This commentary is by Anne N. Sosin, a public health researcher and practitioner and the interim executive director of the Vermont Affordable Housing Coalition.
Vermont currently has the second-highest per-capita rate of homelessness behind only California, the lowest rental vacancy rate in the U.S., and an estimated shortage of up to 40,000 homes.
What separates Vermont and California is not simply the scale of its problem but the comparatively weak commitment of its political leadership to addressing it.
As California, New York and other states across the country adopt bold plans backed by historic investments in housing, Vermont’s leadership is currently debating a budget proposal that would leave upwards of 2,000 people unsheltered come July.
Eliminating funding for shelter does not eliminate the human and financial costs of homelessness. It simply displaces these costs to the state’s most vulnerable residents and the already overburdened emergency rooms, social service providers, schools and communities.
In 2022, over 4,400 Vermont households experienced homelessness (Agency of Human Services data). Many more Vermonters are teetering at the edge of homelessness as rental vacancies fall and rents continue to rise.
Despite progress in creating permanent, affordable housing, Vermonters are becoming homeless at a faster rate than the state is creating housing. 2,400 Vermont households entered homelessness in 2022 while 2,200 exited it. Many fear that this trend is continuing in 2023.
Defunding the state’s critical safety net without investing in shelter alternatives will have a large human toll. A large body of evidence shows that homelessness and housing instability lead to a broad range of poor health outcomes. 75% of the 2,300 households experiencing homelessness at the end of 2022 include a person with a disability (according to the Agency for Human Services). More than 40% (966), had one or more trips to an emergency room in 2022.
Unsheltered homelessness also comes at a steep financial cost. Several studies, reports and briefs from national housing organizations estimate the cost of unsheltered homelessness at upward of $30,000 per person in annual costs to hospitals, the criminal justice system, schools, public services, and local communities.
Research commissioned by the U.S. Departments of Health and Human Services and of Housing and Urban Development found that responding to encampments of unsheltered people is resource-intensive for local governments. More than 90% of these costs are absorbed by local governments.
Yet, homelessness and its devastating consequences are not inevitable; they are a policy choice. Many studies have demonstrated that the vast majority of people can be housed successfully with overwhelmingly positive housing retention rates, public health benefits, and cost reductions. Cities and institutions that have employed proven approaches — Houston, Milwaukee, the Veterans’ Administration — have made dramatic progress in reducing homelessness.
Data from Vermont programs employing evidence-based models show similarly positive results; however, Vermont has not invested in these approaches at the scale needed.
Across the country, leaders are making the choice to address the crisis of housing and homelessness. An analysis by Kaiser Health News found that California Gov. Gavin Newsom had invested $18.4 billion in a broad range of initiatives, including a program to convert motels into permanent housing with social services estimated at $4 billion, to address the state’s staggering homelessness crisis. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul‘s Housing Compact set a target of building 800,000 homes to address its housing deficit and was accompanied by a FY24 budget proposing unprecedented investments in housing.
Permanent housing, not motels, is the solution to homelessness. Vermont needs to create bridges into housing, not cliffs into homelessness, as it works to make progress on its housing crisis.
Housing advocates have put forth the Bridges to Housing proposal to advance the dual goals of ending homelessness while reducing reliance on motel-based shelter. The proposal calls for bold investments in housing, support for alternatives to motel-based shelter, and greater funding for services to better support people in shelter and ease the impacts on communities with motel shelter.
Vermont leaders must stop debating the number of people to unhouse and instead adopt policies and investments to accelerate progress on homelessness.
It’s time for Vermont to follow the lead of other states and cities and set bold targets, adopt plans grounded in proven strategies to address homelessness, and make transformational investments in affordable housing to create the homes Vermonters so desperately need.