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by Guy Page
A group of current and former legislators who have worked on housing issues (former Sens. Illuzzi, Will Hunter, Jim Leddy, current Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky and Rep. Kate Logan) will hold a press event Monday 10:30 AM at Delta Hotel, 1117 Williston Road, South Burlington to request Gov. Phil Scott declare a state of emergency regarding the homelessness crisis.
They also will suggest some short-term solutions that should be promptly considered and enacted. The proposals (seen below) do not include shelving the state’s official ‘Housing First’ policy that does not require recipients to address the problems that contributed to their homelessness in return for housing assistance. Nor does it address concerns that increasing Vermont’s ‘safety net’ for homeless people will make the state a magnet for out-of-state unhoused or underhoused people.
A State of Emergency – such as was declared during the Covid pandemic and recent flooding – potentially unlocks funding and gives a governor more latitude of action.
According to the unofficial ‘Point In Time’ headcount of homeless people on January 24, 2024, there were 3,458 unhoused Vermonters in a single night, including 737 children and 646 Vermonters 55 years old or older. Vermont’s shelter providers can shelter about 550 households, a Housing and Homelessness Alliance Council of Vermont report said.
A homelessness emergency declaration has been done by one state (Hawaii) and several communities across America.
The group will also ask the 2025 General Assembly to address the homelessness crisis on the same level as it is expected to do regarding property tax relief and growing the economy — because, they say, you can’t have the first two without the third.
The current and former lawmakers say the crisis is having a negative impact on the health and welfare of the homeless, up to and including death, and diverting more and more state and local tax dollars to support spending with no long-term solutions in sight.
The group claims the homelessness crisis also affects state and regional spending, overall economic health, the state’s criminal and restorative justice system, schools, and mental health providers, among others.
While declaring homelessness a state of emergency is a relatively recent approach, overall, the one state and several communities across America have used the declarations to take urgently needed action and prioritize development of long-term solutions,” the press statement issued by Illuzzi – the Essex County state’s attorney, lobbyist for the Vermont State Employees’ Association, and a longtime state senator – said.
The group on Monday will propose:
- Keeping open and available state and regional emergency resources for the homeless such as at the Coordinated Entry Program at the Springfield Supported Housing Program in Springfield, which recently announced a one week closure.
- Reduce regulatory barriers, such as bypassing zoning requirements, which will allowed for a quicker ability to use state, city and privately owned property to open and maintain shelters;
- Suspend statutes and rules for the purpose of facilitating coordination between different programs with different jurisdictional requirements, funding streams and goals;
- Suspend statutes and rules for contracting with private and non-profit providers for homeless services;
- Redirect funds and foster interagency collaboration;
- Determine the amount of funding needed to urgently expand emergency shelter for various unhoused populations;
- Provide financial assistance to local churches, non-profits and civic groups to among other things create small clusters of modest, private soft shelters located walking distance to hot showers and flush toilets as those groups often can do more with less;
Since bonding for a permanent solution means status quo for at least two more years, community mental health agencies need to have an open case and open door for all in their area who have been determined to have a mental disability.
The group also proposes:
- An aggressive launch of recovery houses for people who need stable support to keep on track and away from addiction;
- The state Department of Corrections rethink its “disastrous decision’ of a few years ago to abandon most group transitional housing programs, closing down the Phoenix House, RISE program and others.
- Repurposing state building space for supportive transitional housing managed by Vermont-based non profits, including existing regional community action agencies. State offices are in every region of the state, and many state offices are underutilized at this time, providing an emergency, quality solution that can happen quickly.
- End “silo thinking” by the state, designated agencies, non-profits and vendors as evidenced by the recent decision by Valley Vista in Bradford and Vergennes to deny residential treatment to patients on methadone because the state would not fund a solution to the daily cost of transportation to a methadone clinic.
This story includes excerpts from a press statement emailed to VDC this morning by former Sen. Illuzzi.
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Categories: VT Headlines
AGAIN, legislation in Vermont reveal their lack to process Common Sense. Asking the Governor to fix homeless problem they created. When you offer free housing with no accountability and time constraints to get off the system, you invite from other states more homeless to the problem. The old saying, “give a man a fish and he will eat for a day, teach a man to fish and he will eat for a lifetime”. Instead of offering a hand up (with training and accountability or denial of service [housing, food, & clothing] when when not complying with programs to get them off the system, Vermont offers an endless hand out. No accountability no timetable. We, (taxpayers) at the hands of Vermont legislation can have lifelong homeless living off the poor decisions of Democratic/ Progressive legislation. This is not to infer those unable to work or learn a new trade be denied service, but this is a small minority to the homeless issue.
Lumping all homeless into the same drug-addled trope is a mistake. There are many of us who are struggling because of a clash between increased radiation and electromagnetification under the auspices of the IOT (internet of things), and telecomm unications… a growing number of us in fast, as the amperages keep rolling out and we get saturated with dirty electricity and EMFs and even EMPs from so far unmentioned weapons in space that use EMPs to quell populations.
SOME of us are in situations not of our own making but of a perfect storm of inflation: severe brain injury: health accompanied by a growing frustration that YOU guys see us as lay abouts, lazy, drug addled, no accounts who don’t deserve a place in our society… |
I am literally ill and out of housing due to the choices being made by our government before all the associated health issues and costs were considered when rolling out the IOT here in Vermont.
