For most of Vermont’s cold-weather months, the state will once again pay to house low-income Vermonters experiencing homelessness in hotels and motels — regardless of the daily forecast.
But that promise of help comes with a lot of caveats.
Prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, the Department for Children and Families’ adverse weather conditions policy — informally known as the cold-weather policy — relaxed eligibility for the state’s general assistance program to cover the cost of emergency housing in motels during periods of extreme cold. But shelter was guaranteed only one day at a time, and its activation was strictly weather dependent.
Last year, under pressure to let hundreds of Vermonters experiencing homelessness who had been booted from a pandemic-era assistance program back into motels, the state significantly relaxed the cold-weather rule. Anyone making less than $24,000 a year could seek shelter in motels from Nov. 22, 2021 to March 1, 2022, regardless of the forecast, DCF said at the time.
This year, the state has made a similar announcement: From Dec. 15 to March 15, 2023, temporary shelter in motels will be available no matter the forecast, and can be authorized in increments of up to 30 days.
But that rule doesn’t kick in for another month. From now until Dec. 15, and again between March 15, 2023 and April 15, 2023, emergency housing for cold weather will be regionally authorized based on strict criteria:
- Temperatures (or wind chill) must be forecast to dip below 20 degrees Fahrenheit or,
- Temperatures must be forecast to dip below 32 degrees and there must be a greater than 50% chance of precipitation.
- Either condition must be forecast to be met for at least three hours within the hours of 6 p.m. and 6 a.m., based on the town in which DCF’s local district office is located.
That means that despite the National Weather Service forecasting Vermont’s first snowstorm of the season landing early Wednesday morning, the adverse weather conditions policy will not be in effect in 11 of 12 of the state’s regions Wednesday, per DCF’s website. People who are experiencing homelessness, however, will be eligible to seek shelter under the policy in most regions on Tuesday and on Thursday.
“Tomorrow’s a snowstorm,” Rebecca Plummer, a staff attorney at Vermont Legal Aid, said Tuesday. “And maybe, technically, it falls through the cracks of this — which is just evidence of how insane it is to be parsing it like this.”
Plummer also noted that motel and hotel shelter would be dependent on availability — and that there appear to be precious few rooms open to Vermont’s most vulnerable. A capacity list released by DCF on Tuesday indicated that rooms were “extremely limited” or entirely unavailable in 10 of 12 regions across the state.
As a massive influx in federal cash during the Covid-19 crisis dries up, Vermont is ramping down several key housing programs even as growing numbers of low- and middle-income families find themselves locked out of the housing and rental market.
A spokesperson for DCF said Tuesday that no one from the department was available to answer a reporter’s questions until Wednesday afternoon.
DCF regularly posts updates about motel capacity and whether the adverse weather conditions policy is in effect on its website.