This commentary is by Maryellen Griffin, a staff attorney at Vermont Legal Aid.
Homelessness is complicated, but for each person the solution is the same: a home. Vermont needs a clear, coordinated path connecting people experiencing homelessness with the affordable housing the public has already funded.
Vermont recently reduced the number of motel rooms available for emergency housing during most of the year from 1,100 to 700. For the roughly 4,000 Vermonters experiencing homelessness, including more than 600 children, fewer emergency shelter rooms means more people sleeping outside, in cars or in other unsafe places while they search for permanent housing. At Vermont Legal Aid, we recently heard from a family asking where they could legally sleep outside with their children. No parent should have to ask that question.
Leaving people without shelter does not save the public money. It shifts costs to hospitals, emergency responders, schools, communities and other public services without solving our crisis of homelessness. Stable housing is both the humane response and the fiscally responsible one.
Vermont invests public money in subsidized housing because thousands of Vermonters cannot afford market-rate rents. But making a home affordable does not mean that the people who need it can access it.
First, a person must find a subsidized apartment in a location and size that work for them, determine whether they qualify, complete the application process, respond to notices from multiple properties for months or years just to stay on the waiting list and then get through a strict screening process. Although Vermont has a statewide directory of subsidized properties and a common rental application, it lacks a coordinated system for getting a subsidized apartment. Applicants must still apply to properties one by one. Then, after waiting months or years, they can be denied because of a prior eviction, unpaid rent or poor credit.
The strict screening criteria create a cruel catch-22: People are evicted into homelessness because they cannot afford the rent, then denied affordable housing because of the eviction.
Subsidized housing cannot fulfill its purpose if it screens out the people who need it most. But reducing screening barriers is only part of the solution. Landlords also need reliable access to responsive case management, conflict resolution, flexible funds for repairs or unit modifications and early intervention when a tenancy is at risk. Vermont should fully fund those supports so that people can both obtain housing and remain housed.
Great River Terrace in Brattleboro shows what happens when those supports are underfunded. The publicly funded development was designed as permanent supportive housing to reduce barriers for people who had experienced homelessness. Earlier this year, its operators ended that model altogether, citing the absence of a comprehensive funding model for the continuum of care many residents needed, and the property is converting to general occupancy. Vermont cannot use its affordable housing system to end homelessness unless it reduces barriers to securing housing and funds the supports people need to remain housed.
Vermont should take two concrete steps.
First, we should create a statewide housing access system that shows current vacancies, open waiting lists, eligibility and screening requirements, accessibility features and application instructions. Applicants should be able to provide core information once, identify properties for which they may qualify, apply to multiple open waiting lists and manage all pending applications in one place, including updating their contact information and confirming their place on each waiting list. Housing Navigator Massachusetts offers one model for this, including the ability to identify units available for immediate occupancy.
Second, Vermont should require aggregate reporting from publicly funded housing providers. That reporting should include vacancies and turnover times, applications and denial reasons, placements from homelessness, eviction filings, successful eviction prevention efforts and exits to homelessness. The goal should not be to shame or rank providers. It should be to identify where the system gets stuck and what resources would help.
Act 143 provides a starting point. The law creating Vermont’s new homelessness program requires the state to report how often households return to homelessness after leaving the program. That requirement matters, but a count alone cannot tell us why people lose housing or what might have prevented it. A recent state auditor’s report found that no state agency systematically examines why so many people return to homelessness or which interventions are most effective at helping them remain housed. The Legislature should build on Act 143 by requiring the state to collect and analyze the information needed to answer those questions and use the findings to improve housing stability.
Public investment makes subsidized apartments affordable. Vermont now needs the infrastructure and support to make those homes findable, accessible and sustainable for the people who need them most.
