This commentary is by John Bossange of South Burlington, a retired middle school principal.
No one who lives and works in, or visits Burlington would tell you that Burlington feels as safe as it did just five years ago. Public safety is the major concern of everyone and by far the most important issue of the day. In Burlington, the mayor’s race was dominated by this crisis, and public safety should be a major concern for Gov. Scott and the rest of us who do not live in the city, but call Vermont home.
It is true that other towns in Vermont and cities across America are suffering from drug epidemics, crime and homelessness. It’s a national and statewide crisis, but that’s not an excuse to minimize or dismiss the need for immediate action in Burlington while pursuing long term, permanent solutions. We know Burlington is the engine that drives Chittenden County, and the County is the engine that drives much of the economic, social and cultural engines of Vermont. 45,000 people live in Burlington and 170,000 live in Chittenden County. With all due respect to other small towns in our state that may share some of the same concerns, when 26% of the population lives and works in one location, it’s in every Vermonter’s best interest to protect this part of the state.
Gov. Scott and the next mayor of Burlington need to combine their resources and come up with an action plan to care for the most vulnerable, desperate, drug-dependent, and homeless individuals as well as to protect the rest of the public from feeling harassed, intimidated, and unsafe. Making Burlington an enjoyable place to live, work and visit must be our Vermont community goal.
First we need to move the homeless, the vulnerable, those with mental health issues and those hooked on drugs off our streets. We are doing them no favors by letting them suffer in public, unsupervised spaces. They need housing, food, clothing, medical, psychological and emotional support, and a pathway out of their dire circumstances. They cannot choose to sleep in open areas, tent, beg, deal and use drugs, and depend upon the drug criminals to feed their addictions. For their own safety and ours, they must be moved to supervised locations.
To help with that, it is clear we need more police officers. More officers visible in the city, assisting with moving the homeless and drug dependent will increase public safety and create a more positive environment. Relocating the homeless and drug dependent begins with more well trained and well paid police officers in our city, not just with more social workers. We cannot have a police force 30 officers short with only four officers on duty at night. Defunding the police has been an unmitigated disaster and has opened up the pathway for increased crime, drug trafficking and usage, shootings, and harassing, intimidating street behaviors.
Second, we must identify housing units in selected motels and local shelters both in Burlington and in surrounding towns again funded by a combination of federal, state and local dollars. Those sites must be staffed with security teams, medical personnel, social workers and counselors to be sure that these locations are safe and supportive for this vulnerable population. Again, this costs money, but we have no other options. The homeless and the drug-dependent population are in crisis, and we must move them off our streets, out of our parks and abandoned buildings, and into safer and more compassionate environments. If we don’t, many will continue to overwhelm our Emergency Response Teams and hospital emergency rooms, or they will die on our streets.
There will be some who believe that this approach is punitive, discriminatory and against the law. On the contrary, it is compassionate, realistic and legal. There will be others who believe everyone has the right to be on our streets, parks and in public spaces. They are wrong. No one has the right to make anyone feel harassed, unsafe or in a threatening, intimidating environment. And who feels safe right now returning to their car after an evening on Church Street or walking past beggars, overdosed individuals or tent settlements? In fact, the 9th Circuit Court has ruled that you can remove people from the streets as long as you provide them shelter in return.
These solutions will cost millions of dollars. Here is where we need Gov. Scott to see Burlington as his city. He needs to create a partnership with the new mayor and put together a package of financial commitments to help with this crisis. Wisely, we have used our reserve funds to save Montpelier, Waterbury and other towns from several weather related crises. In Burlington, we now have a non-weather related crisis. Thanks to our hard-earned tax dollars, we can once again use some of the $641,000,000 available in our statewide reserve accounts to save a downtown business district, to decrease crime, to help those who deserve our support and compassion and to restore Burlington.
No Vermonter can ignore the public safety crisis in Burlington. We need to remember that what happens in Burlington will eventually impact all of us, no matter where we live. Burlington is the economic engine that will drive the future of Vermont. The time has come to invest our way out of this crisis. We know what to do. Burlington is a small city. Together we can do this.
