By Guy Page
Gov. Scott and his top administrators briefed the press on the July 1 version of the state homeless hotel and motel program. Top points:
Cost: Rooms will cost the State of Vermont $153/night, for a 30-day total of $4,590/month. Total for 30 days: $5,572,260, to be paid out of existing state revenue. Recipients must pay 30% of their income towards their rent. Also, the total amount will decline soon for two reasons, officials said:
1) the number of recipients is likely to drop because they will be required to accept suitable housing found for them. Residents will be required to work with state workers on finding new housing. Once found, they will have 48 hours to accept a written offer of new housing.
2) the State of Vermont will be negotiating lower room rates, per H.171, the new emergency housing law passed during this month’s special session of the Legislature.
The administration is working hard on developing innovative exit strategies. For example, $4 million was allocated to identify mobile home park vacant lots (170 found so far in seven counties with the greatest need, 300 statewide) and then buy mobile homes. Vermonters leaving the homeless hotel program would have top priority as the new occupants.
Eligibility guidelines for staying in the emergency housing program include disability, age, children, natural disaster, domestic abuse, and other factors.
Categories: Housing
That’s an outrageous rate
My mortgage is less then 1/3 of that. There is. No way they can afford 30%
30% of their income, whatever that is.
Maje more Section 8 vouchers!!! It would be smarter to give a Housing choice voucher, section 8. People pay 1/3 of their income for a permanent, apartment that passes code, a lease.
Cheaper for the state to pay 2/3 of rent on a $1200 apartment. What are the politicians thinking?
How long will it be before they trash the parks and trailers. When you don’t earn it you don’t apricate it. Also it should be for Vermonters not implants.
If you gave them $2500 they would agree to move out of state and not come back.
The trailer park residents are going to be ecstatic about having homeless people move in next to them. I hope they limit this to people who are already here and registered because this will result in people flocking in from out of state if word gets out.
What’s the plan when these people can’t afford rising costs of kerosine to heat their mobile home once the “Affordable” Heat Act (I mean law) goes into affect? Heat pumps are a fire hazard for mobile homes (not that I back them at all).
So, all I have to do is show up to the state social workers office, say I’m homeless, fill out the forms, live free in hotel for a few months-years, then be given a free mobile home? Why the hell didn’t I think of this before. Is it too late to sign up? Dang, what a deal. I missed the gravy train, again. I guess I was too busy working 50 plus hours a week to notice…
Many of the ‘Homeless Hotels’ are owned by the same family and they know exactly what they’re doing. They’re making millions of dollars at these outrageous rates housing the homeless who have come into Vermont at the encouragement of Vermont’s progressive legislature. Regardless of what the intentions of H.171 might be, I certainly don’t see the number of out of state homeless wandering into Vermont decreasing. Coming soon to camp out in a neighborhood near you. From experience, be sure to lock your vehicles and house doors…
shocking
Let’s take a break from beating up the homeless and take a good look at WHO in state government negotiates and approves the outrageous daily rates paid to what were previously marginally occupied independent motels. Good old supply and demand….
Vermont’s mobile home communities are predominantly inhabited by home owners…who have skin in the game and pride in their properties and neighborhoods. The state should not be playing landlord by putting deadbeats into one of the last vestiges of decent, affordable owner-occupied housing in Vermont. The motel program already made a mess of Vermont’s reputation with tourists and ruined neighborhoods surrounding these flophouses from chronic criminal activity. The only good thing about this latest proposal is that it actually includes some level of eligibility guidelines. If the taxpayers are to be putting people up in rental mobile homes, there ought to be tough restrictions against those who have criminal pasts and intractable addiction problems. Priority should ALWAYS be given to military veterans. Housing may be now considered a “human right”, but how did we ever get used to the idea that it has to include the luxury and privacy of one’s own 4 walls? The privacy inherent in the hotel room program has been implicated in many overdose deaths. If someone overdoses in a communal shelter, there are others around to intervene. Providing privacy for someone with an opioid addiction is a death sentence.
Bring back the work house: a bunk bed in a barracks with a common bathroom (men and women in separate barracks). A daily work schedule doing something towards the public good. People who served in the programs (called various things, like civilian conservation corps, in the past) often experienced hard labor and got themselves into good shape physically and mentally. There were no complaints, as long as there were 3 meals a day and a safe, dry place to sleep. They were well respected for doing their part.
