This story, by Report for America corps member Carly Berlin, was produced through a partnership between VTDigger and Vermont Public.
Montpelier city officials have ordered the removal of a downtown encampment that had grown in recent weeks.
Elizabeth Byam, 44, had set up camp in a small park near Montpelier’s riverfront bus station after her state voucher expired at a motel in nearby Barre on July 1, she said on Thursday afternoon.
On Wednesday, Montpelier City Police officers arrived at the encampment with notices indicating that the campers would need to leave within 24 hours, Byam said. If they didn’t vacate, their belongings would be taken and stored off-site, out of town, Byam recalled the notice saying.
The next morning, Byam packed up her things before city officials arrived to clear the area. She remained at the site shortly after officials had left, along with a handful of other campers. Her family’s belongings were piled into shopping carts.
Byam estimated that about eight to 12 people had been staying at the encampment recently. She had been living there with her sons and her pregnant daughter-in-law.
“We have a bunch of stuff because she’s got to get ready for a baby,” Byam said. “But we don’t want her outside, either. We want her into a place.”
Montpelier’s acting city manager, Kelly Murphy, did not respond to repeated requests for an interview on Thursday afternoon and Friday morning. The Montpelier City Police Department also did not respond to multiple interview requests. (Meredith Warner, deputy director of local homelessness nonprofit Good Samaritan Haven, confirmed the timeline of events relayed by Byam.)
Camping overnight at public parks is prohibited in Montpelier, though city leaders said last summer that they generally look the other way as long as campers haven’t caused issues.
The city has a separate policy that guides how it handles encampments on other property, focused on diverting camping away from “highly sensitive areas” like grounds near a school or cemetery. The policy also lays out public health and safety issues that can prompt officials to ask campers to leave, including criminal activity and excessive amounts of waste, among others. Montpelier City Council plans to revisit its encampment policy next month, according to recent reporting by WCAX.
The area where the encampment was located, dubbed Confluence Park, garnered half a dozen calls to the police between June 30 and July 6, according to the Montpelier Police Department’s most recent call log.
One log, dated July 2, noted that an encampment was being set up at the location, along with “persons with open containers of alcohol.” Another log the following day noted: “community member very unhappy with homeless people on the bike path at Confluence Park.” An assault in the area last week impacted members of Byam’s family, she said.
The encampment removal is not the first undertaken by the city in recent memory. Last August, Montpelier officials ordered the removal of an encampment at a former country club after a pattern of “threatening behavior” developed. The move prompted a protest led by one of the unhoused people displaced from the site, demanding city officials indicate where people could camp safely.
The city’s move this month comes in the wake of the most recent round of evictions from the state’s motel voucher program, which Gov. Phil Scott has sought to cut back since its pandemic-era expansion. The July 1 exits primarily impacted families with children and people with acute medical needs who had been shielded by an executive order that expired on that date.
In the past, the Scott administration has set up temporary shelters in the wake of evictions from the state’s motel system. This time, however, the Republican’s administration has not indicated it will take such a step.
In the meantime, people living outdoors in Montpelier have few other options. Local service provider Good Samaritan Haven plans to open a long-awaited year-round shelter in the city later this year.
But that won’t come soon enough for Byam. As of Thursday afternoon, she had packed up her camping gear. She planned to sleep outside a nearby church, where she’d heard she would be allowed to stay.
“That’s probably where we’ll be tonight,” Byam said. “And then focus tomorrow on if we’re going to stay there again tomorrow night, or if we’re going to find a spot.”
Warner, from Good Sam, said small municipalities and nonprofits alike are strained by the impact of rising homelessness in Vermont – particularly as both state and federal resources retreat.
“I’m honestly just tired of talking about camping as if it’s a reasonable solution to this problem,” she said. “It is an inhumane response to a person who needs a place to live.”