The housing I need is NOT what is regulated: I need EMF-free and dirty electricity contained housing…and I cannot live in apartment or cohousing because YOUR needs are not the same as mine and I would tell you to turn off your wifi. Of all my neighbors.
The last two nights, ALL the water froze in my camper (including what I use for my denture cup), all the fresh fruits and veggies froze, and the one surviving geranium wilted… I don’t run the heater all night for safety reasons. I do get up and turn it on once. Inside is the same temp as outside, and its like I’m heating a tent (its a metal tent).
I am an Outward Bound alum and lived 20 years in Alaska so I am not unfamiliar with surviving the outdoors (clue: down and wool, down and wool, silk if you have it) in winter. I can do it. I AM doing it: zero degrees this morning.
A yurt, or a cabin (the state won’t let the landlords rent me the two empty and liveable cabins on either side of me mind you) please.
No room at the Inn for me… I’m just an iconoclast. Crickets.
NOT an addict nor am I lazy. Working until you’re 70yo isn’t lazy…
I don’t need a big fix… I just need choices. There are none for me. But there WERE until 5 years ago…
The dirty electricity from an alternator is going to be way higher than a regular grid connect. Just about any fluorescent light, or Chinese electronics plugged into any system is going to cause noise. Even the mouse, computer fan, and ethernet cable are sending enough radiation to be picked up in a radio for a pretty decent distance. There have been studies and, although I agree emf can effect all living things, people are not able to immediately differentiate between being exposed and not. I could put you in 2 rooms, one with a bunch of dirty EMF, and another isolated, and you wouldn’t be able to tell me what one was what.
My opinion is that the damage you do to yourself with your own brain is much much greater than any radiation in your immediate surroundings. While the skills to survive are a great thing to have, you would also be heather not being exposed to the elements. Maybe a warmer climate would be in your best interest. There are many places down south without any government restrictions on living in a shack with no electricity.
You have a lot of choices, you just choose to make things harder on yourself. I wish you the best, be safe!
Their policies-and ideology-over the decades have materially exacerbated this problem… and now what is their solution?
More money and government.
Saul Alinsky and Communism 101…
“Provide financial assistance to local churches, non-profits and civic groups”. This will create a whole new industry, like all the illegal immigrant services the Biden administration has been paying for with our tax dollars. This is creating a whole new, separate welfare system that will never go away, it will only expand and metastasize while demanding ever more money.
Sorry, the bird feeder is empty. Try again in two years as i am in a state of emergency and my bank account is empty. Now go pound sand.
How right you are, I’m with you 💯.
How so very Vermont, and the idiotic Left: create the crisis, then cry for money and the suspension of rules (and common sense) as the “solution”. How in the world ANYONE votes blue anymore beggars the mind.
And after the fisting in the poopchute that the legislature gave to taxpayers this year, they actually think, yeah, we can jam that other hand in there and clap!!
This is a crisis created by our lawmakers, current and former. Theyh have made Vermont so appealing to the homeless all across the country that they flock here for the handouts. Make it less appealing and they may go back to where they came from. Most are not from Vermont. Then we can take care of those who are Vermonters.
Evict! De-subsidize! Stop generating more homeless by charging us infinite $$$ to support crack houses and unions! Stop destroying houses, by making people too poor to fix their own homes.
There is a state of emergency, we need to shut the state down and let the towns handle things on their own. These idiots need to go get a day job…
One way bus ticket to the warm Left Coast and a small rucksack of food for the ride might be the ticket for all but those born in VT and had real misfortune befall them.
Sadly, and scary, is the fact that it will get even worse if the Legislators are allowed to continue with their climate agenda that will drive up the cost of heating fuels. HELLO!!
Please check if these homeless individuals have lived in vermont for at least one year before becoming homeless! If not a resident, do as the individual said above give them a bus ticket and a food voucher to their original state! Vermont cannot afford paying for other states homeless citizens! 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸
It would be interesting to see a year to year graph/chart of the homeless population not only in Vermont but nationally too. Alongside that chart should be one that shows the growth of government dependency and the decline in church attendance…
Helping the homeless population was not and is not a priority. Yet, they will gaslight and project upon Vermonters that it is regardless. In 20/21, Culling-19 was a priority and that caused a great deal of homelessness, disparity, and losses that will never be fully realized, let alone acknowledged by the despots.
What was and is their priority? Climate change, the alphabet acronym mafia, racial division and violence, sexual misconduct and abuse of minors within our school system, and raising the State budget $1 Billion++ annually. Don’t forget they also voted themselves a raise and got State benefits because they wanted us to believe being a “volunteer” legislator was a financial hardship for them – not having to disclose what their actual net worth is and what benefits they all ready have being an insider or retired with pensions and coverages ’til death do they part.
What is really going on? The grifter gravy train contingent knows Federal funding is drying up shortly. They stole all they can steal being paid to fix a problem they were actually being paid to make worse. There was no incentive to fix it, the incentive was to drive it into an emergency – so they can steal even more money! They pushed open borders, pushed the poor out of their homes in favor of illegals, and now they says it’s an emergency – they created it for the very purpose to steal more – that is all – that is all it’s ever been for decades!