Businesses suffer as millions spent on Homeless Hotels instead of housing
By Michael Bielawski
On Thursday’s Morning Drive Radio Show, the Executive Director of the Burlington Business Association Kelly Devine and a former City Councilor said there may have been an opportunity missed for more permanent housing with all that’s been invested in the controversial hotel/motel program for the homeless.
“That money has dried up,” Devine said of the depleted one-time federal funds. “We’ve had extensions after extensions after extensions. We didn’t, during the pandemic, take any big chunks of that money to create new housing opportunities.”
Former Burlington City Councilor Dave Hartnett was a guest co-host. He reiterated that this money could have been better utilized.
“When you think about all the money that we’ve spent on these programs, billions of dollars, you have to stop and think, couldn’t we have built housing? Couldn’t we have done something with all that money so we wouldn’t be in this situation today?”
For perspective on how much money was available, the Department of Children and Families has reported that between just March 2020 and December 2022, Vermont paid into the program $166 million.
Devine noted that the hotel program originally began as a COVID-19-era emergency relief effort.
“This is supposed to be temporary to help people get on their feet,” she said. “We have to really think about what we are doing to help these people.”
Questionable efficacy
VDC has reported that 135 people died while using the program. Devine said, “I was concerned because these people if they can’t get into housing, they need a more supportive environment. I don’t know that this is helping, just putting them in hotel rooms.”
The governor approved the extension for certain users with children and/or other special needs. In some cases, users are in such delicate condition that they are hooked to oxygen machines, according to Devine.
The show’s other cohost and former state lawmaker and former Burlington City Councilor Kurt Wright noted that there seems to be a trend that when certain services are offered it exasperates the problem.
“There are those who believe that the more services we provide, whether it’s the pods in Burlington, or whatever it may be, the more people come to Burlington,” he said.
A caller critiqued the notion that everyone deserves basic housing from the government. Devine generally agreed that it is unrealistic to provide for everyone.
“We can’t take care of everybody, we can’t fix everybody, and you need a vibrant economy to be able to offer some of those services,” she said.
Warnings from businesses
A caller asked about a meeting that the mayor had with the business community about a week prior, which Devine had attended. While part of the meeting had to do with the impacts of a construction project, generally, it was conveyed that businesses have lost revenue.
“I have never in my ten years seen more business people show up for a public meeting,” she said. “…That tells me something. Every person that I talked to in that room, including some of the businesses that are our hottest businesses in downtown, talked about revenue being down.”
She added that if local property values go down, then tax revenues go down next.
Safe injection sites in Vermont?
The conversation shifted to the prospect of a safe injection site potentially opening in Burlington. Devine noted that hardly anywhere in the world has tried this.
“This would be highly experimental at best; the funding that was set aside for it is fairly limited,” she said. She said she’s heard that the Agency of Human Services is looking at a similar program down in New York City for any “key indicators of their success”.
Not helping the situation is that crime in the Queen City has generally been higher since the police department was depleted by about a third via attrition back in 2020. Devine noted as much, saying, “Over these last five years, it’s been really tough. There’s been a lot of retail theft.”
The author is a writer for the Vermont Daily Chronicle