The Homeless Bill of Rights made it through the House, but only after the Controversial ‘right’ to panhandle in public was removed.
Legislators shorten Homeless Bill of Rights
Act 250/housing merger bill must move quickly to build housing, guv says
Any bill that takes years to allow more housing construction under Act 250 faces a veto, Gov. Phil Scott said.
Klar: New ‘green’ building code to dominate housing construction
Consumers and local governments must bow to more government overreach.
Rice: Meeting the moment
Vermont must invest to end our housing crisis.
House-approved Act 250 bill lacks veto protection
Touted as ‘pro-housing,’ the Act 250 reform bill gives a mid-2026 start date for Act 250 review-free housing, limits them to small areas of the state, and imposes a tight review process.
Except in Burlington, no interest in temporary shelters
Apart from Burlington, use of the proferred temporary shelters was low – but that doesn’t mean the transition out of ‘homeless hotels’ was easy for everyone.
Speaker’s Act 250 & housing bill has three-year delay
The Act 250 exemption for urban housing development won’t take effect until at least 2027 – and then under tight regulatory control.
Homeless hotel room rate capped at $80/night
Trying to control costs of housing Vermont’s homeless.
Bartley: Housing crisis progress dying in environment committees
Remember when the Legislature said it would reform Act 250 to allow more housing? Apparently the Supermajority leaders can’t either.
Vermont committee mulling flood history disclosures for real estate sales
The lead sponsor of the bill says the legislation is important for residents in areas likely to suffer flooding in the future.
Bill would require farmers to house workers hired via state-run directory
No other state-funded employment directory requires employers to house workers hired under its auspices.
Bossange: The high cost of not developing low-income housing
We need to accept the reality that 71,500 Vermonters live in poverty, with too many now homelessness. All Vermonters need a place to call home. Either we pay now or we pay more later.
McCormick: Weatherization crews deserve our respect
The General Assembly (G.A.) cannot enforce us to abandon our cars or oil heaters.
Homeless hotel residents to get back ‘their’ $3,300 security deposit
The State of Vermont paid $3300 security deposits to a homeless hotel owner. He kept some of the money. Now he has to give it back – to the former residents.
What’s a mobile home park? A Vermont House bill could change the definition
The bill, H.618, aims to expand the legal definition of mobile home parks to include communities of mobile home owners who own their own lots.
Eviction not allowed because lease expires, Montpelier charter change proposes
Landlords won’t be allowed to make tenants leave just because their lease has expired, a proposed Montpelier city charter change says.
LaMarche: The misspent millions
This crisis is solvable. But state leaders’ proclivity for short-term, wasteful solutions, hinders effective and lasting change.
Scott, ‘broad coalition’ of lawmakers launch Act 250 bill
Climate-change minded lawmakers need to be ready to provide more housing to ‘climate refugees,’ an influential state senator argues.
Miro, UVM reach new student housing agreement
The new MOU would commit UVM to providing 1.5 beds per undergraduate student enrolled above fall 2023 level; City to up-zone three campus parcels at Trinity, East Ave, and the Waterman block
Bossange: State must help Burlington police, house its homeless
We are doing the homeless and mentally ill no favors by letting them suffer in public, unsupervised spaces.
Tiny-house project finally moving forward after legal wrangling
15 months after receiving unanimous approval but then hitting strong Act 250 headwinds, a five-unit Tiny Home project is ready to move forward.
Kurrle & Samuelson: Time to walk the walk about Housing Crisis
We can’t keep kicking the can down the road. We owe it to Vermonters to act now to ensure our State’s future is bright.
Scott overrides housing regs by expanding July 9 State of Emergency
With winter coming, the Scott administration says it’s time to get flood victims housed – with or without state and local government oversight.
New Montpelier homeless shelter to open
A new homeless shelter will open near the Ret. 2/302 roundabout in Montpelier later this month.
State must triple rate of new home construction, Scott admin says
The Scott administration hopes adding more housing to the market will lower one of the root causes of homelessness: exorbitantly high rental rates.
Homeless shelter manager: “I’ve never seen anything like this before”
The homeless camp being investigated as the possible site of a school bus window shooting isn’t the only tent community in Vermont’s capital city.
This is the cheapest city to buy a home in Vermont
The median list price for a home in Vermont is $447,250. The median price is $275,000 in this city…..
Weinberger and Scott on drug abuse, homeless solutions: same approach, but more of it
Two possible rivals for governor in 2024 have roughly similar solutions for the growing, intertwined problems of homelessness and substance abuse.
Students learn building skills, old farmhouse renovated – ‘win-win’ says Scott
“We’ll train the next generation of plumbers, electricians, and carpenters, and renovating this home will benefit Newport and its future homeowner,” said Scott.
Bezos ex-wife gives $20 mil to Vermont housing non-profit
A Vermont housing non-profit will receive millions from the philanthropist ex-wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.
CORRECTION BELOW: State invests another $55 mil, new home construction slow and expensive
Despite another infusion of taxpayer-funded capital, Vermont’s housing industry is struggling to meet demand due to workforce, materials, supply chain, and regulatory challenges.
Ellis: Montpelier’s reckoning – a proposal
We have the expertise and the determination to do this. Now we must face ourselves in the mirror and recognize that we must innovate our way out of this or slowly wither away.
