By Guy Page
An 11th-hour amendment offered by the Vermont House Human Services Committee chair Theresa Wood (D-Waterbury) seeks to continue the pandemic-era Emergency Housing program. The amendment is likely to come before House members at today’s session of the Legislature, called to address Gov. Phil Scott’s veto of several bills, including the budget.
The amendment appears to be an attempt to entice the 17 Democrat and Progressive legislators who refused to vote for the budget last month because it didn’t extend the ‘homeless hotel’ emergency housing program housing to up to 2700 people. Federal funds have dried up, leaving the program funded by state revenue, or not at all.
Filed at 4:51 PM yesterday, Wood’s ‘strike-all’ amendment to a Senate amendment to H.171 declares ”that vulnerable Vermonters should continue to be housed while sufficient time is allocated for developing alternative housing placements, including emergency housing beds, and furthering community collaboration.”
The amendment sets guidelines for eligibility, including contributing 30% of household income. The lion’s share of the funding would come from existing revenue, specifically the “balance of the Other Infrastructure, Essential Investments, and Reserves subaccount in the Cash Fund for Capital and Essential Investments.”
The initiative authorizes the Scott administration to “use available resources” to “phase-out” the homeless hotel Emergency Housing program: “The Agency of Administration is authorized to use available resources as necessary to assist in the implementation of the phase-out of the pandemic-era General Assistance Emergency Housing Program.”
Emergency Housing program advocate Brenda Siegal said the bill doesn’t go far enough: “This bill addresses a small subset of the population and only if they are able to clear the hurdles for their survival. If this bill passes as written, than those who can jump the hoops will remain sheltered, but those who can not will be penalized by living outside.”