By Guy Page
The number of homeless Vermonters has tripled since 2020. An aggressive executive order issued by the Trump Administration intended to reduce homelessness has met with both approval and skepticism by members of the Vermont House of Representatives committee that oversees legislative efforts to reduce homelessness.
A sweeping executive order signed this week by former President Donald Trump, aiming to reduce homelessness through expanded institutionalization, forced treatment, and the defunding of harm reduction programs, is drawing both sharp criticism and cautious support from Vermont lawmakers.
The executive order, titled “Ending Crime and Disorder on America’s Streets,” directs federal agencies to prioritize encampment clearances, expand civil commitment laws, and defund programs that do not require mandatory treatment—including Housing First and ‘harm reduction’ strategies like overdose prevention sites.
Read the FYIVT.com explanation of the Trump EO here.
VDC asked three Vermont lawmakers on the House Human Services Committee, which has oversight on homeless and substance abuse policy, to weigh in on the Trump order. Two Republican legislators back the President’s call for stricter control and increased accountability among unhoused populations. A former Republican and now independent warns that the order ignores decades of evidence-based mental health policy and could cause lasting harm to the state’s most vulnerable.
Nielsen: EO will help restore street safety and order
Rep. Todd Nielsen (R-Brandon) of the House Human Services Committee, expressed support for Trump’s executive order, saying it addresses visible issues of disorder and drug use in Vermont communities.
“Seeing this firsthand in Vermont, I believe the steps outlined by the President will make Vermont a better and safer place to live,” Nielsen said. “In lieu of spending money on outdated programs that hurt taxpayers, we should welcome this new direction.”
Nielsen framed the resistance to the order as partisan and said more Republican representation is needed in the Legislature to align Vermont’s policies with federal reforms. “Until that happens, Vermont will remain vulnerable to pushback against initiatives designed to make America great again,” he said.
Donahue: Voluntary treatment Is only proven path
Human Services Vice-Chair Rep. Anne Donahue (I-Northfield/Berlin, a former Republican), a longtime mental health advocate, suicide survivor, and member of the House Human Services Committee, said the order’s emphasis on involuntary treatment flies in the face of established research.
“The evidence base shows that voluntary treatment is the only successful route,” Donahue said. “Involuntary treatment may force compliance for a short time, but it leads to long-term disengagement. That’s not recovery.”
Housing First is the longtime homelessness policy, in Vermont and other ‘blue’ jurisdictions, that prioritizes housing over requirements to seek help for substance abuse, job training or mental illness. Donahue was particularly critical of the order’s claim that the Housing First model is not evidence-based. “That is simply false,” she said. “Housing First has an extremely strong evidence base for success in reducing homelessness and achieving long-term housing stability.”
Under Vermont’s Housing First policy, the number of ‘unhoused’ Vermonters has more than tripled since 2020, according to a Vermont Housing and Homelessness Alliance report released this week, shortly after the EO announcement.
“According to the 2025 Vermont Point in Time (PIT) count there were 3,386 unhoused Vermonters in a single night, including 633 children and 215 Vermonters 65 years old or older. This represents an over 200 percent increase in unhoused people since 2020, when the PIT count recorded 1,110 unhoused Vermonters. When compared with states across the United States, last year Vermont had the 4th highest rate of unhoused people per capita in the country,” the report states.
Costs and capacity concerns
Donahue also warned that increasing institutional capacity for civil commitment—especially for individuals who do not meet federal criteria for inpatient care—would saddle Vermont with a massive financial burden.
“Most people needing community-based care are not eligible under federal rules for residential or inpatient treatment,” she explained. “So unless those federal definitions change, any expansion would be 100% at the cost of the state.”
Even if federal matching funds were available, Donahue said, the scale of expansion required to meet the order’s goals would be “extraordinary” and would worsen existing bottlenecks in Vermont’s psychiatric system.
“We already have delays for people who want voluntary inpatient care,” she said. “Emergency departments are crowded. Increasing involuntary commitments would make it even harder for those voluntarily seeking treatment to get it.”
