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Editor’s note: Due to reporting and editing errors, yesterday’s news story about a proposed new homeless housing program bill contained significant errors. We took down the story yesterday evening. What follows is a more accurate depiction of H.91’s intent, proposals and current legislative status. We regret the errors.
By Guy Page
A bill up for House floor action this morning, Tuesday, April 1 would replace the state’s current homeless housing program with a new program called the Vermont Homeless Emergency Assistance and Responsive Transition to Housing (VHEARTH) Program.
At present, emergency housing is provided through the General Assistance (GA) and Housing Opportunity programs.
The ‘legislative intent’ of H.91 is to eliminate unsheltered homelessness in Vermont: “It is the intent of the General Assembly that unsheltered homelessness be eliminated and that homelessness in Vermont be rare, brief, and nonrecurring.”
The bill would “replace the provision of emergency housing through the General Assistance Program…. and the Housing Opportunity Grant Program and use funds and resources previously attributed to those programs, and any other identified State and federal monies, to fund” VHEARTH.
In detailed fashion, the 34-page bill spells out how it would increase the supply of emergency shelter as well as permanent supportive housing, eliminates barriers such as time limits, night-by-night shelter, relocation between interim shelter sites, and other disruptions in housing stability; models emergency housing on the ‘Housing First’ principle which places housing as state government’s first priority for its unhoused citizens, with other issues (substance abuse, etc. to be addressed afterwards), and directs that ‘noncongregate’ (one person/family per dwelling unit) shelter be used to the extent possible.
The bill is sponsored by Reps. Jubilee McGill, Esme Cole, Mari Cordes, Golrang Garofano and Theresa Wood, all Democrats. Wood is chair of the House Human Services Committee. She is scheduled to report on H.91 to the Senate Health and Welfare Committee this afternoon.
Since its introduction on January 24, the bill under consideration today has been substantially amended in committee. According to today’s House Calendar, H.91 passed out of House Human Services by an 8-2-1 vote and out of House Appropriations by an 8-3 vote.
The House Calendar lists only the vote total, not how each committee member voted. However, it is known that at least two of the Republicans on House Human Services have vocally opposed several new spending initiatives to come before the committee.
In next year’s 2025-26 budget, H.91 seeks $10 million of one-time funding from the General Fund: $6,500,000 to the Department for Children and Families for distribution to the community action agencies and the statewide organization serving households experiencing or who have experienced domestic and sexual violence; $500,000 to the Department for Children and Families for contractual and other system transformation assistance; and $3,000,000 to the Department for Children and Families for the continued development of shelter capacity in the State.
The bill does not state how much of the $10 million allocation is a sideways shift of current funding of the General Assistance program into VHEARTH, and how much (if any) new funding is allocated. It does allow the Legislature to allocate other new funding beyond the current level.
The bill also addresses future funding: “It is the intent of the General Assembly that in fiscal year 2027 [funding] used in fiscal year 2025 for General Assistance emergency housing and the Housing Opportunity Grant Program be redesignated for the Vermont Homeless Emergency Assistance and Responsive Transition to Housing Program.”
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Categories: Housing
This is the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights in action. The COVID housing mandate was just a stepping stone to the real goal. This was always the unspoken goal. According to the World Bank, there were 3 pandemics: COVID-19, Racism and Hate Speech. This is why the definition of racism was changed in the dictionary in 2000, and schools adopted DEI programs which were tools of the World Bank, UNESCO, OECD and others to create the biological foundation for socialism. The United Nations via funding from the World Bank used this opportunity to change the economic, social and political systems in all Western nations to subjegate the citizenry to adopt and comply with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. These goals include global equity (policies account to the UN to address the “unnatural inequities among various demographic groups aligned to the Social and Democratic -Socialist contract, as well as open borders. This was done as Western nations were flooded with migrants, witg the assistance of the United Nations of course. To make matters worse, USAID gave funding of at least 130 million to the United Nations Development Program which created AI censorship tools to censor the free speech of people globally under the guise of miss information and disinformation.
Most homeless are addicts, this has to be the push to get forced rehab. Long term rehab as long as it takes. Get them off the streets and out of the parks and from under the bridges and so forth
Thank you Christine, it is another step toward Marxism, you will own nothing and be happy. It all sounds good,but the intentions are not as it would seem. They are striving for state owned housing, the abolishment of private property.
