BERLIN — Sitting in a conference room at a motel off Airport Road in mid-October, Winona Stewart repeatedly summed up her predicament with a simple saying: “It is what it is.”
Along with her adult son Douglas, and partner, Christopher Paul, she had been staying at the motel thanks to a state-subsidized voucher since being evicted from their apartment in Wells River a month prior. But that voucher — which they qualified for because they receive federal disability benefits — was expiring, and they had no place to go. No family could take her in (indeed, it was usually Stewart who offered shelter to relatives in need) and although she had searched high and low for an apartment, she could find none.
“I got applications out there to I don’t even know how many companies,” she said.
Stewart has a litany of illnesses: “You name it, I got it going on at 60 years old.” Some of these make having access to electricity a matter of life and death. She and her partner take diabetes medication that must be refrigerated. At night, they both rely on CPAP machines to manage their sleep apnea.
While the trio’s situation is dire, it is not particularly unusual. Amid the state’s housing crisis, the latest data show that landlords are filing an increasing number of evictions in Vermont’s courts. Tenants seeking help face high hurdles as Vermont’s safety net returns to a pre-Covid condition.
The number of evictions filed in court are generally considered the tip of the iceberg when tracking those forced from their housing. They don’t include renters who receive a notice of termination and leave to avoid a court record of their expulsion from housing. Nor do they encompass people who leave because their landlord has announced a rent increase they can’t afford.
But court-filed evictions are the only trackable data available on such trends in Vermont. And according to Jean Murray, an attorney at Vermont Legal Aid who keeps count of those cases, evictions statewide are up.
In the five years before the pandemic, an average of 1,771 cases were filed in court annually, according to figures compiled by Murray. At an average of 38 cases filed per week this year, Vermont is on track to see 1,976 cases filed in 2023.
There are signs that the trend is accelerating. Murray notes that pandemic-era federally funded rental assistance was still in effect for some tenants through June. With that help now gone entirely, eviction tallies over the most recent month averaged 42 per week.
“It is likely that if we count from this October to next October, the annual total would be above 2,100,” she wrote.
Stewart acknowledges she had conflict with her landlord, Bob Welsh, who runs the family real estate business with his son Robby. He didn’t like that she had allowed her son, Douglas, to stay with them when he lost his housing. But she wasn’t a fan, either. When her refrigerator died during the pandemic, she said, he wouldn’t replace it. Because she couldn’t afford to buy one outright, she financed the purchase, which she said cost her about $2,800.
But she said she doesn’t know why he ultimately decided to kick her and her family out. She and Paul were handed termination notices for no cause at the beginning of April and given until mid-July to leave, according to court records.
This incenses Stewart. “I just can’t wrap my head around being evicted for no reason,” she said.
Records also show that despite falling behind on rent payments a handful of times, she worked to catch up and generally paid on time. But she stopped after being told they would have to go. Stewart said she was furious — and figured she had to start saving up for the next place. Later in the eviction proceedings, Capstone Community Action, an anti-poverty nonprofit, even offered to pay her family’s rent arrears to keep them in the apartment, she said, but the landlord refused.
“I just don’t see how anybody can legally do that to somebody who is disabled,” Stewart said. “I mean, I know they need their money too. But at least try to work with somebody.”
Landlords in Vermont can decline to renew a lease without citing a reason. Voters in three municipalities have recently backed measures to restrict such “no cause” evictions at the local level, but these tenant protections still await the sign-off from the state Legislature and the governor, who get the final say on charter changes in Vermont. Gov. Phil Scott has opposed such measures, arguing they dissuade landlords from renting out their properties.
Bob Welsh, whose rental business manages about 130 apartments in Vermont and New Hampshire, declined to comment on the family’s tenancy, citing his attorney’s advice. But he defended the practice of no-cause evictions generally, arguing that they allow landlords to take a risk on tenants who might not otherwise qualify for an apartment.
He offered as an example the company’s recent decision to rent to three young teachers, who he said had no rental history and were “relatively low-income” given their posts at rural schools. Without the “exit strategy” offered by no-cause eviction if tenants didn’t work out, Welsh said he might not have offered them a lease.
Landlords can also evict tenants for non-payment of rent or breaking a lease’s terms. But this, he argued, is too administratively burdensome.
“That would take you forever,” he said. “You’d be in there fighting six months.” (The process to evict Stewart and her family for no cause took about five months, court records show, from the time that they were handed their termination notices until a court issued a writ of possession.)
Outside of the winter, unhoused Vermonters seeking state-subsidized shelter in motels face strict eligibility requirements and time-limited help. Families with children, for example, and people like Stewart, who are disabled, qualify for 28 days of shelter. After that, they’re out, unless the Department for Children and Families grants them a special exemption. Local shelters, meanwhile, are generally full.
A subset of people — including those who are evicted for no cause — can also qualify for an 84-day voucher under DCF’s rules. But because Stewart’s family had stopped paying rent after receiving the notice to leave, the state argued they were responsible for their eviction, and should not qualify for the extended help, according to Brenda Siegel, a housing advocate who took on the family’s case.
“I tend to think that’s kind of the training, because there isn’t an attempt to figure out how someone does qualify,” Siegel said. “The attempt is to figure out whether or not someone is telling the truth or how they don’t qualify. It doesn’t seem like the attempt is to get to yes.”
For two weeks while Siegel hunted down paperwork to appeal the Stewarts’ case, the Hilltop Inn waived their fees. But when a reporter visited on Monday to check in on the family, the manager at the front desk, Linda Hallock, remarked that the family would need to leave Wednesday if the matter wasn’t resolved.
During an interview later that morning, Stewart went to her phone to search for pictures of her former apartment — and found herself thumbing wistfully through pictures of her grandchildren. There was blonde, tousle-headed Jackson “on a bad hair day,” Stewart proudly showed a reporter, and Haleigh, who was going to be “little Miss America one day.” And there was Gracelyn, who loved rainbows and who had stayed with Stewart at the Wells River apartment with her father when the latter was undergoing cancer treatments.
Asked by a reporter about what she was planning to do when the interview concluded, Stewart shrugged. She had planned on going to Burlington to shop for Christmas presents, she said, but was no longer sure that made much sense since she, her partner and her son might be sleeping in a car in a matter of days.
“We were told we have to be out here by Wednesday if the appeal wasn’t …” she said before trailing off. “I don’t know.”
Stewart got an eleventh-hour reprieve the following day. Siegel had finally received a letter from Capstone, confirming that the nonprofit had looked into offering the family assistance with the rent arrears but was rebuffed by the landlord. Just hours after Siegel sent it in — and a reporter reached out for comment — the Department for Children and Families on Tuesday reversed itself, saying that Stewart and her partner, at least, were approved for an extended voucher, which should serve as a bridge to the state’s winter-time vouchers, and guarantee them shelter through March 15. They offered no explanation, according to Siegel. A DCF spokesperson, Monika Madaras, said the department could not comment on the case, citing confidentiality.
Reached by phone soon after hearing of the department’s reversal, Stewart expressed a sense of guarded relief.
“I feel better,” she said. “At least, for a little bit longer.”
