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By Derek Draplin, for The Center Square
Vermont has seen the highest percentage increase in homelessness in the U.S. since 2020, according to an April 17 national report.
The report, by the free-enterprise Common Sense Institute, also called into question most of the many states’ “housing first” approach, saying it “may not be the best approach to addressing this challenge.” Vermont is a ‘housing first’ policy, which provides housing first and then attempts to address the root causes of homelessness, often without any quid pro quo requirement on the part of the recipient.
“Housing first policies have not reduced the number of homeless individuals in many of the cities practicing them, though they have moved many people from unsheltered spaces to sheltered spaces,” CSI’s report concluded. “Because results have not been demonstrated, federal agencies and other public leaders must loosen funding so that it can be used to support approaches that prioritize self-sufficiency.”
The national ranking gives first, second and third to Vermont (212%), Illinois (148%) and Rhode Island (121%).
Denver, Colorado ranked fourth with just under 100% increase. In the combined Denver-Boulder-Aurora area, $405 million in local, state, federal and nonprofit funding was spent in 2023 to combat homelessness, CSI noted.
Denver had a record-high 9,977 unhoused individuals in 2024, according to point-in-time counts. Of those, 2,233 individuals participated in Denver’s “housing first” All in Mile High Program, which cost $69,413 per person and an additional $16 million on those who became unsheltered after leaving the program, the report said.
“This report makes clear that homelessness is growing fastest in cities most reliant on housing-first strategies,” said Dustin Zvonek, CSI’s research fellow on homelessness and a former Aurora City Council member. “We need to step back and look at the broader data — ask what’s working, what’s not, and focus on implementing policies that deliver measurable, sustained improvements.
The think tank also contrasted Denver’s “housing first” approach with El Paso County’s (Colorado Springs) and Aurora’s “work first” approach. In El Paso County, the point-in-time count for last year was 1,146 homeless individuals, 12% less than the prior year.
“Communities like Colorado Springs are showing real results with work-first models grounded in accountability and recovery,” Zvonek added. “It’s time to apply those lessons where the crisis is growing most rapidly.”
Other cities that take a “housing first” approach include Los Angeles, which saw a 39% increase in homeless individuals since 2020; San Francisco (9% increase) and Portland, Oregon (70% increase).
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Categories: Housing, State Government
Vermont first in homeless increase of the entire nation.
Fixed that headline, 220%
That’s almost as high as our increase in drug traffic!
Montpelier here is your sign. Vermont we need to change direction, the current course is not working.
Tragic for sure. Westward. Ho! to sunny California and Gavin’s fan club?
It should be stated these are Liberal causes with their “fell good mentality” that reduces the human mindset to the gutter and this is the result. You’ll never have any Liberal connect the dots to change their minds. It’s the mentality of living in the parents cellar and in-the-box thinking.
Democrats buying votes with someone else’s money.
There seems to be a strong positive correlation between deep Blue states and homelessness? Wonder why?
If any would be interested in designs for homeless RV units like the one pictured at vthope.net/microd.html they should be in touch soon. The unit costs about 5K for the materials and can be assembled by 3 people in a week’s time. Sadly, that was not what Vermont did in lieu of the hotel voucher system. If we had, we’d have built enough units to house not only Vermont’s homeless, but Colorado’s too.
It’s not about making sense, not about helping our brothers and sisters, it’s about making government bigger and more controlling.
We could have boarding homes, by right. Not even allowed in most towns.
We could have RV’s allowed by family members to support other, not allowed in almost all towns.
We could allow people to put up a mobile home for a family member, this too is either not allowed or made so troublesome and expensive as to be ruled out.
Want to know what is allowed?
Really expensive rental housing in hotels.
Affordable housing projects at $525+ per square foot, because it has to be insulated to the utmost highest standards.
High rents supported by taxpayers.
See it’s about grifting, making money of the Vermont taxpayer.
Great solutions btw……modern one room log cabins, like our forefathers started out with and somehow, we can’t do anymore, curtesy of Agenda 21, United Nations colonizing our little state with their political pimps.
