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.”