On June 3 &12, I sent you links to articles regarding the beginning of the end of the motel program for thousands of Vermonters (see these below) and I wrote that these articles make clear that the abrupt and total end to this program didn’t need to happen, that it was foreseeable and avoidable, and yet the Democratic party legislative supermajority and the Republican governor who was overwhelmingly re-elected by Vermonters across the political spectrum in 2022 did nothing to prevent this from happening and are still doing nothing but blame each other.
Now the legislature is back for a brief so-called “veto" session” and it is being reported that there is some sort of “deal” in the making that might partially save the motel program.
Housing/Homelessness advocates like Brenda Siegel say that what is being proposed is not enough. In a recent press release, they explained:
In order to keep people safe, we must create a system that does not discriminate against those with disabilities, responds to the crisis we are in, and appropriately shelters people.
This system must:
Include all who meet the Vermont definition of disability.
Include any who are medically vulnerable.
Include those who become newly homeless
Open the General Assistance (GA) rules to meet 2023 needs instead of those of 1988.
Require voluntary data collection, so that we know the harm we are causing when we unshelter people.
In short, needs must be met for all who are experiencing homelessness retroactively and continuously until there are non-congregate and permanent housing solutions in their place.
Siegel, who was the Democratic Party candidate for Governor in 2022, goes on to say:
This must include people who newly become homeless. Because people WILL become homeless, many with disabilities and children, and it is no less harmful to put them on the street than it is to send those currently in the program to live on the street.
Meanwhile, Siegel and a small group of homelessness advocates are personally identifying and interviewing people who have been exited or are slated soon to be exited and are sending to appropriate officials at the Agency of Social Services first-hand information and reasons why these individuals should be kept in the motel program.
At the same time, cities and towns statewide continue to scramble to prepare for numbers of people who have already been exited from motels and the larger number expected to be exited by July 1 even if some sort of partial motel extension is funded by the legislature in the next week.
People facing homelessness check out housing resources, social services in Rutland (VTDigger, 6/15/23)
And, finally, social service and housing organizations are exploring the possibility of leasing some motels to keep residents of them in it past the July 1 exit deadline and of having an option to buy these motels to, perhaps, convert them from temporary shelter to more permanent low-income housing.
This just in this AM: a consciousness-raising piece that fortuitously segues to the next PEN posting below: Can we repurpose state buildings to house the homeless? (VTDigger, 6/19/23)
Breaking the Wall: My Personal Quest to Provide Affordable Housing in Montpelier
In the May 28 Special Issue of PEN, I announced that PEN would go on hiatus. I wrote:
As for me, the events of the last month in Vermont and around the country have left me disheartened. As a result and because I will turn 80 on June 5, I am going to take a break from publishing PEN. I want to spend the next few months (maybe more) literally and figuratively “tending my own garden” rather than trying to fix “a world” that doesn’t seem to be fixable even at the local level.
I subsequently received a number of understanding emails, thanking me for my efforts and wishing me well. I told these folks that caring and appreciative notes like theirs are what “keeps me going" and I assured them that I was not "giving up the fight,” but rather shifting my energies to efforts I thought I could more easily control rather than “beating my head against a wall."
Habitat for Humanity Project
I actually shared with our Mountainview neighborhood the news about the first of these more modest (I thought, naively) efforts in mid April, letting them know that my wife (Therese Mageau) and I were planning to subdivide our Mountain View St. property and donate two 9000 sq. ft. lots to Central Vermont Habitat for Humanity (CVHFH).
Then, over the past two months, I have been collaborating with CVHFH to come up with a viable plan to accomplish the goal of subdividing and making the necessary infrastructure investments to make it possible for Habitat to build a two-family duplex an each of these two lots, 4 dwelling units in all. This has required a good bit of communication with the City Zoning Administrator, the Department of Public Works, neighborhood members, and others, all of which has been both exciting and, frankly, quite frustrating.
This Monday (6/19/23), we will have our first regulatory public meeting, a Subdivision Sketch Review with the Development Review Board (DRB). I would encourage those interested to attend (by Zoom if you wish) to observe the complexity of the regulations that must be addressed and the challenges of what is required for individual property owners like us to carry out even a fairly straight-forward subdivision of a relatively small piece of unused, unmaintained, nearly flat land with poor growing soil in order to enable an internationally successful organization like Habitat to create much needed affordable housing in our city.
The Possible Purchase of an Unoccupied State-owned Building and Converting it to Workforce Affordable Housing
This morning I came across an article in this past Friday’s Times-Argus, entitled "Housing and the unhoused a cause for concern in Montpelier" Times-Argus, 6/15/23, which prominently features Bill Fraser’s remarks about the state’s odd lack of action regarding needed parking if the state actually wants to sell one of their unused buildings to “someone" who hopes to convert it into housing units. (Disclosure: That “someone” is me.)
Here’s an excerpt from the article:
The manager [City Manager Bill Fraser] shared a head-scratching story involving a state-owned property on Baldwin Street — one, he said, a private developer would like to convert into housing if there were only enough parking. [Bill actually said “a person” not a private developer].
There’s the rub, according to Fraser, who said there is plenty of parking — all of it owned by the state — but none of it apparently is available to someone interested in advancing a seemingly sensible project.
“The state is trying to sell (property) to create housing units that don’t exist during a housing crisis and the state won’t let them use state parking to develop the housing,” he said. “It’s kind of like: ‘What’s going on here?’ Are we in a housing crisis or aren’t we?”
In fact, our hope to convert this building (advertised as "ideal for residential conversion. Motivated Seller) to workforce-affordable housing is much more complicated and perplexing than Bill Fraser revealed. Stay tuned for news on this project.
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