FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
September 16, 2024
Contact: Emily Hagan-Howe, Communications Director, ACLU of Vermont, [email protected], 802-223-6304 x121
MONTPELIER, Vt. – Vermont is moving forward with a policy of unsheltering vulnerable Vermonters, revoking access to the state’s emergency housing program for approximately 300 households as of last night. Lawmakers enacted new restrictions on the state’s motel voucher program earlier this year, implementing a seasonal 80-day cap for each household which began on July 1, 2024, and a total room cap of 1,100 for the program that took effect over the weekend.
As a result of these changes, state officials recently projected that over 900 households would lose access to the program—many of them families with children and people with disabilities—by October 8.
The following statement can be attributed to James Lyall, Executive Director of the ACLU of Vermont:
“Everyone who calls Vermont home needs and deserves a safe place to live. By needlessly pushing vulnerable Vermonters out of emergency housing—the vast majority of whom simply have nowhere else to go—state leaders are letting down our neighbors and our communities.
“This is an injustice not only for the people who rely on the program for a safe place to sleep each night, but also for local communities who are already strained and who will now be forced to reckon with the consequences of this latest policy failure.
“The push to shrink the emergency housing program below the actual needs of our population comes as Vermont continues to face a drastic housing shortage. In a state with the second highest rate of homelessness in the country, this is a senseless and costly policy decision that will have ripple effects statewide.
“We call on lawmakers and state officials to build permanent solutions to homelessness by adopting an evidence-based and federally backed approach to policymaking called ‘Housing First.’ Until we implement meaningful investments in long-term solutions to the economic and social injustices that drive unsheltered homelessness—food and housing security, access to mental health care and substance use treatment, reducing incarceration—our communities will continue to struggle. We can and must do better.”
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