McClaughry: San Francisco’s homelessness crisis
As San Francisco progressives are learning, government can build more shelter, but that doesn’t mean the homeless will use them.
Evslin: A helping hand shouldn’t become an indispensable crutch
It’s an iron law of economics that, given enough time, there is no limit to demand for free stuff. When programs are extended beyond the emergency which gave rise to them, people do become dependent.
Starting July 1, homeless hotel recipients down to 1214 households @ $153/night
Total for 30 days: $5,572,260, to be paid out of existing state revenue.
Legislature considers indefinite homeless hotel funding
Montpelier is in a quandry over homeless housing as the June 20-22 veto override sessions looms.
Evslin: S. Burlington is planning to require solar on new residential housing
What about doing it the other way around? We need housing more than we need solar panels.
Koch: What can Vermont do with its homeless?
We need to remember that which is too often forgotten—that just throwing money at a problem has never solved the problem it was intended to solve and has often created new and unforeseen problems.
UPDATE: Spray painting at lawmaker’s residence says, “It must be nice to have a home”
A South Burlington lawmaker appears to have been targeted with spray-paint vandalism for not doing more for the homeless.
700 households forced to leave homeless hotels
On Checkout Day, as with any other long-ignored day of reckoning, the fear and heartbreak were all too real.
House Speaker urges another State of Emergency after Scott vetoes budget
Suddenly both Scott and the Democratic leaders of the Legislature were fighting to be seen by the ‘Gang of 17’ as champions of beneficiaries of a program they were responsible for defunding.
Baker: Something for nothing dehumanizes homeless people
When you give something to people and require no payback of any sort, you dehumanize them. You create an imbalanced relationship. People must have a measure of responsibility and investment in their own lives.
Help for homeless will have recipient requirements, Scott administration says
Gov. Scott outlines a path forward from the ‘homeless hotel’ era.
Krowinski sends budget without ‘homeless hotel’ $$ to Scott, blames him for failing to plan
It’s not the Legislature’s fault that the homeless hotel program is ending without a transition plan. Just ask the Speaker of the House.
Bossange: Need for 40,000 new homes a myth
The real danger here is that the “24,000 job vacancy” myth feeds the “40,000 new homes needed” myth, creating a false sense of urgency.
California mayor says he has the solution for homelessness
Maybe this California mayor’s “accept help or get cited” approach would work in Vermont. Maybe it wouldn’t. The question is: what local or state government strategy WOULD work?
Homeless hotel funding to end, barring last-minute decision in Legislature
A State of Vermont letter went out to ‘homeless hotel’ residents on May 2, warning most of them to be out by the end of the month. The rest will have until the end of June.
Short-term rentals play small part in housing crunch
Air BnB’s aren’t to blame – much – for Vermont’s housing crisis.
Bartley: Housing status quo no longer acceptable
It’s clear the process is broken. Status quo can no longer be an excuse.
Frustrated lawmaker demands answer to chair’s refusal to allow Act 250 amendment
“You want to have it both ways. You want to say we can’t work on this, we’ve got no time, and then you want to say we can’t do this because we haven’t worked on it, I’ll tell you what word I would put in my mouth – gaslighting, that’s what that is,” Rep. Caleb Elder told Housing and General Chair Tom Stevens.
House drops rental registry over cost kerfuffle
Setting up a rental registry proved so costly that House leaders have dropped implementation in favor of a study.
Report: Vermont 4th highest SF home property tax rate in U.S.
Windham, Orange and Caledonia counties ranked 1-2-3 in effective property tax rates. Chittenden and Lamoille were near or at the bottom.
Senate tug-of-war continues over Act 250 housing bill
Key Senate committees are at odds over S100, the Legislature’s signature effort to relieve Vermont’s housing crisis.
UVM Holds Groundbreaking Ceremony for South Burlington Housing Complex
Catamount Run will add more than 550 beds at City Center by Fall 2025.
The Vanishing Vermont Single-Family Home
Faced with a housing shortage and skyrocketing housing costs, the Vermont Legislature wants more urban duplexes and quadplexes. And fewer garages.
Median price new VT home: $554,000, up 21%
In the age of ‘equity,’ wealth-creating home equity becomes less and less attainable for young and lower income Vermonters.
The latest solution to Vermont’s housing crisis? Paying landlords to rent to people
The Vermont State Housing Authority launched the Landlord Relief Program last week with help from the state Department for Children and Families.
Winooski landlords, tenants butt heads over ‘just cause’ eviction charter change
No-one enjoys the eviction process. Winooski landlords say a pending charter change will just make it worse.
Hospital’s solution to worker shortage: build them housing
Company-operated worker housing was a ‘thing’ back in the heyday of Burlington/Winooski area mills. Now it’s returning as large employers like UVMMC are struggling to find workers due to the housing shortage.
$32 mil in fed, state funding to build, rehab 244 homes
With a heavy emphasis on housing low-income and homeless Vermonters, a state housing board has allocated $32 million in government funds.
Hollowed Community? Residents ring alarm over growth of unhosted short-term rentals
The pandemic brought with it “Covid refugees” with a strong desire to escape the uncomfortably crowded, but locked-down cities. It’s just one of the reasons for the trend towards short-term rentals.
