This commentary is by state Rep. Brian Cina, P/D-Burlington.
Vermont has the opportunity to lead the nation in our response to the housing crisis by building housing for all. But instead, Vermont policymakers may cause a humanitarian disaster that threatens to undermine our collective recovery by passing a budget that evicts more than 2,800 individuals from hotels to the streets.
The forced eviction of the residents from Sears Lane by the city of Burlington in 2021 illustrates the potential harm on a smaller scale. After three years of tolerating a large encampment on city-owned land, the siege and displacement at Sears Lane not only destroyed homes and personal belongings of vulnerable people, but also bulldozed the social support network of a community.
Despite the emergency assistance offered by the government, the services provided by nonprofit organizations, and the mutual aid of neighbors and volunteers, the state violence against Sears Lane caused tremendous trauma for individuals, families, and communities.
The approximately 1,800 households potentially displaced from the hotels do not have the same safety net offered by the government to the people of Sears Lane. Eviction of people from hotels could potentially fill more than 70 encampments the size of Sears Lane spread across Vermont.
Some people may find permanent and temporary housing, but many others would be sleeping in cars, in parking lots, on the streets, and in the woods. More people would move in and out of prisons and hospitals due to the impact of eviction on the social determinants of health and crime.
Hundreds of people are facing abandonment — cast into the shadows after being treated as if they mattered and belonged — traumatized by the loss of shelter and community due to another broken promise between the government and the people.
The estimated $150 million or more spent by the government on guaranteeing housing for all during the pandemic emergency would mostly go to waste, and the potential unintended social and economic costs could increase exponentially over time. Consider just the cost of the increased amount of time people may spend in other state facilities due to the impact of eviction. In 2015, the estimated daily operating costs in Vermont per person were:
– $1,602 for emergency rooms
– $1,000 for inpatient psychiatric
– $856 for inpatient hospitalization
– $288 for nursing home
– $137 for prison
– $132 for assisted living
– $73 for motel
– $40 for permanent supportive housing (not including capital costs)
The potential cost of eviction over time would most likely exceed any savings and would yield no identifiable benefits.
Instead of mass unsheltering, we can choose housing for all. Appropriate the funding needed to guarantee shelter and peace of mind to the people in hotels for the next year as we build bridges to housing.
Provide community-based services to people in hotels that improve social determinants of health, with pathways to permanent housing that meets the unique needs of individuals and families as soon as it is available.
Reinvest as much money as possible from current hotel expenses into housing for all by:
– Negotiating lower fees with all hotels for the next year as part of a transition (a reduction from $149 per day to $100 per day would save about $30 million per year).
– Purchasing some hotels for conversion into a range of temporary and permanent housing options (for example: 77 rooms at Paradise Inn = $2.7 million to own vs. $4.2 million to rent for a year).
– Buying manufactured housing to fill vacant lots in mobile home parks.
– Identifying state and municipal land near a few of the hotels and rapidly building permanent public housing not only for unhoused people, but also for twice as many other people who want to move around or to Vermont for work, school, and retirement.
– Incentivizing private development in the neighborhoods between new housing and the hotels as part of a broader process of economic and social revitalization.
– Coordinating current appropriations for the Vermont Housing Conservation Board and Vermont Housing Finance Agency with the development of both public and private housing around as many hotels as possible.
– Easing regulations on emergency assistance and on development as part of a coordinated plan to redevelop designated neighborhoods around hotels.
Vermont can learn from the success of other states that have chosen to creatively invest recovery funds, such as Project Turnkey in Oregon or Project Homekey in California.
At this moment in time, Vermont’s General Assembly must choose between mass unsheltering or housing for all. When we compare the costs versus benefits of this decision, the choice is clear.
As we recover from the pandemic emergency, Vermont can build a future of social and economic opportunity for all by guaranteeing housing as a human right, once and for all.
