Housing and Homelessness: Addressing Vermont's Homelessness Crisis Vermont’s housing and homelessness crisis is the result of multiple factors, including a lack of sufficient permanently affordable housing units, skyrocketing housing and constructions costs, more people moving to Vermont, increasing short term rentals, a failure to ensure a living wage, a failure to provide adequate mental health and substance use services (and continuing to criminalize people who use drugs), and more. While we urge the Legislature to make the sustained long-term investments necessary to ensure perpetually affordable housing with the necessary support services to meet the demand, we also urge the Legislature in the shorter-term to provide the resources necessary to ensure sufficient emergency shelter. The Alliance supports the Housing & Homelessness Alliance of Vermont (HHAV) in its request for the Legislature to ensure there is sufficient state funding in FY26 to: - maximize the capacity of Vermont’s affordable housing developers
- maintain Vermont’s existing homelessness prevention infrastructure; and
- provide emergency shelter for unhoused Vermonters.
Update: The Governor's FY25 Recommended Budget Adjustment did not include a proposal to increase expenditures to support the state’s emergency housing programs, which will serve significantly fewer households on April 1 unless changes are made. The silence on the issue comes as at least 450 households currently in emergency housing, including many with young children, have used up their 80 days of annual eligibility and so will be ineligible for state-supported shelter on April 1 when a temporary suspension of eligibility limits ends. Advocacy is underway in the House to encourage the inclusion of additional funding in the House’s Budget Adjustment proposal to allow for the suspension to continue through the end of the fiscal year (June 30). The General Assistance Emergency Housing (GA EH) Task Force has issued a final report with recommendations for program improvements. The recommendations recognize that the nature of the program has changed in recent years, as households have been engaged with the GA EH program for longer periods of time due to lack of sufficient affordable housing options. The report with likely play a key role in the coming discussions in the House Human Services Committee about proposals to revise the program. In addition to the consideration of the GA EH Program, discussions are taking place in several House and Senate committees regarding housing production, including affordable housing. We also anticipate robust committee discussions on regulatory and process reforms intended to encourage more development, including those recently put forward by the Administration. Those proposals are similar to those proposed by a new effort, Let's Build Homes, which launched their coalition at a press conference last week. | |
Data and Talking Points -
The '24 Point In Time number represents a five percent increase over 2023, which was Vermont’s previous record high. -
The Point in Time number is an undercount, as it reflects only the people who engaged with our state’s dedicated and perpetually under-resourced shelter service providers on the PIT count day. -
Black Vermonters are 5.6 times more likely than white Vermonters to be unhoused this year. | |
| |  | Alliance Legislative Agenda Issue Spotlight: Housing – 1/27 This winter, the Alliance will be hosting virtual Issue Spotlights that will focus on one or two issues from the Alliance’s 2025 Legislative Agenda. Joined by representatives from the lead organizations, participants will be able to ask direct questions and hear a brief legislative update regarding the issues. The next session will be held Monday, January 27, from 3:30 to 4:15 pm, and will focus on development of and access to emergency and affordable housing. Hosted by the Housing and Homelessness Alliance of Vermont, this session is a great opportunity to learn more about this important program, where it stands in the Legislature, and how to get involved. | | | | | |  | | | | |
