The Vermont Conversation with David Goodman is a VTDigger podcast that features in-depth interviews on local and national issues with politicians, activists, artists, changemakers and citizens who are making a difference. Listen below, and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts or Spotify to hear more.
Updated May 11.
Vermont is experiencing an unprecedented housing crisis. Vermont has among the lowest rental vacancy rates in the country and among the highest rates of homelessness. Gov. Phil Scott has announced that he will not extend the Covid-19 pandemic-era emergency hotel housing program now that federal funds for it have run out, and after much debate, state lawmakers declined to continue the program. Absent a reprieve, the emergency housing program is slated to begin closing down June 1.
On this Vermont Conversation, we hear from people at the center of the housing crisis.
“What’s going to happen right now is we’re going to have a catastrophic fallout that’s going to be … a humanitarian crisis,” said Brenda Siegel, a housing advocate and former gubernatorial candidate. “We’re expecting our small communities, who do not have the resources, to pick up all these pieces.”
“People think homeless people don’t work, and it’s not true. They work so hard,” said Brittany Plucas, 29, who spoke to the Vermont Conversation at the Hilltop Inn in Berlin. Plucas works two jobs but lost her housing in April. She is frantically looking for affordable housing but has discovered that waiting lists are months and even years long.
“The housing crisis is so bad. There are families here that have lost housing and they are working to provide for the children and for themselves. They’re working to keep their kids safe. People just aren’t understanding it. Right now, it’s a hard time for everyone.”
Gary Winslett is an assistant professor of political science at Middlebury College. His own challenge in buying a home motivated him to investigate and write about the roots of Vermont’s housing crisis. Vermont “spent a long time just kind of not building any new housing,” he said. He argues that Act 250, Vermont’s land use and development law passed in 1970, has had the unintended consequence of blocking affordable housing and must be significantly reformed.
“In the Vermont context, the pro-environment thing to do is to build housing near where jobs are so that people can drive less. It’s to build those new homes with modern insulation so that they’re using far less greenhouse gases when they heat their home in Vermont winters. The environmentalism that we need today is not about blocking everything in sight. The environmentalism that we need today is about building things,” he said.
Plucas is now confronting homelessness if the emergency hotel housing is not extended past June. Experiencing homelessness “terrifies me. I didn’t think it was something that was possible,” she said, choking up. “Because I’ve worked so hard in my life to try to provide for myself and make myself something. I’ve worked since I graduated high school. I’ve tried to keep a roof over my head for years. And I failed. I feel like the state failed me (and) the government failed.”
“I’m not giving up,” she said through tears. “I’m still gonna try my best at making my life better.”