Updated at 5:32 p.m.
As the state wound down its hotel housing program, one Colchester hotel offered to close its facilities to public bookings so it could continue to host Vermonters experiencing homelessness.
Melissa Driscoll, general manager at the Colchester Days Inn, said the suggestion was not profit-driven. The hotel makes a significantly higher rate booking travelers than voucher program guests, and rooms sell quickly in a reemergent, post-lockdown travel season.
But Driscoll has gotten to know many of the guests who received housing assistance there over the past year, and is heartbroken to see some returning to homelessness this summer. She’s often taken on a role akin to a case manager, coordinating with state agencies in an effort to help guests receive an extension or find somewhere else to go.
“I don’t think I could sleep at night if I didn’t try,” she said.
To Driscoll’s surprise, the state declined her offer. In May, Robyn Stattel, operations director at Department for Children and Families, told her those rooms wouldn’t be necessary as they phased out the program, according to a May 18 email Driscoll shared with VTDigger.
DCF is contending with several variables to extend some individuals’ hotel housing through the summer: Amid town governments’ concerns that the hotel program stressed first responder resources, DCF and multiple municipalities agreed to caps on the number of homeless Vermonters placed in certain hotels.
Tricia Tyo, the department’s deputy commissioner of economic services, said caps, like the one in Colchester, are limiting the state’s options.
“We’re not losing hotel rooms just because the tourists are coming back,” Tyo said. “We’re losing hotel rooms because we’ve had to put a cap on certain places.”
In response to questions about the Days Inn, she said the department did not, and would not, ask people already living in Colchester hotels — or any other hotels throughout the state — to move elsewhere. They agreed to not place any additional people in Colchester.
Department for Children and Families administrators and municipal governments have negotiated similar arrangements to limit the number of homeless Vermonters housed in several towns, including Colchester, Manchester, Rutland, Berlin and Barre.
And as the state emerges from pandemic restrictions, some hotels are juggling a surge in demand from tourists and holding rooms for Vermonters who would have nowhere else to go.
Local officials in Colchester say housing people in hotels has taxed police and fire department resources.
“It’s not a vacuum,” Colchester Police Chief Douglas Allen said. “The placing of these folks in hotels had some real-life consequences for the communities where they’re placed.”
To Driscoll, the decision didn’t add up. The rooms the guests are staying in are in good shape, and the guests are “not out of control,” she said.
Uncertainty compounded
The number of people sheltered in hotels is decreasing. But even though the bulk of the program concluded at the end of June, the state still housed people in 932 hotel rooms across the state the night of July 6, with 281 of those in Chittenden County.
Hundreds of people either qualify for extended assistance because of a disability or other circumstance, or are in legal limbo waiting to learn if they qualify.
This uncertainty complicates business at hotels like the Days Inn, which is reopening to the public while still participating in the voucher program. When the hotel expected the program to end, it booked rooms online.
When those travelers show up on the weekends, sometimes voucher program participants are forced to find somewhere else to go.
Tyo said the state moved people out of three hotels in White River Junction to other hotels in surrounding areas the mid-June weekend of Dartmouth College’s graduation because of high occupancy rates.
Several hotels stopped participating in the emergency housing program at the end of June so they could return to normal business. This combined with town capacity limits sometimes hamstring the Department for Children and Families’ options when placing those who still qualify for housing, or who are awaiting approval for an extension.
Nicole Tousignant, senior policy and operations director at DCF, said the demand is highest around Greater Burlington.
“In general, the Burlington area has had some capacity issues throughout the pandemic,” Tousignant said. “At this point, we have not had to turn anybody away in Burlington specifically for lack of capacity, but the rooms are very tight in that area.”
Allen, the Colchester police chief, said he and Aaron Frank, the town manager, reached out to their state representatives in March with their concerns, and some data, on the hotel program’s local impact.
Allen said between March 1, 2020, and March 1, 2021, police responded to 623 calls from the two Colchester hotels in the program. They had made only 119 calls to those locations the prior year.
They also responded to 160 EMS calls at the hotels, up from 20 the previous year.
The state offered to fund an additional police officer for the town, but Allen said this wouldn’t work, as it takes approximately 12 to 18 months to hire a new officer.
According to Allen and others who coordinated with DCF, the state then offered to fund additional police overtime. But Allen said Colchester just didn’t have enough officers to do so, no matter the pay.
State Rep. Sarah “Sarita” Austin, who helped arrange an agreement between DCF and Colchester, said the hotel cap was intended as a safety measure, particularly to protect the people in the hotel program.
“The community didn’t plan for it, didn’t fund it, and there were just additional resources that were needed,” she said. “It’s a mismatch between resources and capacity and need.”
Driscoll, at the Days Inn, doesn’t see it that way. She said the town shouldn’t have meddled in her hotel’s arrangement with the state.
“They cannot tell private establishments that they can’t have guests, because that’s basically what they’re doing,” Driscoll said. “They’re discriminating against my homeless guests.”
But Tyo at DCF said the agency is doing the best it can to balance competing interests.
“Everybody’s got their own stake in this, right? I heard from the Colchester legislators by email, I heard from the town manager, we’ve talked to the police department,” Tyo said. “I’ve heard from the motel owners, I’ve heard from St. Mike’s College and I’ve also heard from the population that we’re serving. So trying to balance all of that in a responsible way is really what led to the decision about, ‘OK, we need to cap this.’”
