This story by Aaron Calvin was first published in the News & Citizen on Oct. 16, 2025.
Lamoille Community House, which oversees a shelter in Hyde Park and temporary housing in Morrisville, will take over operations of a family shelter in Waterbury next month.
The Waterbury shelter, located in a former National Guard armory, is specifically meant for families with no stable housing options, and can accommodate anywhere from 12 small families to eight larger families, or a variation depending on the demand.
The Waterbury shelter was opened, along with another shelter in Williston, last November as a seasonal shelter after the state wound down its pandemic-era expansion of emergency hotel housing — a move that ultimately displaced 1,400 people, according to Vermont Public. The shelter had previously been managed by a consulting firm from North Carolina until its closure in June.
As winter closes in and the shelters prepare to accommodate the homeless, Lamoille Community House director Kim Anetsberger said the Office of Economic Opportunity, which disburses funds to community organizations from the Agency of Human Services, approached her organization to gauge its interest in taking over the shelter.
Good Samaritan Haven, Washington County’s shelter operator, was the office’s first choice, according to Anetsberger, but the organization declined, opting to focus its resources on opening a new shelter in Montpelier, according to The Montpelier Bridge.
“We just want to do our part in making sure that whatever gaps in services and shelter for families are filled while we can,” Anetsberger said. “We just want to make sure that there are options for people and that families aren’t sleeping outside.”
Anetsberger said that Lamoille Community House’s core administrative team is particularly strong at the moment and well-suited for this expansion, and that organization staff and volunteers are familiarizing themselves and connecting with support groups in the Waterbury area. The organization operates an all-season, 21-bed shelter in Hyde Park, which was opened in 2024, along with three family shelter apartments and a recuperative care program in Morrisville.
The Waterbury shelter has a play area for kids, a dining area, a kitchen, laundry and office spaces. Anetsberger is in the process of hiring a new team of full and part-time positions to help staff the the facility.
According to coordinated entry data, there were 4,588 unhoused Vermonters in June, a slight decrease from last year’s count, but a major increase since 2020. In Lamoille as of Oct. 9, there are 36 households at risk of becoming homeless and 46 households that are currently homeless — a total of 118 adults and 64 children, according to the United Way of Lamoille County. That’s a marked drop since August.
The Legislature’s primary contribution to the shelter services landscape was a bill that would have restructured how funding for shelter providers and other organizations is disbursed. It was bill that some, including Anetsberger, opposed. She hopes lawmakers next session will consider allocating more resources to shelter programs, which she said are more cost-effective and efficient, and allow residents greater access to resources than the hotel program did.
“I think people are more successful in shelters than they are in hotels, so I think it would be a really big missed opportunity if, during this legislative session, they didn’t look into putting money towards projects like this. We have a certain amount of money, we need to rehab this building, and that is a possibility through the appropriations in the budget,” Anetsberger said.
A recent analysis by Vermont Public found that the state has invested $789 million of public funds into the state’s housing crisis since a pandemic-era surge in demand, which resulted in just 2,249 new homes, with another 1,156 rehabilitated housing units.
“I know we’ve put a lot of money into it, the state has already, but they have to listen to the people that are doing the work and the experts that have created plan after plan after plan on how to solve this, and listen to that, and really invest and consider creating revenue streams that can be allocated towards housing so that we can really make a bigger impact,” Anetsberger said.
