BRATTLEBORO-With night temperatures dipping below freezing and an estimated 80 unsheltered people in the area, community members are calling on the town to open an emergency overnight shelter.
At a Jan. 23 meeting of Brattleboro's Community Homelessness Strategy Team (CHST), Cristina Shay-Onye, a Brattleboro resident, urged the town to develop a plan of action.
"It has now been exactly one month since I sent an email [to town officials] saying we need to open something up tonight," Shay-Onye told meeting participants. "And the answer was, 'Well, we can't do that tonight.'"
"And now we're one month later, and we need to open something up tonight," she added.
In the absence of an emergency shelter set up by the town, Shay-Onye and other community members have raised and spent $3,000 on motel rooms to get people off the streets this winter.
'No one wants anyone to die on the streets'
CHST members include Brattleboro Town Manager John Potter; Sue Graff, the Agency of Human Services (AHS) field director for the Brattleboro District; staff from Groundworks Collaborative; representatives from Brattleboro's police, public works, and fire departments; and staff from other human service organizations.
"I think it's safe to say no one in this room wants anyone to die on the street," Graff told meeting participants. "We're doing our best with what we've got."
Established in 2023, the CHST has been meeting monthly to respond to an increase in unsheltered homelessness caused partly by eligibility restrictions in the state's emergency housing motel program, which took effect that June with the end of the federally funded pandemic-era program.
Additional cost-cutting measures by the Legislature in the past session have capped the number of rooms in the program at 1,100 statewide and limited eligibility for those rooms during the winter.
To address the increased need for shelter beds, the Winston Prouty Center for Child and Family Development opened a temporary 40-bed shelter for families with children at its West Brattleboro location, and Groundworks Collaborative added 12 beds to its downtown overnight shelter during the winter months.
Still, many people are sleeping rough on park benches and in tent encampments in the area.
Graff attributes the "critical mass of unsheltered folks" to a "confluence of conditions."
In addition to cuts in the motel program, the overnight shelter at Groundworks has been full, she noted.
Some people are sleeping outside, exposed to the elements, because they have been prohibited from the Groundworks shelter and other service organizations due to behavioral issues. Other people have complex conditions that preclude them from accessing services provided by these organizations.
Real barriers in a desperate situation
According to Vermont Emergency Management (VEM) guidance, each town or city's local emergency management team decides whether to open a local warming or overnight shelter.
Police Chief Norma Hardy, also the town's emergency management director, identified the lack of a building and staff capacity and security concerns as the most significant barriers to establishing an emergency overnight sleeping shelter.
Hardy said the town attorney would have to be consulted on the legal obligations in setting up a shelter. "We'd have to guarantee the safety of people using the shelter," she said.
Some meeting participants noted that schools were recently closed due to extremely cold temperatures. They wondered whether the Brattleboro Union High School could serve as an emergency shelter during school closures.
Shay-Onye said that many local churches have concerns about hosting an emergency overnight shelter this winter, primarily related to insurance. However, she reported that the pastor of the Community Bible Chapel in Brattleboro is willing to consider the request. ("We have not made a definite decision," Pastor Matthew Paul Miller told The Commons.)
In the meantime, Hardy will work with Potter and other municipal officials to develop an overnight warming shelter plan.
There will be no beds, but "at least there will be chairs and a way for folks to get in out of the cold," Hardy told The Commons.
Barre's approach to a shelter
The town may be better positioned to access state support if an acceptable emergency shelter facility is identified.
For example, during the recent cold snap, the city of Barre opened a temporary overnight shelter in the municipal auditorium, a designated regional emergency shelter.
"Normally, when the auditorium is activated as a shelter, like with the recent flooding, it's a decision made at the state level," said Nicolas Storellicastro, city manager. "In this case, we saw the forecast, reached out to VEM and AHS, and said, 'Hey, we should treat this as an emergency. We should open up the shelter.'
"It took some convincing that it was important and needed," Storellicastro added. "But we demonstrated a need, and we were able to throw a building at it."
The state's involvement opened up staffing resources through the Red Cross, which also provided cots and blankets. The state provided additional staffing through Vermont's Medical Reserve Corps, which is made up of community-based volunteers with specialized skills who support local public health and emergency response efforts. Barre community members also volunteered to help staff the facility.
"This would have been totally unsuccessful if it was just a city initiative," Storellicastro said. "This was only successful because the state, the city, nonprofits, and volunteers stepped up."
'We're left to our own devices'
"The governor is not declaring a state of emergency because of the cold or homelessness or anything else, and so we're left to our own devices," Graff told meeting participants. "Figuring out town by town and community by community, how to deal with this issue is really hard, as evidenced by this meeting."
In addition to developing a plan for a temporary emergency shelter, the CHST will also search for suitable space to house a shelter that would bridge the gap in services between June, when the Winston Prouty family shelter will close, and late spring 2026, when Groundworks' new 40-bed shelter at 81 Royal Rd. is expected to be completed.
Graff said the group can apply to the state for one-time funding to staff and operate the shelter if a building is identified.
In Barre, Storellicastro sympathizes with the challenges Brattleboro faces.
"I think people in municipal governments want to do the right thing," he said. "State government wants to try to do the right thing. I think sometimes these barriers are real."
This News item by Ellen Pratt was written for The Commons.