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To date, Vermont has spent hundreds of millions of dollars to house homeless people. The expenditures pay off for people who are down on their luck and need a helping hand. With assistance from the Chittenden County Homeless Alliance, Burlington has already helped more than 150 households transition from the temporary housing in motels/pods into permanent housing through the county’s “coordinated entry” system.

Such is not the case when dealing with mentally ill and addicted people. Health care professionals and social workers concur: “You simply cannot place a severely impaired person in a motel room or temporary shelter and expect a good outcome.”

The Critical Need for Inpatient Treatment

Despite state and city procrastination, there is a groundswell of professional and private opinion appealing for an inpatient facility or facilities for homeless people suffering from serious drug and mental disorders.

Until 2011, the state funded the Vermont State Hospital Complex in Waterbury. First opened in 1894, it once housed over 1,200 people. It closed after being severely damaged by Tropical Storm Irene. The antiquated hospital buildings were already in poor condition due to inadequate funding and had been the subject of repeated calls for closure. Nevertheless, the state spent $130 million to renovate the site and now house several state agencies there. Momentum for closure gained critical legislative support when a majority of politicians were erroneously led to believe that severe mental health patients and illicit drug users could be successfully rehabilitated with a new generation of medications, administered on an outpatient basis in “community settings.”

According to Alice Feller, MD, a psychiatrist and writer based in Berkeley, CA., whose work has appeared in the Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, the San Francisco Chronicle and New York Times, American psychiatric hospitals began to close their door in the 1960s. The movement began in California, first with the large state hospitals and then the small community hospitals as well.

By 1994 nearly half a million former patients had been sent back to live with their families, who were often unable to care for them. A quarter million newly discharged patients ended up on the streets or behind bars after committing serious crimes. So many were incarcerated that jails and prisons have become our de facto mental hospitals. Today, the vast majority of inpatient psychiatric care in America is provided behind bars.

Based on mountains of empirical data and updated medical opinion, it is clear that Vermont needs to make a long time, capital investment (with a combination of state, public, private and foundation funding) in opening and professionally staffing a State Psychiatric Hospital. State-owned land with existing infrastructure makes Waterbury a prime candidate though others sites should be examined.

1 reply »

Jack Scully says:

October 15, 2026 at 10:10 pm

To date, Vermont has spent hundreds of millions of dollars to house homeless people. The expenditures pay off for people who are down on their luck and need a helping hand. With assistance from the Chittenden County Homeless Alliance, Burlington has already helped more than 150 households transition from the temporary housing in motels/pods into permanent housing through the county’s “coordinated entry” system.

Such is not the case when dealing with mentally ill and addicted people. Health care professionals and social workers concur: “You simply cannot place a severely impaired person in a motel room or temporary shelter and expect a good outcome.”

The Critical Need for Inpatient Treatment

Despite state and city procrastination, there is a groundswell of professional and private opinion appealing for an inpatient facility or facilities for homeless people suffering from serious drug and mental disorders.

Until 2011, the state funded the Vermont State Hospital Complex in Waterbury. First opened in 1894, it once housed over 1,200 people. It closed after being severely damaged by Tropical Storm Irene. The antiquated hospital buildings were already in poor condition due to inadequate funding and had been the subject of repeated calls for closure. Nevertheless, the state spent $130 million to renovate the site and now house several state agencies there. Momentum for closure gained critical legislative support when a majority of politicians were erroneously led to believe that severe mental health patients and illicit drug users could be successfully rehabilitated with a new generation of medications, administered on an outpatient basis in “community settings.”

According to Alice Feller, MD, a psychiatrist and writer based in Berkeley, CA., whose work has appeared in the Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, the San Francisco Chronicle and New York Times, American psychiatric hospitals began to close their door in the 1960s. The movement began in California, first with the large state hospitals and then the small community hospitals as well.

By 1994 nearly half a million former patients had been sent back to live with their families, who were often unable to care for them. A quarter million newly discharged patients ended up on the streets or behind bars after committing serious crimes. So many were incarcerated that jails and prisons have become our de facto mental hospitals. Today, the vast majority of inpatient psychiatric care in America is provided behind bars.

Based on mountains of empirical data and updated medical opinion, it is clear that Vermont needs to make a long time, capital investment (with a combination of state, public, private and foundation funding) in opening and professionally staffing a State Psychiatric Hospital. State-owned land with existing infrastructure makes Waterbury a prime candidate though others sites should be examined.

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