Very interesting video…..and the video of the Take notice camp…..
We are on the wrong path in Vermont, surely.
OK so…is the homeless population made up of people who have been living in Vermont for some time and became homeless due to job loss or some event out of their control or is it made up of people who came to Vermont after hearing through the grapevine that we were giving away free everything? Not to mention that Vermont is ridiculously soft on crime. I remember seeing a young man on the news talking about how he came here for the free motel rooms. What’s the old saying…if you build it – they will come. Make a requirement that people have to take some responsibility and make an effort to get back on their feet. I am curious about the make up of the ever increasing homeless population and when Vermont will institute a residency clause before a person is eligible for all the freebies. We have to realize that we cannot provide room and board for every other state’s homeless population. Vermont just does not have the population that can provide the taxes needed to fund such an influx. Hell, we are barely taking care of our own residents.
You are 100% correct – too bad they won’t report how many of these homeless are actually VT residents. I bet it’s a pretty small percentage. And paying millions upon millions to all these hotel owners with zero long term plans for the “homeless” is just insanity. We the people are fed up with all the wasteful spending our of our tax dollars!
Vermont is not a good place for people who want to live a modest lifestyle. Somehow, the government and those who run it, think that money is the sole way to define a person.
Headline fixed:
Hopelessness up by 212% in VT since 2020 – tops in nation
Montpelier, pay attention. Deep blue states, Vermont leading the way unfortunately, have the most generous Welfare benefits and it’s been proven that folks move in from the South to tap into them. The current path isn’t working and what few working stiffs are here can’t sustain it. Excessive taxation is driving people away.
Montpelier, if you won’t change course to fix the problem, step down so that those of us who will can step up.
Along with all of this many of us are not able to find RELIABLE folks to work for us. Note that I say reliable.
Thank you Joyce Frederick for writing out my same thoughts after I read the above article on Vermont’s homelessness mess. I agree with your observations 100%. It begs the question: Does homelessness beget more homelessness? Not to be cold hearted, because I am fine with my tax dollars helping Vermonters truly in need, but rather to try to understand why all of a sudden Vermont too is inundated with the homeless. I saw on WCAX Ch 3 last year a middle aged woman and her husband complaining that they were going to have to leave their Burlington area state funded motel room soon because spring was coming! She said they had recently arrived from Connecticut! Has it become too easy for some folks, both in state and from away, to take advantage of Vermont’s unrealistic “homeless” benefits. Once again, for Vermont residents with mental illness and drug addiction we need to help them, BUT they must also be willing to help themselves by seeking and accepting treatment with their issues that has caused them to be homeless and/or addicted. I realize it is not a simple thing to accomplish, but most worthy things in life are not easy to accomplish. It takes hard work and determination.
On the issue of drug addiction in Vermont, drug addicts need drug dealers. If the Vermont legislature would pass laws where Vermont is the ONE state where you do NOT want to get convicted of peddling drugs, like a mandatory 20 year prison sentence with NO parole allowance, then I bet they would peddle drugs in any state EXCEPT Vermont.
Actions do/should have consequences. In Vermont they currently don’t. Shame on us for allowing that to happen. Until we get a VT legislature with a majority that recognizes this commonsense approach, then our homelessness, drug addiction, and taxes are only going to keep increasing. Just saying. Dave Stahler, Sr.
…..And yet the leftists wound up enabling their addictions and contributing to the deaths of many & then falsely claim they had “no idea” whatsoever – despite nearly a century of government statistics easily available for perusal on the net – that homelessness is directly CAUSED by substance abuse/addiction and mental health disorders or a combination of the two.
Sorry again, coastal Communists —- catering to those who proclaim they are “homeless” & providing them money for drugs, drug paraphernalia, and a “free” pad (courtesy of the TAXPAYERS) to deal & steal does NOT help these people nor the victims of their problems. Instead reintroduce God, faith, and a sense of personal accountability to
Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day, teach a man to fish & you feed him for a lifetime.