They could offer to house them in their own home and it would cost nobody anything.
Notice that offer is not on the table from ANY representative? How come?
Totally agree with you! The Democratic Party is pushing us towards a Socialist Government and we have to step up and oppose it very Strongly! So many people do not understand that Socialism has never and will never work! It’s always been a Government Model that removes rights from the people and destroys Countries. Look at Venezuela! A perfect example of a thriving Country destroyed by Socialism which inevitably leads to Communism! The Democrats hate Russia! Russia used to be the United Soviet Socialist Republic! We need to stop this takeover of our Country! People need to wake up. Trump isn’t the problem the Democrats are.
These people could change their life styles if they wanted to but why would they when they get freebies paid for with our tax dollars.
“Build it and they will come” but who will pay for it ? Maybe legislators should put their money where their mouths are, and work for free to at least pay part of the money that they expect their constituents to pony up. Maybe if we incentivise them by giving them more if they save us more ? I’ll give you an example of how things work (don’t work) now. When I worked for the state, the Commissioner of BGS stated in a department newsletter that we were doing very well at spending all of that years money budgeted to the dept. and that was a very important, because if we needed more money the next year we would probably not get it if we did not spend all of the previous years money budgeted. That is how the state government incentivises growth, rather than saving. I’ve always said that the legislature should set a budget first every year, then stay within it. Imagine going into your boss and telling him “I just bought a new truck, now you need to give me a raise so I can pay for it.” That is the way our legislators handle our money. We are their boss, and they spend what they want, and then come to us for money to cover their disingenuous, fat _____ ! They should instead, set a budget, add a COLA based on the previous year’s budget, and STICK TO IT ! They are killing us with their irresponsible spending, and they either do not know, or they don’t care that they are killing their “goose that lays their golden eggs!” (tax payers)
This is a significantly factually inaccurate description of what is in the bill. I can’t begin to list all the errors, because there are so many. However, one leading example actually claims to present a direct quote from the bill, but is in fact not an accurate quote. The article claims that under the bill, “The state must ensure ‘unsheltered homelessness be eliminated in Vermont and interim shelter opportunities be available to provide a stable pathway to permanent housing for all Vermonters experiencing homelessness.'” Eliminating unsheltered homelessness is an intent (goal) for the state, and NOWHERE does it say the state “shall ensure” this. Within a SEPARATE paragraph [not as presented in the alleged quotation] the bill states that the intent of the new program is to be “as step towards ensuring” (not “must ensure”) that interim shelters be available. The purpose of the entire program is exactly in agreement with the governor’s concern that the current system is harmful and unsustainable, and the bill prioritizes using any hotel/motel space that might be needed as a staffed program, not as the current, unsafe use of scattered, isolated individual rooms. Note also that the governor consistently supports building new shelters in order to curtail the hotel/motel program and even included funding for them in his budget proposal — again, contrary to what the article says. The governor has never suggested abandoning people who cannot find housing in our current housing market crisis, and the Human Services Committee agreed with him that the current use of hotels/motels is not appropriate and is not helping Vermonters. The bill proposes an actual, coordinated program to address this ongoing crisis.
You can’t change an issue of heart and mind with material things, it doesn’t even address the root cause, it only AMPLIFIES the problem.
This is proven with even less broken people who win the lottery, with in 3-5 years 35% of all lottery winners are broke or bankrupt. It was never and never is a money problem.
Sex and money are not love, though it is often confused with love.
Until you heal a broken heart, until you rewire a broken mind the results will only get worse. There is an answer, his name is Jesus Christ. But any good marxist loving representative wants nothing to do with him, which may indicate who the master truly is.
They need to change their direction; you’re just making it easier for them to go on their current course, that is not love or compassion, it’s quite cruel actually.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzdHQUKYS3Q This is something the legislators should watch.
This video ,from Peter Sentenello was sent to 180 so-called Lawmakers and many others!! Peter does great work 🗽🇺🇸🗽
Brian, what a wonderful video. Very, very interesting and also revealing. There is a way to deal with humanities brokenness, we are not wild animals, as might be suggested. We certainly can act like them, but that is not our inherent nature.
