Know Your Rights: Unsheltered in Vermont

Yes, cities and towns may designate certain public areas as no-camping locations. However, they cannot forbid people from camping on public land entirely.

On private property, you do not have a right to camp without permission, and the landowner may ask you to leave.

Some Vermont towns and cities have adopted policies or guidelines around camping on public lands, which are highlighted below, in alphabetical order.

Burlington:
As per a draft policy, City officials will generally not interfere with your emergency camping sites on public property so long as you are not in a prohibited area with posted signs.

However, if city officials find your site poses risks to health or safety, they may post notices warning you that you must move. They will generally wait at least 7 days from the notice until they clear the camp.

Hartford:
If Hartford officials find your site, they will generally work with you to try to ensure that your site follows health and safety rules.

If Hartford officials determine your site poses risks to health or safety or cannot be made safe, they should give you 48 hours to move unless urgent health or safety concerns require a shorter time. If shelter is available, they should tell you where to go. Learn more here.

Montpelier:
Montpelier has a general policy of not interfering with emergency camping sites. However, if city officials determine that your site poses risks to health or safety, they will generally give you 24 hours to relocate. If you are not at your campsite when they come to give you notice, the city will post notices and expect you to move out within 3 days.

You are not allowed to camp on the State House grounds.

South Burlington:
City officials will not make you move out of most campsites when area shelters are full. If your campsite is found to be either blocking access to a public place or poses a risk to health or safety, City officials may make you move immediately.

For any other notice to move, the notice will be posted at least 24 hours before you need to move. Before posting a notice, the City will identify a different location for your site.

If you are not present when officials come to ask you to move, City officials will remove your site, store your possessions, and post notices explaining where you can pick them up. Read more.

You have a right to privacy, and the right to be free from unreasonable seizure and confiscation of your property. However, police or government officials can ask you to move your property to perform routine maintenance.

Police or government officials may take your belongings if you have been given notice to move them and you do not do so, but you should be able to get them back (see below).

No. If police or government officials have taken your belongings, they must store them and give you a reasonable opportunity to pick them up. They are not required to store items that pose health or safety risks.

Montpelier:
Property from any dismantled camps should be stored in the Rec Center Basement at 55 Barre St., Montpelier. Items removed from camps should be stored for at least 30 days and up to 90 days.

Burlington:
Any property removed from a site will be stored for at least 30 days. The notice at your site should say where the items will be stored and how they can be collected.

South Burlington:
Any property removed from a site will be stored for at least 30 days for you to pick up. The notice at your site should say how and where you can claim your possessions.  

Yes. It is unconstitutional for cities and towns to limit your speech by punishing you for asking for money.  

As of 2018, officials in Bennington, Brattleboro, Montpelier, Rutland Town, and Winooski protected the constitutional rights of their residents by repealing their anti-panhandling ordinances. Barre City placed theirs on indefinite moratorium. That means these cities should not ticket or arrest you for panhandling.

Service animals, emotional support animals, and pets are treated differently under the law.

Service animals are (generally) dogs that are individually trained to do work or perform tasks for people with disabilities. Service animals are allowed in all areas where the public is normally allowed.

Emotional support animals provide emotional support that helps relieve some effects of a person’s disability. Emotional support animals are not allowed in all areas where the public is, but housing providers are generally required to accept them. However, not all emergency shelters qualify as “housing providers,” so some shelters may not accept emotional support animals.

Shelters may generally prohibit pets.