by John Bossange
It’s no secret that homelessness is driven by poverty and low wages. A lack of affordable housing, transportation, rising food costs, and the absence of health care are additional compounding factors that put people in a permanent state of homelessness. 71,500 (11%) of all Vermonters live in poverty and they cannot afford the high cost housing. This includes Vermonters working multiple jobs making the minimum wage of $13.87 per hour, not just those living in tents or surviving in our streets, parks and public places.
There are other factors that contribute to homelessness, including drug addiction, domestic violence, mental health issues, a lack of affordable daycare, an education or some skills training, and reliable communication. Regardless of the causes, it is much more cost effective to develop affordable, low-income housing and support systems than it is to not take adequate action. To allow homelessness to continue and grow creates an unhealthy and unsafe environment for everyone, and will cost taxpayers much more money down the road.
Permanent supportive and affordable housing is a proven solution to ending chronic homelessness. Providing a home with support services helps people achieve long-term housing stability, improves their mental health, and most importantly over time, decreases homelessness. Permanently supportive housing greatly reduces the use of publicly funded crisis services, including hospitalizations, emergency response teams, and for some, prison.
On average, a chronically homeless person costs the taxpayer about $35,000 per year in temporary support and response services. Those costs are reduced by 50% when they are placed in supportive, low-income housing. Supportive, affordable housing on average costs the taxpayer about $13,000 per year, a net savings of $4,000.
People who complain about their taxes supporting affordable, low-income housing fail to accept the stark financial reality. Either we pay now, or we pay more later. Here in Vermont, people struggling with homelessness are often frequent users of emergency rooms, averaging five visits per year. Each visit costs between $1,480 and $2,097, and those costs can range from $7,450 and $10,485 per year per person. Further, just one night in a hospital costs $9,000. Taxpayers cover those costs in our taxes and insurance premiums.
Those living in poverty also have higher rates of illness like high blood pressure, heart and lung disease, diabetes, and HIV. It is well documented that 80% of emergency room visits by the homeless and those in poverty is for an illness that could have been treated and prevented in a supportive housing environment. Some hospitals are now handing out smart phones to those without health insurance so they can access Telehealth services to proactively receive quality health care and advice, saving taxpayers money by not using emergency room services.
And then there is the unfortunate pathway for some who are arrested for violent acts, shoplifting, and drug trafficking, all too common with the homeless population and those living in poverty who are not housed in supportive facilities. We know the cost of incarceration and the “dead end” for a person who has been placed in prison. At $45,000 per year per inmate, that’s a cost most Vermont taxpayers would want to reduce or eliminate.
Maybe the most tragic result of homelessness and poverty is the impact on children. As a retired middle school principal, I have witnessed the effects of homelessness and poverty on families and their children. These children had higher levels of emotional and behavioral issues which often led to increased risk of serious health problems, as they were more likely to experience separation from their families moving from shelter to shelter.
Too often these students move from school to school several times a year, repeat a grade and, once they enter into adolescence, they tend to be truant and eventually drop out. Without an education or some skills training, these students become unemployed adults, often homeless with drug addictions, living in poverty and can end up with an arrest record leading to incarceration. Those students who were able to persevere and remain in one school usually had a lower academic performance and needed additional tutorial support. Those support services cost taxpayers extra money in increased personnel in a school’s budget.
So yes, there is a high cost associated with low-income, affordable housing. But the cost of all housing is high everywhere as well. Why single out low-income housing? Talk to any realtor working with a family looking to buy a home, or a hard working Vermonter looking to rent an apartment. To simply question the cost of low income and affordable housing as if it is a unique problem is disingenuous. Housing is expensive and there’s a shortage everywhere.
For all Vermonters, having a home is essential to living a full, productive, and stable life. Investing in those who have fallen into poverty and homelessness would pay important dividends to our communities and state. Investing in homes for others with a means to either rent or buy will do the same. We need homes, condos, and rental units, low income and not, especially in our town and village centers, where Vermonters can more easily access municipal services and public transportation.
We need to accept the reality that 71,500 Vermonters live in poverty, with too many now homeless. All Vermonters need a place to call home. Either we pay now or we pay more later.
The author is a retired educator and South Burlington resident.
