BERLIN, Vt. — This fall, hundreds of Vermont’s most vulnerable people experiencing homelessness will be forced from the state-funded motel rooms they’ve been living in as the state winds down its pandemic-era motel voucher program. The move has outraged municipal leaders and advocates who say many will have no place to go.
The largest exodus — about 230 households — is expected on Thursday, when they reach a new 80-day limit on motel room stays imposed by the Legislature starting in July. Those affected include families, people with disabilities, the elderly, pregnant women and people who have experienced domestic violence or a natural disaster such as a fire or a flood.
A new 1,110-room limit on the number of motel rooms the state can use to house these people during the warmer months of April through November also went into effect Sunday. Some households that have not yet used their 80-day limit have been turned away because there is no space, advocates say.
In the central Vermont area of the cities of Montpelier and Barre, about 100 to 140 families will leave their motels this fall. The state estimates about 1,000 households will leave their motels statewide, said Jen Armbrister, outreach case manager for the Good Samaritan Haven in Barre.
The area’s shelters are consistently full, and advocates are scrambling to find housing in a state with a housing crisis. The state had the second-highest per capita homelessness rate in the country in 2023, according to a U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development assessment.
“I can’t tell you how many families I’ve sat down with and said I really pray I never have to have this conversation with you, but we don’t have any solutions,” Armbrister said. She’s had to tell them that if they don’t have anywhere to go, the best thing she can do is put them on a list to get a tent and sleeping bags. But there’s nowhere to camp nearby.
From December 1, when winter begins, households will be eligible for motel housing again. But until then, some do not know where they will live.
Nova and Bruce Jewett must leave the Hilltop Inn in Berlin on October 1. Bruce Jewett, 63, is a disabled veteran with cancer and cannot camp because of a back injury.
The couple is looking for housing but says none are available. They are always put on hold, or told someone else is looking at a spot or it’s rented, he said.
“It bothers me because I’m a veteran and I don’t think veterans should have to deal with this,” he said.
Heidi Wright, 50, is expected to leave the Budget Inn in Barre on Sept. 28. She suffers from seizures, depression, anxiety and emphysema. She said doctors have discussed putting in a pacemaker.
“My hands are tied… and I don’t know what to do,” she said.
People are getting desperate, said Armbrister, who met Wright on Wednesday and told her she would do everything she could to find her shelter.
“There are no solutions. We’re meeting as much as we can with different organizations and teams to try to solve this, but nothing has been found for a solution,” Armbrister said. “It’s really super sad. It’s traumatic.”
On Wednesday, leaders from more than a dozen Vermont cities and towns called on the state government to do more to address the rising number of homeless people and the challenges that come with them. They say local governments and service providers are tasked with addressing the impact and that municipalities lack the expertise or resources to deal with it.
“Our first responders are overwhelmed, our residents are hesitant to use public spaces, our limited staff is left cleaning up unsanitary messes, volunteers are exhausted, and our nonprofit partners are at breaking point,” Montpelier City Manager William Fraser said in a statement.
The state has been trying to get rid of the hotel-motel program for several years, but it hasn’t really been successful, Republican Gov. Phil Scott said Wednesday during his weekly news conference.
“It’s just not sustainable in the long term,” he said. “It’s a difficult situation. (I) understand the municipalities’ position as well, but we don’t have the resources either and so we’re in the position we’re in,” Scott said.
The long-term approach is to create more shelters, he said. However, he added that when the state set up emergency shelters last spring during another cut to the motel program, few people used them.
Vermont is working to create more housing, but it can’t happen fast enough.
A shortage of rental apartments in Vermont contributed to a tripling of the number of homeless people in Vermont between 2019 and 2023, according to a recent report from the state housing authority. City and town leaders say the number of homeless people is more than 3,400, up from the 1,100 the state reported in 2020.
Vermont has a rental vacancy rate of just 3% in the state and an estimated 1% in Chittenden County, home to Vermont’s largest city, Burlington, and the state’s most populous county.
To meet demand, house the homeless, normalize vacancies and replace homes lost to flooding and other causes, the state will need to create 24,000 to 36,000 new housing units between 2025 and 2029, according to the most recent Vermont Housing Needs Assessment.