Donahue called instead for a robust expansion of outpatient services, which are both more effective and cost-efficient.
“Creating access to high-quality outpatient mental health care—something Vermont currently lacks—is what will make the biggest difference,” she said. “But if current federal Medicaid policies shift away from supporting outpatient care, we risk losing access to the very programs that work.”
Steady: Expand housing, but add requirements, structure
Rep. Brenda Steady (R-Milton), who also serves on the House Human Services Committee, said she supports exploring more congregate housing solutions but had not fully reviewed the details of Trump’s executive order.
“Leaving people to sleep on sidewalks is not humane,” she said, expressing concern over the current state of Vermont’s emergency housing program. “Putting someone in a motel room without resources isn’t the right answer either.”
Steady advocated for stronger accountability measures, such as requiring participants in state housing programs to engage in drug counseling, budgeting classes, and job-readiness programs.
“I feel for people with mental illness and their families, who often feel helpless under the current system,” she said. “Years ago, family members could help a loved one get treatment. Now their hands are tied.”
‘End Homelessness’ group condemns EO
Critics, including Vermont advocacy group End Homelessness Vermont and its director Brenda Siegel, say the order is dangerous, inhumane, and a direct threat to civil liberties.
“This policy treats homelessness like a crime or a moral failure, rather than a housing issue,” Siegel said. “It defunds the very programs that help people survive and recover.”
This sentiment is echoed by Donahue.
“We cannot afford to go backward,” Donahue said. “Evidence-based care works. Stripping away autonomy and civil rights in the name of public order does not.”
A State at a crossroads
As Vermont grapples with its own housing and mental health care challenges—including an already heavy tax burden, emergency shelter shortages, long wait times for psychiatric care, and strained outpatient services—Trump’s order has forced a public reckoning over the direction of policy and priorities.
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Categories: Housing
What seems to be left out of these discussions is how many of the unhoused that are straining our state’s resources have come here from out of state. The inevitable result of our “supply side only” or “carrots only with no sticks” approach.
I agree with great deal of this article, all of which I won’t reiterate. We definitely have serious issue with Homelessness. There are lot of factors, but I think that lack of facilities for addressing mental health issues has been a concern for quite some time now. Especially since the Vermont State Hospital in Waterbury was not adequately replaced. IMHO.
What we have now does not work and is not affordable…this forces the issue to be solved quickly and in a common sense manner. There is no sense beating a dead dog with a stick and that is exactly what you have now. Send a team to Switzerland and see how they deal with it. It works. the town you are born in is responsible for your welfare if you fall on hard times. If your family has money they must pay ,if not ,the town pays but they must be paid back and the person helped must pay it back when back on their feet. This weeds out the freeloaders almost 100%. For they that can not help themselves each state maintains a home where they live,work and are taken care of.
Homelessness has nothing to do with lack of housing – but since the radical leftists of Vermont firmly believe, as Saul Alinsky professed, that if you keep repeating the same lies over & over, the masses will eventually accept it as truth……then I’ll simply do the SAME, except the following are TRUTHS:
1.) As per decades’ old US government data – over 80% of homelessness is directly caused by mental health illness and/or drug/alcohol addiction. And addictions ARE indeed a moral failure, sorry.
2.) The hope to now build MILLIONS of new housing units nationwide & dozens of thousands across VT is solely to accommodate the MILLIONS of illegal aliens your democrat party allowed and enabled to overflow into this nation violating Federal Law, i.e.: the Rule of Law. This was done intentionally to exploit elections & voter roles.
You keep repeating such falsehoods re: “lack of affordability” – the GOP must retort louder armed with statistical data that you are but LIARS.
STOP the spread of commune-style government built and/or subsidized housing across this once beautiful and rural state!!!!!!!!!
Thank You Kathleen! Well Said!
The Leftists/Dems in Vermont’s State Government are violating Federal Immigration Laws by allowing Vermont’s illegal “sanctuary status,” to openly invite and harbor non-vetted, illegal aliens to come to live in Vermont using taxpayer funded resources.
The same Leftists/Dems have approved the policies to hand out an abundance of free taxpayer resources to ALL other persons who want to live in Vermont (homeless or otherwise) with no residency requirement.