I have to chuckle at the risk of being stereo typical, woman’s solution is give me money, give them more money and the problem will be solved. Money does not solve life’s problems, it only amplifies your current state, your mindset and your heart. This is a natural tendency for women, to feel protected and valued, being confused with money. Just like men confusing sex for love. It’ bringing people to their most base needs, love, family in all the wrong ways in all the wrong places. He is correct, it’s all about love.
There is also an outside element that is fostering the growth of this type of lifestyle, thought, being the producers of the drugs, who are also focused on money and family (via gang). These are completely false economies, false narratives and who is the father of all lies? There are countries actively trying to subvert our country, through many different methods, one of them is drugs. The opium wars that went against China (propagated by the British) nearly crushed a perfectly good country, it took them 100 years to recover from the opium addiction. They did not forget this.
There is a person, who came to heal, forgive and get us out of the hot mess we often find ourselves in. It was interesting that he’s not even in the discussion, because nobody knows him.
When we realize our own humanity, that we too could be in those exact same positions, on the street doing drugs to solve life’s problems. When we realize that we too are flawed, and can’t keep any of the 10 commandments……it’s not about money, it’s not about education, it’s not about family,
It’s knowing you are a child of God. That you are forgiven, and you should also forgive others, perhaps the most important, family members that hurt you deeply. It’s only then that you can start to heal the brokenness. Everybody is broken, dented, to some degree, we are all looking for love, and there is the solution. We need to know what true love is, we need to forgive, otherwise we have an internal condemnation and battle of the Hatfields and Mcoy’s, or Israelis and Arabs going on internally, we create our own internal hell which manifests itself physically.
There is a way for healing our brokenness, it’s what he specializes in, he’s the best.
His name is Jesus Christ. It’s where everything ultimately leads.
Brian, thinking more about this great video. There is much brokenness in our society, many and most are functioning in society but are not truly healed. This is the crux of the “problem” these people on the street are not hiding their brokenness, but is the politician who’s got a drinking problem really any better? Is the person who eats to pacify their anxieties any better? Truly not, we just get by and are accepted in society, our brokenness is hidden but not healed.
Was watching a video where people were discussing how refreshing it is to discuss with recovered addicts, they are fully open and willing to talk about their faults. They are reborn in essence.
This is the way out of the hot mess, to be reborn. TGBTG.
While I appreciate the partial corrections to the one section I used an as illustration, I want to reiterate my comment that this article is replete with errors in its descriptions and misquotes of sections of this bill.
With respect, this bill shouldn’t exist. It is not the job of government to solve one person’s private problems with money taken from another. It is wrong.
Your meddling in various markets – housing, hotel accommodation and food supply to mention just a few – distorts demand and effectively shuts out those that don’t want to depend on big daddy government.
Please inform us as to how the current program is helping people, how it is transforming people’s lives for the better.
There may be errors in the reporting, but there are major errors in our governance, we are all worse off for the leadership and have less money, less freedom so please enlighten us as to what metrics in humanity this program is benefitting, other than the grifting.
Bills like this ONLY ENCOURAGE people to come to the state to live off the state. (THATS THE TAXPAYERS!!) from a recent article “a homeless couple, moved to Burlington (from Florida) for the state’s social services” This bill should not exist. Vermont needs to stop giving hand outs instead of a hand up.
Thank you for providing some dialogue and pointing out some technical problems with the reporting.
While I’m glad the legislature is taking action, the bill is only a stopgap measure that pretends to be a solution. Especially problematic, if accurate, is that the State is now getting involved with permanent housing solutions. This approach has failed throughout history everywhere it has ever been attempted.
Here is the model that was successful in the past:
Instead of paying for long-term permanent housing solutions, we should be looking at creating temporary short-term housing. By short-term housing, I mean barracks-style quarters where people can be warm and safe, with community-style latrines and a cafeteria where they can get three square meals a day. Then, the State should make available meaningful jobs in the community in exchange for a minimum wage. Some of the jobs would be taking care of the facility itself, and some in the surrounding area. If anyone volunteers for such a program, they should be required to meet standards while in residency. The facilities should not have individual living units or be so comfortable that someone would want to stay there for a long period of time.
This has been going on for 5 yrs now if they people wanted to find a job and housing they would have done it.
When you put more effort into naming a bill than its contents you end up with bad programs
This bill will create a forever class of hotel/motel homeless population, no incentive to seek permanent housing. This is no solution. This is a money pit on a grand scale. Build it and they will come!