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Categories: Commentary, Housing
The homelessness industrial complex was created through government intervention. More government involvement will not fix the problem. The situation was vastly different 4 years ago. Maybe the first thing legislators need to look at is what has changed and why.
Precisely correct, Sam. There are but few other states in the union this obsessed with low-income housing & any that are – are leftist strongholds like Vermont who create a problem, seemingly with intent, and then claim to have the grand solution to be able to fix it.
Vermont has a massive homeless population caused, as per the federal government’s own data – drug & alcohol addiction and mental health illnesses. The state flagrantly enables addiction by having allowed retail marijuana against all medical recommendations they were informed about, and in violation of federal law. Vermont made certain to keep all liquor businesses open during pandemic lockdowns that they themselves imposed which alone both created & exasperated mental health disorders. Coming soon to VT are “safe” injection sites to promote yet more drug use & addiction as per every other state which implemented such faulty “intervention”.
Vermont’s leftist legislators & its governor encourage & enable open “borders” that facilitate the flow of drugs throughout the state. Vermont prosecutors & legislators work jointly to embrace lax to non-existent punishments for minorities, organized crime members, & other out-of-state ne’er-d-wells who enter the state to embark upon their illegal & illicit drug trade here.
Vermont’s social welfare programs are also some of the most “generous” in the land and despite the documented & proven knowledge that addiction and/or behavioral health problems predictably & definitively cause both homelessness and the inability to be functioning, productive members of society — Vermont continues to falsely claim that our rents and costs of homes are too “high” and wages are too low. Minimum wage in VT is now nearing $15.00 per hour (Bernie & his comrades’ MAGIC number where they stipulated all would then be fantastic & “equitable”) and many businesses are offering minimally $20 per hour & higher to start with STILL no takers, Bossange.
Vermont politicos and their cheerleaders such as John Bossange, are once again propagandizing gullible citizens into buying into their B.S. Yet once again, most FREE Americans know that it is but a free market that dictates Real Estate property values – NOT a government —— unless that government in question is a socialist/Communist government. Therefore, kiddo’s:
Get off drugs or preferably don’t get involved whatsoever,
Go to college & choose a sensible major or attend trade school,
Take prophylactic (literally in this case) measures to delay beginning a family until you are financially/mentally prepared,
Demand your state reopen mental health facilities & adequately staff them,
Look on Realtor.com & related sites and see the innumerable opportunities RIGHT NOW you can avail yourselves of to purchase fixer-uppers. Learn to pick-up a hammer & stimulate yourselves not with dangerous drugs but with fascinating facts all about home renovation & ownership!
Our grandfathers, great-grandfathers, and great-great grandfathers all managed before us! Of course, they were too busy becoming established & productive members of society by about age 21 or so back then to hang with drug dealers or dwell in their own mothers’ basements seeking hand-outs.
And rentals and housing in Vermont, Bossange? The prices in many areas are considerably LOWER than in many other parts of the Northeast! Verifiable FACT.
Vermont wants low-income housing to attract & support their new “Americans” here: Illegal aliens, migrants, addicts, and social welfare recipients: populations very easily led and controlled! For those of you who oppose them? You can get out & stay out! And take your heritage, your culture, & your farms with you.
VOTE THESE PEOPLE OUT!!!!!
amerikan invaders committed genocide against the indigenous people.
So keep your sanctimonious BS to yourself.
100% Kathleen J Gaffney. Thank you!
The author’s pleas for more government assistance seem more to highlight the ineptocracy surrounding government assistance. Hundreds millions are spent on this type of housing in Vermont, without good results, the author’s home town of South Burlington an example. Democrats, Progressives and elitists have been in control of Vermont’s elected and non- elected offices for over a generation- with the result of increased homelessness, increased taxes, less employment and social, behavior problems and resulting crime increasing exponentially. We need not look beyond our own towns to see the results of decades of liberal policies- yet we are told we must do more, provide more services, fund more programs for these problems to be solved. I’m afraid not. The ineptocracy of Vermont’s maze of social programs and laws, regulations and rules will only grow the ineptocracy that state and local governments have become.
‘You cannot subsidize irresponsibility and expect people to become more responsible’ Thomas Sowell
Extraordinarily well said Mr. Bammo. Thank you.