STOP your INSANITY — and homelessness will DROP! Open mental institutions again, cease the illegal entry into this nation & IMPRISON drug dealers as El Salvadore & stop the drug trafficking, CEASE your sickening & futile (at best, facilitating suicide at worst) drive for “safe” injection sites, and your continued Godless, immoral culture of death which you breed via your Communistic conceptions of life & your intent to destroy this culture & society in the name of “equity”.
Having been bred and born, then HS and UVM, near Middlebury, I find the Chronicle interesting, was recommended by a rare Vt. conservatives (my UVM roommate). Graduated undergrad 1966. Left state in 1975. The first Black person I saw in HS was a transient crop picker in my senior year. But I didn’t recognize “racism” during the Vermont years, nor since. I still can’t find a coherent explanation for the low minority population in Vt. Same in years since in Virginia. Other than occasional bigot of any skin tint. Still love Vt., Va., and USA. They (we) are what we are, not perfect.
I would truly like to learn if the steady increase in “homeless” people in Vermont is the result of migration to Vermont due to the generous social welfare benefits. I regularly read articles lamenting the plight of “homeless” people who freely admit moving to Vermont to receive increased benefits. I do believe that “homelessness” si a symptom of the true issues these people are living; substance abuse and mental illness or complementing, underemployment or employability are also part of the effects of substance abuse / mental illness, add domestic strife and instability to the picture, poor or no parenting skills all create the perfect storm that we are witnessing. Until these root causes are acknowledged and addressed this problem will continue unabated.
If you build it they will come. A VT case study gone awry.
When is the Vermont Legislature, VT Administration, NGOs, and non-profiteer victory parade and gala for achieving such an achievement? Well done thieving, scheming, dispicible shills and despots – well done! We’re #1 in systemic poverty and successfully turning the State into Dysfunction Junction. Bravo!
Anyone taking out their widest paint brush to paint the homeless as all drug addicted and mentally ill, stop making the liberal mouths drool – they love pitting people against each other in a time of crisis (ala Culling-19.) It is music to their ears. They should all be audited. investigated, and yanked from office for being collosal failures – yet they are rewarded with more of our money each and every year!
It isn’t as simple or justified as many want to pontificate. The fact of the matter is millions of people are living paycheck to paycheck. Many are one misstep, one emergency, or one missing paycheck from ending up homeless. Latest foreclosure numbers are over 10 million mortgages in default. Latest figures show people are taking out retirement funds to survive. Rentals are not affordable and most without heat or utilities. Wages are stagnant. Thanks to our Legislature for dinging paychecks every single year for their pet projects and non-profiteer/NGO buddy system.
VT Digger July 2022: “Vermont has spent an eye-popping $456 million over the past six years on programs to help those experiencing or at risk of homelessness, according to a report that State Auditor Doug Hoffer issued on Thursday. Homelessness spiked sharply during the pandemic even as the resources — which included federal relief funds — tripled. In early 2020, 1,110 homeless Vermont residents were tallied in the annual point-in-time count. The following year, that figure soared to 2,591. It increased again this year, to 2,780”
VT Digger December 31, 2024: “The annual report on the count, which took place nearly a year ago, was released by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development late last week. The department found that about 53 out of every 10,000 Vermonters were unhoused when the count took place, putting Vermont fourth on the state-by-state list. In 2022 and 2023, it had the second-highest rate in the nation, a distinction that turned heads as Vermont’s homelessness crisis has grown more visible. ”
Where did all the money go? Audit them to the last dime and find out! If not, just wait for your turn to be out on the street or couch surfing with a friend or relative. They don’t care and they won’t fix it. We have to care and we have to fix it ourselves. As Obama said recently, no one is coming to save you. I’d say that is a signal and a warning.
Great info on where we stand. Now research with info on why. Not thought why. Not guesses why.
If taxing productive Vermonters and spending our money on homelessness programs is making more Vermonters homeless the obvious solution would be to stop doing this.