Lawmakers have given a new working group five weeks to come up with a solution for transitioning 2,700 homeless Vermonters in motel rooms into permanent housing.
The eight-member group, established in lieu of adopting an earlier proposal from the Scott administration, reflects two realities: Lawmakers don’t have a clear sense of how to solve the crisis, and the deadline to do so is looming.
“It’s a hot potato, and leadership is needed,” said Ken Russell, executive director of Another Way, a community drop-in center in Montpelier.
“What we have to figure out is, if not motels, where?” said House Human Services Committee Chair Ann Pugh, D-South Burlington, who helped craft the proposal. “The bottom line is, I’m sorry, people should not be thrown out on the street.”
About 2,700 people are currently housed in roughly 75 motels around the state, a number that has continued to rise throughout the pandemic. The state is paying an average of $88 a night for each room — a total of about $6 million last month and $31 million to date, according to Geoffrey Pippenger, senior adviser to the commissioner of the Department for Children and Families. So far, the federal government has covered most of the cost, but the state will soon have to pick up the tab.
And while the rooms have provided much-needed shelter and space for social distancing, housing nonprofit organizations and police have highlighted safety concerns and drug use at the sites. It has proven difficult for guests to find more stable housing.
Earlier in the session, state officials proposed that management of the motel voucher program be handed over to local housing organizations. Social service providers and housing nonprofit administrators soundly rebuffed the idea, saying it would overwhelm local nonprofits and lead to disparate resources and policies across the state. In response, legislators instructed both sides to get back to the bargaining table.
The new group — which will include members from the Agency of Human Services, homeless service providers and affordable housing representatives, and a staff member from Vermont Legal Aid — is expected to come up with a plan for using federal money, a long-term strategy for the state’s motel voucher program, and a budget and timeline for the transition.
The plan, which must be submitted to the Legislature by the end of April, should aim to move all Vermonters out of temporary emergency housing — mostly motel rooms — by June 2022.
It will operate in conjunction with a second working group focused on building more housing.
The working group will offer a chance for people to step back and find a way to make use of the influx of federal money in a way that can effectively end chronic homelessness for good, said Maryellen Griffin, a housing attorney for Vermont Legal Aid. “Vermont could really do this; it’s really exciting,” she said. “Vermont’s small enough and tight-knit enough.”
Sarah Phillips, director of the Office of Economic Opportunity, offered a more tempered outlook. “Do I think we’re going to necessarily build an apartment for each household in [the general assistance program] in the next 12 months? No.” But, she said, the state and housing agencies would “employ lots and lots of strategies” to help families find a safe place to go.
How much money will be available to do so is not yet clear. The state Legislature has put forward $40 million to be used by the Vermont Housing & Conservation Board. The American Rescue Plan stimulus may bring Vermont about $10 million for the creation of housing, said Gus Seelig, executive director of the Housing & Conservation Board. The House has also allocated $50 million to the effort in its proposed budget.
It still may not be enough.
As Russell of Another Way put it: “The morality is straightforward; the financial part is a challenge.”
[Related: ‘The best motel in Rutland’: Three days in Vermont’s emergency housing program]
Seelig said his organization would likely take a variety of approaches to offer more housing: funding for housing agencies to buy motels, construction of new housing, and helping landlords refurbish vacant or uninhabitable apartments.
They’d fast-track efforts to build multifamily units for people experiencing homelessness but would consider other types of applications as well.
“Congress has focused, as they should, on short-term assistance,” Seelig said. “We have a structural problem; we need more capital to build and renovate housing.” To do so at the scale that is needed in the next few years will require a significant investment from the federal government, he said.
But developers, knowing that funding is available, are already crafting their proposals to submit to the housing and conservation board this summer, he said.
“We expect lots of good, creative proposals,” he said. “People are already gearing up.”
