The Trump administration’s slash-and-burn campaign against “wokeness” and government spending is coming for the few services that work to curtail discrimination in Vermont’s housing market.
Late last month, the first swing of the ax struck a grant that funds a program at the Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity, which supports renters, homebuyers and landlords on issues related to state and federal fair housing laws.
The program is the only one in Vermont dedicated to public education about civil rights in housing. It helps people who are barred from an apartment because they use a rental subsidy, are harassed by a landlord who uses racial epithets or are denied accommodations for their disability.
There are signs that further cuts may be coming. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development is terminating the lease for its state field office in downtown Burlington, Seven Days confirmed, fueling speculation that the agency may shutter the office altogether. And the stated rationale behind the feds’ decision to yank the CVOEO grant suggests that funds for housing discrimination enforcement in Vermont are also in jeopardy.
A federal retreat from fair housing support will put pressure on Vermont lawmakers and municipalities.
Housing services are by no means a particular peeve of President Donald Trump’s administration, which is pursuing funding cuts and waging war on liberal conceptions of equality in every sector of the federal government. But cuts in this area will have an outsize effect in Vermont, where high housing costs, low supply and a soaring homelessness rate are hampering the economy and undermining the state’s inclusive aspirations.
The result could be a housing landscape that is tilted even further against people on the margins and offers little practical recourse for people who face illegal discrimination. A federal retreat from fair housing infrastructure will put pressure on Vermont lawmakers and municipalities — who are also struggling with budget problems — to put local dollars toward resources that could buttress the state’s own, more expansive fair housing protections.
A crossroads is approaching, said Jess Hyman, associate director of CVOEO’s housing advocacy programs: Will the state, its cities and towns “put their money where their mouth is, in terms of our values?”
Hyman’s agency received a letter from HUD on February 27 that immediately terminated the $125,000 annual grant that covers 80 percent of the statewide fair housing program.
The letter said the grant was being terminated at the direction of the Elon Musk-helmed Department of Government Efficiency — better known as DOGE — because the award “no longer effectuates the program goals or agency priorities.”
The Burlington-based nonprofit was one of 66 around the country to receive the letter, according to a new lawsuit challenging the legality of the cuts. On March 13, the Massachusetts Fair Housing Center and three other groups across the country asked a federal judge to restore their grant funding. The cuts, they claim, are arbitrary and capricious. Musk’s new department, the lawsuit asserts, doesn’t have the authority to direct such changes.
The plaintiffs are seeking to convert the case to a class-action lawsuit that would include CVOEO.
Hyman’s program helps renters and homeseekers assert their rights when they have concerns about housing discrimination. It also works with landlords, many of whom rent only a small number of units and may not be well versed in the nuances of housing law. As part of a state initiative to boost housing supply, CVOEO has trained more than 200 landlords in the past year.
“When we’re doing fair housing education and outreach, it’s a little less finger wagging and more about best practices,” Hyman said.
The group also promotes inclusivity in housing policy discussions. Each April, Hyman organizes a series of public events, including a keynote speaker last year who highlighted the ways that local zoning and development patterns have led to racial segregation.
The result could be a housing landscape that is tilted even further against people on the margins.
CVOEO’s grant appears to be a casualty of President Trump’s quest to root out traces of “diversity, equity and inclusion” programs and funding across government. HUD’s new secretary, pro football player turned politician Scott Turner, recently vowed to reject a Hurricane Helene relief plan drafted by the city of Asheville, N.C., because it contained diversity language.
“DEI is dead at HUD,” Turner said in a press release about the North Carolina plan. “We will not provide funding to any program or grantee that does not comply with President Trump’s executive orders.”
The Trump administration wants to eliminate roughly half of the workforce at Turner’s agency, with proposed cuts focused heavily on offices that administer low-income rent subsidies, fair housing law and homelessness initiatives, according to documents obtained by the Associated Press. Field offices in more than 30 states are also on the chopping block, Bloomberg News reported this month, despite a law that requires HUD to maintain an office in every state to process applications for mortgage insurance.
