Vermont second to California in homeless per capita, highest rate of increase in nation - what can be done?
by Guy Page
On at least one important public policy subject, John Walters (theVPO.org) and I agree:
Vermont has too many homeless people.
“Here’s something I didn’t know about our Brave Little State: Vermont has the second highest rate of homelessness in the country,” Walters writes in his February 7 essay. “Only California is worse.”
Walters references data in a February 3 The Guardian profile of a Vermont teen. Furthermore, from 2007 – 2022 Vermont saw the highest rate of homeless increase in the nation. Higher than California. Higher than New York State.
The left-leaning Walters – one of Vermont news media’s most skillful writers – and I agree on the deplorable what. But we disagree on the why.
Walters: “There was one significant piece of good news in the HUD report, but that news may get quite a bit worse in the very near future. The good news is that we do an extremely good job of getting homeless Vermonters into shelter of some kind or another. In fact, we provide more shelter than any other state.”
Me: Yep, we do indeed “provide more shelter than any other state.” And that’s one reason why we have so many homeless.
Not the only reason, of course. We also have the oldest housing stock in the nation. A generation of legislatures that have strangled new home construction (except grudgingly and at great expense in urban cores) and made renovation less and less affordable. “Zombie” homes sitting vacant ever since the death of their Greatest Generation reverse-mortgage holding owners – victims of the bottomless bureaucratic pit called Housing and Urban Development (HUD). Growing numbers of hard-to-employ felons and drug addicts. A hot, speculative housing market that encourages vacant second-homes.
All true. And here’s yet another cruel New Normal about Vermont’s homeless:
Many are employed. The old line ‘get a job’ doesn’t cut it, anymore. Many, many homeless Vermonters work one or two jobs. Knock on the doors of a certain well-known Barre ‘homeless hotel’ and you will find laborers and food service workers. They just can’t find housing because – due to income limits, prison records, or real or perceived rental histories – they are the ones left standing when the music stops.
And yet. It may seem oxymoronic. And heartless. Or both. But I believe it’s true: purportedly compassionate policies offering plentiful, free emergency housing both grow and maintain Vermont’s core population of ‘homeless.’
Why do I think this?
Personal experience. During the pandemic, a loved one was living in New Hampshire in federally-funded homeless housing. As soon as the federal money disappeared, so did the paid-for hotel room. My loved one and significant other moved to Vermont “because there is free housing there.” Supply and demand.
The cautionary tale of California. Vermont, like the Golden State, subscribes to a policy called Housing First. The idea is simple: give people housing and they won’t be homeless anymore. And with that most basic of needs addressed, it is hoped they will be far, far more willing and able to work on the causes of their homelessness: substance abuse, mental illness, lack of training and opportunity, domestic abuse, etc.
But California, like Vermont, does not require recipients of emergency housing to work on the issues that put them on the street. Nor do any of Vermont’s current legislative or administrative solutions feature such requirements. Rather, lawmakers opposing the $21 million extension of emergency housing benefits through June are branded as heartless.
California homeless advocate Michelle Streeb reported this week that “under Housing First’s rule, California has experienced a 37% increase in homelessness. At the Federal level, where it was rolled out in 2013 as a one-size-fits-all approach, the country experienced over a 16% increase, despite a 200% increase in funding and a relatively robust economy.”
“No amount of money will fix this crisis,” Streeb concludes. “In 13 years of working with single-mother-led families— more than 70% of the homeless family population—there are thousands of women who will join me in attesting that a housing unit or a subsidy, in and of themselves, would not have supported them to overcome the challenges that led to their homelessness… the challenges that would have prevented them from living full lives today.”
So – what will?
To its credit, Vermont offers many training, mental health, substance abuse, and family services to homeless people. But clearly, just offering the help isn’t enough. There’s no incentive. As Gov. Scott said at a recent press conference, his administration doesn’t require any reciprocal self-improvement efforts of emergency housing recipients.
Is it offered? Yes. Required? No. The fear of letting people fall off the benefits cliff – quite possibly to their deaths – terrifies policy makers. See California.
So unless the State of Vermont puts on its collective thinking cap and finds ways to show constructive tough love, we will continue to emulate California. Which – we all agree – in this case isn’t a good thing, at all.