Senior officials from Governor Phil Scott’s office came to Bennington on Friday, December 5th, to discuss the housing crisis in Bennington with students. In attendance were Kristin McClure, deputy secretary of Vermont’s Agency of Human Services; Miranda Gray, Deputy Commissioner of the Agency of Human Services; and Adam Sancic, Field Services for the Agency in Bennington and Rutland counties.
Professor David Bond, who led the students in a tutorial on housing, moderated the discussion. Though the officials came to answer student questions, McClure was grateful to hear student thoughts that would hopefully help “tweak the crisis system.” Gray added that the crisis is not one the officials can solve alone, and they are always looking for thoughts.
For the duration of the term, the students present have been visiting sites of emergency housing and shelters around Bennington, gauging the effectiveness of the solutions these officials from Governor Scott’s office have been partially responsible for instituting. The officials visited the class to provide students with insight into housing in Bennington, “a system completely overwhelmed by a need it never anticipated having at that scale,” as Bond put it.
The first question posed by the students asked how the housing crisis was impacted by COVID, with Vermont going from the second-highest level of homelessness per capita in 2023 to the fourth in 2024. The hotel/motel program was created as an emergency solution to shelters reaching capacity during the COVID crisis. During this period, the program received 98 million dollars in federal funding. In subsequent years, the program was funded by the state, costing Vermont over a billion dollars.
The homeless population in Vermont expanded after 2020, as did the cost of the hotel/motel program. COVID created “the perfect storm,” as McClure described it: more homeless people moved to Vermont seeking sanctuary as housing availability decreased. McClure commended Gray’s team for successfully “administering a really difficult program.” Although McClure thought the program seemed like a good idea, he quoted Milton Friedman by saying that “nothing is as permanent as a temporary government solution.” Gray said that a new expectation has emerged to serve what she called the “traveling public.”
The “hotel program was supposed to be a spot to land but to quickly launch out of,” Gray said. Instead, there are a lot of “bottlenecks” preventing people from “moving through the system.” The lack of affordable housing, housing vouchers, and unclear eligibility requirements in the hotel/motel program have all made it increasingly difficult for Vermonters to get in and out of these meant-to-be-temporary crisis programs. Though the system is struggling, demand for emergency housing only continues to rise. Pre-pandemic, the Agency of Human Services would serve 250 households through the winter, said Gray. They now see thousands of households.
Gray said the hotels “are probably the only ones that have done well by it,” as they do not have to comply with regulations and therefore avoid investing their profit back into their facilities. Sancic said of this vicious cycle of homelessness: “We will see folks get housed and then they are out within 3 months because they don’t have the stability or support.” He pointed to the lack of long-term care coordination and case management as the problem with the hotel/motel and crisis housing programs. Though the hotel/motel program expanded, to McClure it feels like a failure: he said that “we are warehousing people” who need additional support.
Is this really a crisis, asked Bond, “an exceptional event that will pass… or is this our new reality?”
McClure responded, “Oh my god, I hope this isn’t a new reality.”
The three noted that strengthening the shelter system is a vital component of lessening the housing crisis in Vermont. Fair market rent, vouchers, and “wraparound services” are the “trifecta” McClure identified that provide complete assistance to the homeless, which these crisis programs do not provide. If the “end goal is an apartment you can afford,” Gray said, achieving that is “going to seem rather hopeless.” The three pointed toward mending natural support structures as a solution for individuals to avoid the crisis system: “Maybe it’s two families who can find an apartment together,” said Gray. Sancic named homeshare as a viable option where people looking for shelter can live with elderly residents in exchange for providing care.
Not-in-my-backyard politics, zoning issues, and struggles with staffing capacity have exacerbated the housing crisis in Vermont, Sancic argued. When one student asked about Governor Phil Scott’s politics—prioritizing lower taxes rather than aiding the homeless— which necessarily evicts “the most vulnerable people,” McClure said that “the narrative in the media is so hard to hear.” She said the Agency of Human Services works every day to serve people, but that the Agency’s crisis programs don’t always do that. The officials’ role, as McClure put it, is to figure out solutions: to “roll up their sleeves” and get outcomes.
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