Having convened a homeless housing summit last June in Montpelier, Gov. Peter Shumlin signaled his concern that all Vermonters be safely sheltered and housed throughout the year, while recognizing that barriers exist to keeping chronically homeless people housed.
Last Wednesday, Shumlin issued an executive order that reconstitutes the Vermont Interagency Council on Homelessness.
On signing the order, Shumlin referred to three deaths of homeless people this winter from exposure.
“It's a tragedy that any state would allow people to freeze to death outside,” Shumlin said. “It's unacceptable to have Vermonters freeze in the streets because of cold weather.”
Shumlin said he has asked that Agency of Human Services Secretary Doug Racine and Commissioner of the Department of Children and Families Dave Yacovone to “ensure we are doing everything in our power to avoid having Vermonters freeze to death sleeping outside.”
Noting that there is a rising number of homeless Vermonters, Shumlin said his intention is to “move people from living in motels and shelters into permanent houses.”
According to the 2007 Vermont Point in Time Survey, which attempts to enumerate the number of homeless people and determine their needs, Windham County's homeless population ranks as the third-highest in the state, with 336 people, behind Chittenden County's 805 and Rutland County's 366.
All the homeless shelters in the county are filled beyond their capacities this winter, “and it's getting worse, due to both the economy and Tropical Storm Irene,” according to Melinda Bussino, executive director of the Brattleboro Area Drop-In Center, and a longtime member of former Gov. Jim Douglas's homeless initiative.
Bussino said the risk grows higher each year so that the worst-case scenario - death from exposure - could happen here as well.
“Each year, the problem gets bigger and bigger,” Bussino said. “Until we build more HUD and Section 8 housing [in Windham County], we're going to continue having [a homeless] problem.”
Shumlin's order will “waive eligibility requirements when it's cold” so Vermont's homeless have a place to stay at night “right away,” according to Yacovone.
“Housing is tight and expensive [in Windham County],” Bussino remarked. “Even people with two 40-hour-a-week jobs aren't making enough to afford even a small apartment, and have to sleep in shelters, or worse, in their cars. We have people, even with a subsidy, waiting three and four months to get into housing.”
HUD rental housing guidelines for establishing fair-market rent do nothing to address the gap between income and housing in Vermont.
“You can't even get a room with a shared bath and kitchen [with General Assistance subsidy of $198 month],” Bussino said, adding that Shumlin's order “will help plug some of the holes.”
According to the 2007 Vermont Point in Time survey, the five greatest challenges for homeless people include transportation, case management, housing search assistance, rent payment assistance, and mental health counseling and care.
The largest demographic of Vermont's homeless, at 37 percent, are employed - if underemployed - yet make too much money to qualify for general assistance and housing vouchers.
Increased housing subsidies combined with case management support are part of Shumlin's order.
Yacovone said the state [has already issued] 100 additional housing vouchers “to move people from shelters and motels to permanent housing.”
“What we are really doing is taking housing resources and investments normally spent on motels and using them for housing funds,” he said.
The second-largest group of homeless Vermonters, at 36 percent, are those who have been formally admitted to a mental health institution at some point, followed by those with chronic physical illness at 29 percent.
Yacovone said the Shumlin administration is cognizant that each community has different needs.
“Instead of the state telling communities how to deal with the homeless in their town, we are offering more fiduciary support to get people into [permanent] rental housing,” he said.
As the Greater Falls Warming Shelter board recently concluded, the cost of housing someone temporarily in a motel adds up to more than a shared apartment for the same number of people, over a year's time.
The homeless council previously recognized that a barrier to being able to maintain permanent housing for the chronically and temporarily homeless is the absence of case management.
“Not all, but many of, the homeless have ongoing mental or physical health problems that require a great deal of support, or case management,” Bussino said. “We have to have funding for [case management] for these people to keep receiving services.”
A new approach
A new housing model in Vermont addresses the often-difficult transition from chronic homelessness to a stable and safe environment.
“These people know it takes more than just housing someone,” Bussino said of the Pathways Vermont model.
Opening in Burlington in January 2010 with a grant from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), Pathways Vermont has placed dozens of chronically homeless men and women into permanent housing.
Explaining the housing model, Brattleboro Pathways Vermont Program Director Knowles Wentworth said, “The model for Pathways to housing [homeless] was pioneered in urban areas.”
“I'm totally on board with [this model] of trying to house the chronically homeless,” he said.
Agencies, he added, traditionally have set “an agenda for homeless folks - 'Do x-y-z' to get or maintain housing,” he said. “To so many people, the stipulations to become housed are pretty daunting.”
He said, using the Pathways model, “the first thing we are going to do is get you into your own apartment, then surround you with a team that will help you meet your needs.”
And Wentworth emphasizes, “We don't say, 'Here are your needs, and here is what you will change.'”
“There are barriers centered on housing and maintaining it. We address substance abuse and mental health issues in their own timeframe,” he said.
“We don't have stipulations” on how someone gets back on their feet, he added.
Pat Burke, family services director at Southeastern Vermont Community Action (SEVCA), was pleased with the executive order reestablishing the Vermont Interagency Council on Homelessness but had reservations about how effective the council would be unless it includes “someone from the trenches, who knows all the pitfalls and issues” that the homeless agencies deal with from day to day.
Burke described herself as “really glad” that Shumlin named Angus Chaney, community service program administrator for the Vermont Office of Economic Opportunity, to coordinate these and other housing efforts.
“Hopefully, this will be a wake-up call to our local communities that they don't want to start having headlines” about people freezing to death while sleeping outdoors, Burke said.
Increased subsidies and waivers for General Assistance programs “will definitely help SEVCA get more people housed,” Burke added, noting that “it's just rhetoric if there's not money attached to” fund homeless initiatives.
“But it's a step,” she said.