housing, and certainly do not meet the minimum requirements for housing units as defined in our zoning bylaws?”
Tyo said municipalities and law enforcement agencies around the state have expressed similar concerns about an increase in calls and criminal activity.
“Those are calls that people would be responding to no matter where somebody’s living,” Tyo said. “It could be in a homeless encampment, it could be at their friend’s house. If they need law enforcement, or they need rescue or an ambulance, they would need it anywhere in the community.”
“The number of people in the hotels in Manchester is probably no different than the number of people in hotels in Manchester on the weekend. It’s just a different population,” Tyo said. “He’s saying 3% of the population — well, that’s probably true when the horse show arrives, or when an event comes into town. That’s what lodging establishments are for; it’s just the length of time that is concerning to most municipalities.”
Affordable access in Manchester
Critics have taken to social media since the Manchester Journal wrote about town officials’ remarks on Wednesday.
O’Keefe had expressed criticism of the program as a whole at a recent selectboard meeting, saying “it’s a bad idea and we shouldn’t be complicit.”
Some said Manchester should be working toward providing social services and more affordable housing.
“Wake up, rich elite of Manchester!” one commenter wrote on the Journal’s Facebook page. “We have had a drug problem for quite some time. Instead of putting already oppressed people on display, let’s strategize on how we can create more housing for lower-income families.”
O’Keefe told VTDigger that he’s critical of the lack of additional support provided to towns and people in the program. Police recently arrested a person who possessed cocaine and heroin, O’Keefe said, and that person returned to the hotel.
“It seems like that person probably should go into a program, or give them an option to participate in a different program that might be more structured,” he said. “Not prison, but a place where there’s more supervision.”
Manchester changed its zoning laws several years ago to allow converted motels, suitable for long-term residents, to be used for housing. O’Keefe said one 40-unit motel-turned-apartment-complex has stalled because of Act 250 permitting processes related to the building’s water supply.
Twenty more units will be built soon near the town offices, and officials hope to use Covid relief money to expand the sewer system, which would make it feasible to build more affordable housing.
O’Keefe said he’d like to see the state put resources toward more permanent opportunities for additional affordable housing, rather than perpetuate the motel program.
“Manchester is a town that is willing to participate,” O’Keefe said. “But the level that we are being asked to involuntarily participate at, and the burden that’s placing on a small town with a small police department, is becoming too much.”
Tyo said the department’s ability to freeze the program in Manchester, so that additional people aren’t enrolled, will depend on capacity in other places.
“We’re hearing Manchester’s concerns, and we do know that this has been a struggle for the community,” she said. ”We’d like to not place any more people in Manchester, but it depends on what happens longer term with the program.”