Respectfully,
Pam Baker
Bam!, Frank Bammo!!!!!!! Excellent.
“Regardless of the causes” How do you solve the problem without addressing the causes? Since the 1980’s, living in Vermont is swimming headlong into a tsunami. How did we get here? Could it possibly be the lawmakers and selected “problem-solvers” fail time and time again? Could it possibly be that policies enacted and funded by taxpayers for 40+ years simply never work? Or could it be that so many non-profits, NGOs, and bureaucrats syphoned off more than they can account for in down to the penny detail? How many sets of books are there in this God-forsaken State that no one demands an answer to or holds the feet to the fire to answer or else? At this rate, we are fighting a forest fire with a garden hose. Hold the white-collar criminals to account for once or keep pointing out the obvious with no intention to throw the bums responsible for this out on the curbs!
Mr. Bossange, while you certainly make a few good points…. you leave far too many valuable and critical ones out of your equation. Vital and substantial ones.
Like the number of people who moved here to benefit from our generosity in the last 3 years. Like the fact that when you give things to people with no expectation of recompense it effectively robs them of their dignity and de facto, makes them a “slave”. That people must take a role in providing for themselves. And trust me, no matter their disability, everyone can do something!
No one is guaranteed a “home” or a “house”. People can live communally while they sort themselves out and studies have shown that this support is invaluable.
Who’s looking at the grift that goes on? Who is actually helping those who needed real short-term help and now have been caught the long-term machinations of the “system”?
But first and foremost, stop throwing money at people. Stop giving them free things. Find out what made them homeless to begin with… fix that and the rest follows. It’s really that simple.
Respectfully,
Pam Baker
Chillingly simple solution, Pam. Cut off all money to those in need, let them freeze and die. Doesn’t sound very Christian to me.
Proverbs 20:4 – “The sluggard [slothful; sluggish; lazy] will not plow [farm; plow the soil] by reason of the cold [autumn when crops are gathered]; therefore shall he beg [ask; borrow; demand] in harvest, and have nothing.”
2 Thessalonians 3:10 – “For even when we were with you, this we commanded you, that if any would not work, neither should he eat.”
If you are able, one should work. It’s not healthy to not work. That does not mean we should not support those who are unable to work. There is a difference.
We also do not allow a modest lifestyle. Boarding rooms would solve many of our problems today with no government interventions, income for the one providing housing/shelter and company and companionship. It would be win win….
Instead vermont is paying $60,000 per year, $5,000 per month to put people in a basic motel room. That is INSANE…….you can rent luxury homes for much less. They are paying off the mortgage in ONE YEAR for these hotel owners….because they are paying so much money.
Vermont is way off course, we’ve lost our minds.
Read 2 Thessalonians for a Christian perspective. You might be surprised that it aligns more closely with Pam’s comments. The Lord be with you.
Mr. Costello (I do hope I got that correct)
It is a very simple and elegant solution. Sadly, with all the bureaucracy, simple measures cannot be put into place.
But you are remiss in your attempt to characterize me as unChristian. I highly suggest you spend some time contemplating the phenomenal difference between:
“stop throwing money at people.” and “cut off all money to those in need, …. ”
If you aren’t able to determine the vast difference in those straightforward sentences than I suggest a reading comprehension course might be beneficial.
To use such rhetoric is to display your significant lack of perspicaciousness both of the English language and of Christianity. And truly demonstrates more of your character than mine.
I appreciate your comment though. Always good to have a chance to engage.
Respectfully,
Pam Baker
Huh….maybe that’s why no one suggested that, Brian. Reading comprehension problems? We encourage and expect personal responsibility & accountability of all citizens, demand the state cease pandering to and enabling drug abuse & addiction, facilitate a return to faith & common ethics, and refuse to accept socialism/Communism/Marxism/one world order insanities as replacements for our CONSTITUTIONAL REPUBLIC!
And no radicalized disrupters on VDC or elsewhere including BLM, antifa, Rights & “democracy” VT, etc. will EVER alter or weaken what true Americans will fight for.
