|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
Vermont grows programs without data or limits
by Dave Soulia
Vermont’s public assistance system has long been touted as a model of compassion — an open-handed commitment to helping residents in need. But a deep look into state documents reveals a growing disconnect between the messaging and the math.
The state continues to sound alarms about hunger, housing insecurity, and rising demand for emergency aid. Legislators warn that more funding is needed to keep up with surging need. Meanwhile, the Department for Children and Families (DCF) and its Economic Services Division (ESD) spend millions on outreach — not just to vulnerable Vermonters in shelters or rural towns, but to college students whose tuition already covers three meals a day.
Posters, Flyers, and Tabling at Campuses
According to outreach planning documents submitted to the USDA between 2018 and 2024, Vermont’s 3SquaresVT program — the local name for SNAP (food stamps) — devotes substantial resources to recruiting and assisting college students. In fiscal year 2022, the Vermont Foodbank spent $678 printing 300 “3SVT for College Students” posters. That’s a small line item, but it’s part of a broader campaign that includes one-on-one application help on campuses, mailings, classroom visits, and digital outreach.
And yet, schools like the University of Vermont and Champlain College already require meal plans for most students living on campus. At UVM, for instance, undergraduates can choose from multiple plans ranging from unlimited dining access to preloaded swipes and flex points — all of which cost between $2,364 and $2,641 per semester. At Champlain, the base plan clocks in at $7,000 per academic year.
In other words, many students targeted by Vermont’s outreach efforts are already paying for full access to food — through their tuition or family support — while the state simultaneously encourages them to apply for taxpayer-funded benefits.
Eligibility Asked — But Not Reported
To be clear, Vermont’s SNAP application does ask whether the applicant is currently receiving benefits in another state. That’s intended to prevent double-dipping across state lines.
What’s missing, however, is any public record of how that data is used. Across seven years of reports and outreach plans, there is no analysis, breakdown, or reporting of how many 3SquaresVT applicants recently moved to Vermont, where they came from, or whether they had previous enrollment in another state’s welfare programs.
Residency in Vermont is defined simply as “intent to stay.” No minimum duration is required. A person can arrive in the state and apply for benefits on the same day — and unless flagged manually in the system, their prior history is not cross-checked in any visible or reportable way.
A Wealthier State — But a Growing Welfare Footprint?
This absence of tracking becomes even more puzzling when paired with migration trends. According to 2021–2022 IRS data, Vermont saw a net gain in high- and middle-income tax filers — particularly households earning over $200,000. At the same time, lower-income filers were more likely to move out of the state. That suggests Vermont’s new arrivals aren’t fleeing hardship — they’re often financially stable, even affluent.
Meanwhile, participation in Vermont’s Reach Up welfare program — which provides cash assistance and support to families with children — has been declining for over a decade. In 2013, the state served over 6,000 families. By 2024, that number had dropped to just 3,439.
So where is the surge in emergency need coming from?
Big Budgets, Minimal Oversight
Much of Vermont’s SNAP outreach is federally reimbursed. Outreach partners — including Hunger Free Vermont, the Foodbank, and regional councils on aging — receive grant funding to increase awareness and applications. They are required to track activity, but not outcomes. That means there’s no evaluation of whether outreach leads to improved food security, reduced need, or whether aid is redundant for recipients who already have access to food.
What is measured, instead, are numbers: how many flyers were handed out, how many trainings were held, how many people were screened or referred. And the more activity a partner can show, the more eligible they are for reimbursement — regardless of who the end user is.
Who’s Being Served — and Who’s Watching?
In a state that prides itself on progressive values and neighborly care, few want to question whether assistance is being handed out too freely. But when the college student with a full meal plan qualifies for food stamps, while the taxpayer footing the bill sees their own grocery prices skyrocket, someone has to ask the question:
Who exactly is Vermont feeding — and why aren’t we keeping track?
Discover more from Vermont Daily Chronicle
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Categories: Commentary, State Government
The homeless aren’t stupid. Neither are some of the low income families who have lived off the system for years. (Not all low income families, just the ones with no integrity) Some of these homeless and low income people are actually geniuses on how to manipulate the system. Granted Vermont has cold weather, but the un-ending freebies is well known in the homeless community, . . . in state and out of state; which makes cold weather a lower consideration. The state of Vermont continues to sound alarms about hunger, housing insecurity, and rising demand for emergency aid. Legislators warn that more funding is needed to keep up with surging need. They hovever will never reach the (TAX PAYER) funding needed, because the homeless and generational low income families living off the system is always increasing in their population. Until Vermont legislation figures out their scam, the TAX PAYERS can count on yearly TAX INCREASES.