To the Vermont State Government Leftists/Dems there is no problem. They are shaping and molding Vermont into what they want it to be.
As Saul Alinsky says,”Create the issues and problems. Stir up dissatisfaction and discontent and never let a crisis go to waste.”
The question is: Will we WORK TO VOTE THEM OUT in 2026?
VDC deleted my comment!!??
I guess someone thought that me bringing up the topic of overuse of services by out of staters was over-the-line. I thought VDC was above this kind of censorship. I’m done with VDC!
Are you sure your comment was “censored”? Sometimes the posting just gets hung up. I have made comments in line with yours, without any failure to be posted. Overuse of services by people coming here to take advantage of Vermont’s overly-bountiful welfare cornucopia is most definitely a concern and is certainly to blame for the elevated numbers.
Joe, it’s because you did give your first and last name. We’re asking all commenters to do this. Sometimes we miss a few, but that’s the standard. Email me your real name at news@vermontdailychronicle.com, or just resubmit with it, and we will publish it. As it happens I (and many readers) agree with the sentiment.
“The evidence base shows that voluntary treatment is the only successful route,” Anne Donahue says, that’s nothing more than a band aide approach that really means doing nothing, I agree that it’s a mental issue, but Anne thinks all mental issues can be dealt with consultation, only if the patient decides to commit, then you get a pill and a room, that’s not working obviously, these homeless commit crimes and are a public safety issue. Can’t we all agree that something needs to change.
Rich, and Guy, thank you for clarifying to me that my previous comment was not censored. Apologies for me getting a bit hot-headed there, jumping to conclusions.
“The number of homeless Vermonters has tripled since 2020″…to be accurate, that should be better stated as: the number of people CLAIMING to be homeless and physically have their feet in the state of Vermont has tripled since 2020…ever since the Vermont legislature has rolled out the red carpet with offers of long-term stays in a motel based on the honor system of a claim of not having anywhere else to go. The word got out regionally, even nationally that Vermont was offering free digs, along with the rest of the welfare cornucopia that Vermont has always been famous for. Many of the former denizens of the free motels were never from here and as long as we have activists like Brenda Siegel and like-minded bleeding hearts in the legislature doing everything they can to accommodate vagrants from afar, they will remain here on the dole.
I respectfully disagree with Anne Donahue as she says “voluntary treatment is the only successful route.”
Most of us have experienced and know friends/relatives who are alcoholics, drug addicts/users or those with mental illnesses. In seeking to help, we know that honest dialog and intervention goes a long way to genuinely help in these circumstances. If we truly love and care for all human beings, we won’t be satisfied to leave them as they are. Alcoholics and drug addicts/users typically do not think clearly, so how are they to make healthy choices “voluntarily?”
Vermont’s present practices were initiated by the policies of the Leftists/Dems in Vermont’s Government. They promote: hands off “coddling and enabling,” “anti-personal responsibility,” and “anti-law enforcement,” with results that
anyone with common sense would expect. Allowing open drug use on the streets or in homeless shelters is not love and/or compassion for anyone. It is destructive enablement.
Our problems in Vermont have grown substantially in recent years with an abundance of Law-Breakers, Prostitutes, Illegal Aliens, Homeless, Able-Bodied yet Government Dependent, Mentally Ill, Drug Addicts and/or Drug Users that are more concentrated in certain Vermont Counties. All of these behaviors are enabled by Vermont’s Elected Government Officials.
Leftist Policies in Vermont are not working. We need more elected officials with common sense in Montpelier who will keep their Oaths of Office to truly serve the collective best interests of Vermont and Vermonters.
Vermont’s democrats and progressives are so blinded by Trump Derangement Syndrome that they failed to see that 70+ million Americans voted enthusiastically to restore some nominal sense of personal responsibility last November.
Institutions are the humane avenue to take. People need structure, and compassion, kicking people out at 7am onto the streets doesn’t work, neither are homeless encampments and the fend for yourself options. Closing down institutions was a liberal pipe dream that has failed miserably.