This commentary is by Rev. Devon Thomas, who serves churches in Jeffersonville, Hyde Park and Bakersfield.
On March 30 at the Jewish Community of Greater Stowe, the Lamoille Interfaith Partnership will host a Passover and Easter Interfaith Teach-In on housing inequality in Lamoille County.
It is my hope that events like this will help our neighbors of all beliefs and faiths to join in a much-needed statewide effort to make sure all of us have a home to live in.
As a small-town minister, I see housing inequality as a moral issue, but I also feel that, for those of us who have no experiences of homelessness, poverty or housing inequality, it can be difficult to see just how this issue has an effect on all of us.
A little bit about me: I grew up in a stable Underhill home not realizing that we had an issue with homelessness. As a kid, I understood that not all of my friends came from families with money, but for the most part it seemed everyone was OK. To me, homelessness looked like the guys on a street corner in New York City who often are stereotyped as having only themselves to blame. I never saw homelessness in Vermont, and so, assumed it was not in Vermont.
I feel a bit of shame that it took living in New York for seven years and coming back to Vermont for me to realize that homelessness looks different in different places and for different people.
It took getting out of Vermont for me to realize that housing inequality is not just a person living under a bridge; it is a person struggling to pay a mortgage, or rent. Or it is that repair bill that breaks the camel’s back.
Poverty often is not a result of individual failures of responsibility, but is often a result of factors we have no control over.
Many folks who find themselves without a roof over their head have hit a rough point in life and just need help. The question then is: Do we have a community that will provide that help?
This is not something that is beyond our ability to understand. We all feel compassion for our sisters and brothers from Afghanistan and Ukraine who were made refugees through war. We know that it is not their fault they are homeless and are eager to help. But those are factors that are big enough for us to be aware of. It is harder for us to see how factors like disability or mental health or even age and gender can lead a person to become homeless through no fault of their own.
We are in a housing crisis, and a large part of this crisis comes from problems in our national, state and local governments, as well as our communities. The problem is that, when people need our help, we are not able, or maybe not willing, to give them what they need.
This is not just a problem for some of us, it is a problem for Vermont as a whole. When the Apostle Paul talks about this, he tells us, “For the whole law is summed up in a single commandment, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ If, however, you bite and devour one another, take care that you are not consumed by one another.” (Galatians 5:14-15).
When we look at the increasing age of our residents; when we look at our declining workforce, when we notice our children are living in our basements and struggling to start their lives, these are some of the ways our inability to provide loving support comes back to haunt us.
Ever since I started my ministry in Lamoille County, the community has made it very clear that the big problems I needed to focus on are poverty and homelessness. In my time here, I have come to understand that these problems have a lot to do with a lot of other inequalities that we have in our community and our inability to balance the burdens in ways that make sure all of our neighbors have a place to live.
Housing First is a motto I have come to fall back on as a starting place to heal our community.
I want to live in a state where a young person can graduate college, get a job and settle down. Right now, that is not Vermont. I want to live in a state where single mothers can be fully supported in looking after their children. Right now, that is not Vermont. I want to live in a state where having your car break down is not going to cause you to lose your home. But right now, that is not Vermont. I want to address all of these issues, but for now, I will settle with making sure everyone has a place to live.
This work is being done through a lot of local agencies like the Lamoille Housing Partnership, Capstone Community Action, the United Way, Vermont Agency of Human Services and others. I am proud to participate in our March 30 Teach-In event but it will take a lot more work for us to correct the inequality we are living with.
Sometimes change takes a village, sometimes it takes a state, but we all will need to do our part if all of our neighbors are to have a roof over their heads.