I’m homeless because I am sensitive to electromagnetic waves or frequencies…those emitted by wifi’s, antennae, cell towers, cell phones, computers, and uninsultated electrical lines… I cannot work or live among you because radiation and EMFs are ubiquitous now… I happen to be in a pocket where there are none…but it is doomed with cell towers planned in the near future to cover this…dank spot that I consider beautiful.
This effects everyone and is a silent killer.
Do your research.
I am the canary in the coalmine.
Serious question: Then how do you communicate to this comments section without a computer or cell phone?
Hotspot which is 5G on a tablet — limited to 30 mins a day — no more than 4 times a week.
Ever tried to work, carry on communications in 2 hours a week?
Wanna solve the housing shortage in Vermont?
Outlaw Airbnb’s
We’ve had short term rentals since the 1960’s…..these homes are mostly second homes, not primary homes, they are second home condominiums. they were never in the housing pool to begin with, their operating costs are all too high for the general population.
What we’ve outlawed are manufactured housing. These are good homes, way better than anything the state provides. You can live rent free after it’s paid off. Can’t do that in section 8 housing.
You will own nothing and be happy. is the tag line to Build Back Better.
This is all by design….
Wanna solve the self-inflicted VT housing shortage?
1. Outlaw retail marijuana in compliance w/ fed law
2. Prosecute & imprison drug dealers & gang members
3. Cease & desist from opening “safe” injection sites
4. Close the open border to comply w/ fed law
5. Begin deporting illegal invaders
6. Reopen mental health institutions
7. Curb/limit availability to social welfare programs
8. Reintroduce mores & faith to America
Largely: Resolved.
I am so sick of this . We don’t need to build another home in Vermont till we deal with our out of state ownership issue!
Period.
In our township we are at nearly 60% non-resident ownership as of last tax season. Most of these homes sit empty 9-10 months of the year. Most are poorly maintained. When the hemorrhoids (the owners ) show up they’re a real pain in the A** and a a real relief when they leave. They spike our emergency services. Our phone service basically stops working and our electricity gets flaky. And guess what they pay a much lower tax rate than us hard working residents. So I would hope the writer of this article decides to the right thing and move to California or something!
How do mostly law-abiding, family-oriented tourism-revenue producing homeowners who pay MORE than their fair share to the State tax base “pain” you so?? If your phone service & electricity supposedly gets “flaky” from homeowners enjoying their lives, I’d say your State needs to get off their dead azzes, nix the carbon-neutral hogwash & repair THEIR infrastructure!!!!!!!
There are 2nd homes in ALL 50 states. Deal. with. it. Perhaps these folks worked longer & harder than did others in attaining their financial goals. Such is NOT a crime in the USA or within any capitalist culture.
Stop blaming fellow Americans for the dang AmeriKa your useless idiotic democrats have directly CAUSED in this State!
VOTE DEMOCRATS OUT!!!!!!!!! And bring 25 friends & kin WITH you!
First and foremost, we need to distinguish between affordable housing and subsidized/free housing, keeping in mind that the situation we refer to as “homelessness” is not prove-able, so free housing is provided on the honor system. The reason that Vermont is #2 in per-capita number of homeless people is because the word is out that we provide free hotel rooms and people flocked here like birds to a feeder.
We’d perhaps do a better job if we helped develop people rather than a system of government that gets rich off of keeping people poor. They don’t want to help people they want to make money and more programs. Just think, if everyone could fend for themselves, we’d cut 35% of government programs!
Our minimum wage is higher than 97% of the world’s income. Clearly Vermont is off course if we can’t get by, making more than 97% of the entire world. They want you to think you’re helpless and poor, dependent upon the state, it’s job security.
there are some simple but not easy rules that would transform our state.
a) Don’t have kids until you’re married. (planned parenthood doesn’t like that idea)
b) Save some money for buying a house. (Chinese get this and pay cash for homes, living together, saving up money, living together in harmony to save money)
c) Offer affordable means for people to get back onto their feet. Do we have ANY boarding homes in Vermont? They are pretty much banned.
d) allow modest housing to be built. We simply don’t allow it.
e) Our people need healing, forgiveness and love, there is only one place to reliably get that, when you get to know him, you’ll understand. For less than $20 and some time spent with him on a regular basis everyone can be healed and know they are loved. That would transform our lives.
f) habitat for humanity has a wonderful model, they’ve only been able to do two homes in our area.
g) our expectations are way too high, we are not grateful for what we do have, and therefore trap ourselves, preventing a better life.