It would be nice if government programs spent as much time and taxpayer money investigating fraud and abuse as they did in promoting the benefits. Eliminating the fraud and abuse actually allows for more of the EXISTING level of resources to be used helping those most in need. That would make too much sense. It’s ok however to have activists lining the streets on saturday berating the government officials who are sleuthing out waste, fraud and abuse.
Montpelier is like the 1939 movie WIZARD OF OZ’s Scarecrow, one hand out to take money and the other to give it out. Noted and rightly so being without a brain.
With the homeless population more than doubling in the last 4 years. How about the lower income who choose to be on the system ( not out of necessity which the help is for ), but many times lazy, sometimes a generational way of making a living (your parents lived off the system, and your grandparents lived off the system (it was how some were trained growing up). Has that increased to the same ridiculous number as the 210% increase for the homeless ? YET, . . . . Vermont legislation still doesn’t understand what is going on, and still just throws money at it without consequences. They are still feeding a man for the day, and the next day, and the next.
” Feed a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach a man to fish and he will eat for a lifetime”.
Then there are yet some in the Christian community that think it’s are duty to keep doing things. Well Christian Community Proverbs says “if you don’t work you don’t eat”. HOWEVER, we are also charged to care for the widow’s and the orphan’s (and I would also say the one’s unable to work). Beyond that give a temporary help up with time constraints, not an unending hand out.
Yet Vermont homelessness has increased 220%, the highest in the nation. Why? You can be assured all those who profit off keeping Vermonter’s poor will have all sorts for reasons to keep their jobs and expand them, ie more poor Vermonters.
Health care system can’t make more money with healthy people.
Big Pharma can’t make more money with healthy people.
DCF and Food programs can’t expand is people earn their own dinner.
There is plenty of work to be done, other than these fields. So people wouldn’t be unemployed for long.
A healthy and prosperous Vermont would have little need for hospitals and assistance from the state. At our church the food shelf got so unneeded it closed. Some were upset because people weren’t showing up. I was like, this is the best possible outcome anyone could hope for.
Marxism, thrives on hand outs, inside deals and government expansion and dependency, freedom and prosperity are at odds with this philosophy. Everything is unaffordable under marxism, hence our affordability issues in Vermont, too many people are on the government dole, taking their cut, their bribe to keep the system afloat, it’s very inefficient, but profitable for those running the system.
Hey Dave,
Your IRS link is broken and the first two links are to a table of contents of at least 84 pages, that’s not how citing your source works. If you did know how to use facts, you would have cited from UVM that 53% of students attending live off campus and DO NOT have a meal plan. That’s at least over 6,000 people. That is why we made the investment of $658 dollars. But, you’re just asking questions.
Anecdotally, my wife was on food stamps in college and was the first in her family to graduate. We both worked full-time and struggled to earn our degrees up in Burlington. Last year we made 189k, was that a good return on investment? I’m wondering where you went to college. You seem able to critique it, but don’t know what it looks like. Do you think that we shouldn’t tell almost half the school that they might be able to access services that their taxes pay for? If you were actually sincere, you would’ve learned that almost 20% of UVM students reported being food insecure. Seems like that $658 was pretty well spent to me.
https://www.uvm.edu/health/food-insecurity-uvm#:~:text=Recent%20surveys%20at%20UVM%20show,the%20following%20resources%20can%20help.
This is like the third or fourth time that your articles fall apart at a 11th grade level of scrutiny. I can’t wait to read your detective work about Rutland City Hall. Better cite your sources…
It seems that any tax funded program needs to be framed for credible financial and impact auditing; on a timeline with a sunset clause prompting the legislature to reassess their efforts before the law expires.
Everyone loves to get something for nothing and work the system. They figure, “What’s in it for me and shouldn’t I get mine.” Well the elites are corrupting the system getting richer on pharmaceutical stocks so I deserve it too. This is just another program that needs to be audited or DOGED for fraud abuse and eliminated.
If DOGE came to Vermont their heads would explode out of incredulousness.