A HUD lease in Burlington is included on a public list of DOGE spending cuts. Yves Bradley, a real estate broker who handles the St. Paul Street office building, said the agency plans to vacate by August 1. At least three employees work there.
HUD did not respond to a request for comment, but agency spokespeople have said the department will continue to uphold fair housing law.
While the grant to Hyman’s office pays for education and outreach, the feds also help fund enforcement of fair housing rules in Vermont. The money has flowed to Vermont Legal Aid’s Housing Discrimination Law Project, which represents low-income individuals with discrimination claims in court. The federal government also contracts with the Vermont Human Rights Commission, a state agency, to investigate housing discrimination claims.
Vermont Legal Aid submitted its latest enforcement grant application last fall, at a time when the Biden administration was looking for grantees to demonstrate their commitment to diversity, especially racial justice. Project director Rachel Batterson expects to receive a rejection letter from the Trump administration soon.
Without that grant, Vermont Legal Aid won’t be able to take on new clients in housing discrimination cases for the foreseeable future. That could leave low-income plaintiffs without lawyers to represent them.
“It’s just not that common a practice area,” Batterson said. “I don’t know anyone else in the state who is doing that.”
The Vermont Human Rights Commission receives about 10 percent of its roughly $1 million budget from HUD to investigate housing complaints. Those complaints make up more than half of the cases the commission looks into each year. Complainants most frequently report discrimination based on a disability; race-based discrimination is the next most common complaint.
The commission mediates disputes and sometimes pursues enforcement in court. Ten housing discrimination cases are pending, including one against the prominent Burlington-area rental company Bissonette Properties. The company is accused of evicting two women with breathing problems who had complained about neighboring tenants who smoked in their building.
Another pending civil case targets a Chittenden County landlord, Kalsang G.G.T., who is accused of refusing to rent an Essex Junction apartment to a woman who wanted to use a Section 8 voucher to pay for some of her rent. “This is a free country,” the landlord maintained, according to the commission.
In a third case, an Enosburg Falls landlord named Homer Durkee allegedly refused to make necessary repairs for a disabled tenant whom he referred to as a “psychobitch” and “welfare bum.”
The commission investigates claims under both state and federal law. The federal Fair Housing Act, part of the Civil Rights Act of 1968, covers discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, national origin, familial status and disability. Vermont’s law goes further, adding marital status, age, victims of abuse, sexual orientation, gender identity and receipt of public assistance (such as a Section 8 housing voucher) to the list.
Federal funding for the Vermont Human Rights Commission has not been directly targeted yet. But executive director Big Hartman said the federal agency recently told the commission that two cases may not be eligible for reimbursement. Both complaints were filed by trans people, Hartman said. Each has alleged discrimination primarily on the basis of disability, not gender identity.
“So we feel concerned about that,” Hartman said.
The commission is already struggling to handle a caseload that has been increasing in recent years. Investigations are often languishing for more than a year, Hartman said, and many others don’t even have an investigator assigned to them.
The commission has made some improvements, but “it’s still almost unbearable for most of the parties to wait a year — sometimes two years, sometimes longer — to know whether or not there’s reasonable grounds to believe that discrimination occurred,” Hartman said. The Enosburg Falls landlord, Durkee, died while the court case against him was pending, records show.
Hartman has asked lawmakers to nearly double the commission’s annual budget. They included a more modest $75,000 increase in the midyear Budget Adjustment Act — which is less than the $89,000 in federal funding now in question.
It’s unclear when or if the commission will get the state boost. Last Friday, Gov. Phil Scott vetoed the budget bill, criticizing lawmakers for continuing to fund an unrelated program that pays for motel rooms for the homeless. He also cited a need to be cautious with state dollars, since so much federal funding is still in limbo.
The original print version of this article was headlined “No Room | Federal cuts will hobble defenses against housing discrimination in Vermont”
This article appears in Mar 19-25, 2025.
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