This state is turning into a cesspool of inhumanity. Since when is the state in the business of providing housing for all who come to this state under the guise of being homeless? The people who need housing right now are Vets, families with children, and the disabled. Beyond that, the welfare money needs to stop. Other states have done away with the vouchers. Why must Vermont continue to spend so much of taxpayers hard earned money? When will seniors get some of what the homeless get? There should be strict work requirements. There are plenty of jobs but no one is being told to work or get off the dole! Now they want to use trailer parks for this? How about those who actually own their trailer? Are they supposed to sit back and watch what they have worked for lose property value? It just amazes me that the governor said no, but cowtow’s to the progs!! It will never end!
We are turning into California which makes me want to vomit.
While I’m appreciative that they are making some actual guidelines and rules for housing the “unhoused”, they still make no mention of the fact that these are very likely not Vermont natives prior to the order to house them in 2020 up to now. So, what is to stop them from continuing to pour into our state demanding housing?
If I knew that it was that easy to get a mobile home…you know, by showing up to some social workers office saying I’m homeless, living in a hotel/motel for a few months to years completely free and then be given a mobile home to live in for the remainder of my life, why the heck would I bother to work or be responsible for myself. I missed the gravy train. Is it too late? How did this little tidbit escape my attention for all these years? Oh…that’s right. I was busy working for 50 to 60 hours a week for the last three years because of a “nursing” shortage. And now they are going to take more money out of my pocket to pay for childcare. Why am I paying for someone else’s childcare? Can anyone explain that? It’s bad enough I have to send my money to support public schools which are an abomination, but now I have to pay to care for other people’s children? WTF?
If they are homeless, state puts them in a home, how are they going to pay rent!! The STATE, if they have no job????
In the midst of an affordable housing crisis, the homeless are required to find housing? Would it stand to reason they wouldn’t be homeless if they had affordable housing? If they can’t pay rent on an apartment, how will they pay lot rent in a mobilehome park or other utilties associated such as heat, the biggest expense? Is Senator McDonald going to hand out extra blankets with every mobile home purchase? Buffoons pretending to manage the asylum known as Vermont.
The housing market is fundamentally governed by the laws of supply and demand. In the midst of an existing shortage of affordable housing, the democrats have opened our borders to literally millions of migrants, and they all need to live somewhere. The democrats have ruined the labor market by giving away free, freshly-printed government wampum with no end in sight because of a flu-like virus. Who is going to build this new housing? Stop voting for these people and the problems will resolve themselves.
Think like RFK Jr, He stands for everything that Vermonters strive for. He can unite us all. Great alternative to President Biden, Michelle Obama, or Gov. Newsome.
Noblesse oblige by any other name…
Think about it: if you were homeless…one paycheck away as most of us are… would you “take anything” that was offered knowing that to refuse means you are homeless and without choices?
CHOICE in housing is right there beside dignity and common sense.
I know I could not live in ANY public housing right now… they are too polluted and literally unsafe medically and by location.
MY choice is healthy and safe.
The States priorities…. not so much.
You’ll take what we give you and be happy about it…
You will own nothing and be happy about it…
Slavery anyone?
$69,267.12 per year for rent!
No respect for tax payer money.
When we tell the homeless we’ll pay up to $70,000 a year to house you, when we tell the drug dealers we’ll provide free housing, no criminal charges, no permitting needed to deal drugs in Vermont, what do you get more of?
Drug Dealers and People who want free housing.
Vermont here’s your sign. We need a change.
Housing choice voucher!!! Better for the Housing authority to pay 2/3 rent for a$1200 apartment!
Section 8 Housing gives people a long term solution paying 1/3 of their income towards rent. The voucher is for long term in stable clean housing and it is cheaper than motels.
If I was a motel owner who used to have tourists checking in and out , I would want my business to go back to that. Who wants permanent monthly residents if you are a motel. Can’t clean, repaint, when someone lives in a room.
Vt has its head in the sand. The disabled and elderly need permanent housing nit a hotel room.
Will homeless be working for the state or towns if not employed and abide by rules and regulations?also no smoking or alcohol use and random drug tests.Make them accountable or lose benefits.🇱🇷
What’s this the third or fourth deadline that keeps getting extended? Most of these people will not do anything until the money train stops. There’s a reason why you shouldn’t feed wild animals, they lose their ability to fend for themselves. The same is true with humans.