We are so on the wrong track.
AWESOME post Neil, and my sentiments exactly. All this does is create a populace solely dependent upon their nanny-state for everything – and in the interim goes along with the DAVOS, one-world order, Communist ideology insanity of “owning nothing & being happy”.
Yeah, sure…..as happy as one can get in North Korea, China, Venezuela, & Cuba anyway.
NO more “low-income” housing in VT! What we have is dilapidated & there is PLENTY of “affordable” housing throughout this state already. get a job & lay off drugs.
i wish those other seven property tax bills i pay, as a non resident, were the same as the resident tax rate///
The author makes many false assumptions such as the lack of affordable day care results in homelessness. If you are that disadvantaged and have children and apply, the government provides daycare, food and rent subsidies. There are generations of people living off government subsidies. Second point, the absence of health care causes homelessness. This is an unfounded statement. Many people choose not to have healthcare because they are young and healthy and prefer to spend their money on other things, like expensive cars and trips. All while complaining that they don’t have health insurance. This is called making choices, and with the right to choose comes great responsibility. People need to be responsible for their own lives and their own outcomes. It is not up to tax payers to financially support these people in perpetuity, with few exceptions. Housing, food, heat and day care assistance was only intended to be short term, to assist people who need help when times got touch. Instead, these benefit programs are being positioned as a human right that must be provided indefinitely and at the cost of society at large.
Excellently stated Ms. Stone.
There are rare cases where a young family or couple or even an individual hits a trifecta of horrible luck or possibly just poor planning and has to rely on some short-term assistance and has no church or family/friends to lean on. That is a rare occasion. But once you get in the system it becomes a “Hotel California”. Both logistically and mentally/spiritually.
And then you remove the “shame” and “guilt” or “stigma” of accepting “charity” and tadaa, you have a society that we are living in now.
And as you so eloquently wrote, the rest of people who find themselves homeless are people who made choices and refuse to accept the consequences of their choices.
Respectfully,
Pam Baker
Set up poor farms like the old days where the poor work to feed themselves and are provided basic home grown food ,a warm bed,make their own clothing on site, and a roof over their heads, might be in a dorm like setting, but provides the basics, and if fit,you want to eat,you gotta work. Provide job training on site for those that want a step up to a path out of the poor farm. Pass a law you must have been a citizen of VT for 10 years to receive benefits. Be a lot cheaper that what they are doing now and people are coming from out of state to sop up the regressive party gravy.
Mr. Olenick, those concepts ostensibly drive our current system, less the actual property and requirement to grow your own food. But it doesn’t work. Because people have to actually want to better their circumstances from their own labor. That fundamental principal is no longer valued, taught, fostered or promoted in our society.
And the residency requirement, as I have posted before, is supposedly, “Unconstitutional”.
Residency shouldn’t be about a time length; it should be an intent, which is far more nebulous to pin down. But there must be some way we can keep the grifters out of the state. The phrase, “if you build it, they will come” has a whole new meaning here in Vermont.
Respectfully,
Pam Baker
after reading some of these posts/// i believe some of these people think they can walk in a swamp during the summer wearing a pair of snow shoes and wonder how their feet got wet///
Vermont and the nations Homeless is brought on by the Government ” Federal & State ” !!
How could that be, well first off make the problem, taxes, debt, and economy, and if that doesn’t work close all mental health facilities, and send them to the streets looking for any type of medication, on the streets it’s all illegal and they know it !!
The war on drugs has been around for over fifty years, it’s worse now than ever and as I stated Government lets it happen, no help just enablers, homeless and addicted
and that’s ninety-nine percent of the homeless population.
I would like to see a study done to determine how much homelessness is caused by big government raising taxes on taxpayers barely getting by because they are already having too much money syphoned off by the bloodsuckers in Mount Peculiar ? And they want a raise, and full time jobs ! Heaven help us, we’ll all be broke !
Jeepers…this whole article can be summed up in one sentence.
Vermont….we need more ghettos.
The Vermont Legislature approves of your message! They are working dilegently on it every day – they just want and need all of our money to bring it to full fruition.