This commentary is by the Rev. Beth Ann Maier, M.D., of Waterbury, a retired pediatrician and an ordained deacon in the Episcopal Diocese of Vermont. She is a member of the Vermont Interfaith Action statewide organizing committee on housing and homelessness.
When the pandemic shutdown began and the stay-at-home order was issued, Vermont stepped up and provided hotel rooms for those without homes.
Hotel rooms do not have kitchens or grocery stores nearby, so we provided three meals a day.
By March 2021, there were about 2,700 people, 400 of them children, living in roughly 75 hotels throughout the state, at an average cost to the state of $88 a night. This was a generous and necessary emergency response, but obviously not a sustainable path for the state.
The Legislature commissioned a work group to propose a plan to transition people out of hotels and into permanent housing. The first phase of the plan was released the last week of April.
About three-quarters of those currently housed in hotels live in households that have a person with a disability, a person older than 60, children under 18, or are fleeing domestic violence. They may continue in state-supported hotels and shelters if they continue working with case managers to obtain permanent housing until Sept. 22, 2021. They then may be able to get a 30-day extension.
The remainder, roughly 700 individuals, must leave the hotels at the end of June 2021. Agencies will be given about $1,500 for each household to ease their exit from the hotels. As of July 1, meals will no longer be provided to those continuing in the hotels.
Sean Brown, commissioner of the Department for Children and Families, said he expects other social service programs will open up, though “we recognize that food insecurity will still be an issue for some people in motels.”
Who are the people housed in the hotels? A few have migrated in from out of state, but for the most part, they are Vermonters, our brothers and sisters, our daughters and sons, our mothers and fathers.
They are not nameless individuals on a database. They are people we love who have found themselves without a home. Sending 700 people out with $1,500 of support does not answer their need for permanent shelter. Leaving 2,000 people in hotel rooms without kitchens and no transportation to grocery stores or community meal sites does not answer their need for food.
As Vermonters, why is it our responsibility to care for them? The answer is that we have been making decisions for decades that have set up this perfect storm of homelessness. We have allowed wages to be so low that even two full-time minimum-wage jobs do not earn enough to provide housing for a household of three. Full disability benefits and Reach-Up benefits for households with children are not adequate to provide housing without subsidies, and there are now very, very few vacant affordable housing units available in Vermont, and even fewer that will accept a subsidy voucher.
At least 200 households housed in the hotels have rental vouchers available to them right now but cannot find housing. Vacant units just aren’t there.
Vermont Interfaith Action, a grassroots coalition of 68 faith congregations throughout the state, held an action on April 15, 2021, presenting this report to members of the appropriations committees of the Legislature. The report describes how the pandemic has brought to light the degree to which we have negligently underinvested in our housing system. We have a serious housing shortage and aging rental housing that does not meet the state codes for safety and habitation.
The amount of money available through the federal American Rescue Plan offers us a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to remedy our housing shortage. This is not a time for scarcity thinking. We must embrace this abundance and allow our values, our love of our families and our neighbors to clearly set priorities in the use of these funds.
It is the moral and ethical responsibility of all Vermonters to ensure a safe and supportive transition for the hundreds of neighbors exiting the hotels, as well as care and support for those who will remain. We urge the legislature to support the governor’s proposal to use $12 million to quickly expand shelter capacity and use $90 million to rapidly rehouse many of those living in the hotels.
We urge them to commit to building and rehabbing far more brick-and-mortar units of affordable housing than is being proposed in the current legislative budget by supporting the governor’s proposal of an additional $147 million for affordable housing creation by fiscal year 2024. To start the construction process, funds must be committed now. It takes many months to years for authorized funds to become housing ready for move-in. Delay will only compound the urgency of this need.
Surely our very first priority as a state is to ensure that our systems can provide food and shelter for everyone. If our systems are lacking, we must provide a bridge until the system rises to the needed capacity.
There are many bright minds and passionate hearts in this state. There is a massive influx of federal money. Surely, we can devise proactive solutions that restore access to the most basic needs of food and shelter for all our fellow Vermonters.
