Vermont lawmakers on Tuesday approved a bill that will prevent the evictions of an estimated 2,000 homeless people from motels around the state until April 1 next year, averting a budget battle over the issue.
Gov. Phil Scott, whose staff helped draft the bill last weekend, has expressed support for the plan and is expected to sign the bill in the coming days.
The swift agreement to extend the program turned what some predicted would be a contentious, protracted veto session into a single, frenetic day. Lawmakers forced several key bills into law over Scott’s objection, including the childcare bill Scott opposed because it is funded with a payroll tax. They also overrode his veto of Burlington’s noncitizen voting law. Scott had argued that voting rights should be consistent across Vermont.
But it was the motel program that was front and center during the brief session. Legislative leaders managed to appease about 20 Democratic and Progressive lawmakers who disagreed with ending the pandemic-era motel housing program in the coming weeks.
Evictions started on June 1 for about 800 people and had been looming for 2,000 more considered more vulnerable. A bill that both the House and Senate passed on Tuesday prevents the Vermont Agency of Human Services from kicking more people out of their motel rooms until other shelter is found for them.
In the interim, H.171 will mandate “an intentional transition process that provides dignity, oversight, collaborative efforts, and coordinated service delivery.”
The state will no longer be required to pay for motel rooms if beds can be found for people in shelters, residential treatment facilities, recovery homes, nursing homes or with family. When new arrangements can be made, people will have 48 hours to leave their motel rooms.
The bill also requires the state to renegotiate the price of hotel rooms down to about half of the $147 per night that they average now. Some motel owners have expressed a willingness to reduce their rates.
After July 1, those still in motels must begin paying 30 percent of their gross household income toward the lodging. They will also have to cooperate with service providers trying to help them transition out of the program and look for other housing. People could also be removed for misconduct.
Not everyone was pleased with the compromise. Protesters shouting “Keep 2,000 Vermonters sheltered!” briefly disrupted the House’s business on Tuesday morning. They distributed flyers that said House Speaker Jill Krowinski (D-Burlington) “hates poor people.”
Rep. Emma Mulvaney-Stanak (P/D-Burlington) asked a number of pointed questions, including how people are supposed to document that they are looking for housing, who defines misconduct and why people struggling to survive are required to pay 30 percent of their gross income. But she said she supported the bill, calling it “an effort to improve some of the harm that we have caused.”
The bill will increase legislative oversight by requiring the administration to present detailed monthly updates to key legislative committees. The data must include the number of households that remain in motels and those transitioned to new housing, as well as how many people had security deposits returned to them. As Seven Days has previously reported, some motel owners have withheld damage deposits put up by the state.
A number of Democratic and Progressive lawmakers had refused to support the budget over the expected evictions, which they called inhumane. That threatened lawmakers’ ability to muster the 100 votes needed to override Scott’s veto of the $8.5 billion budget.
Somewhat ironically, much of the funding aimed at expanding homeless services is contained in the budget and would have been held up by a protracted budget battle.
Brenda Siegel, an advocate for homeless people, has argued that the state has an obligation to also offer shelter to those it has already evicted. Many have medical conditions or other threats to their health, safety and recovery that didn’t qualify them for the July 1 extension, she said. Siegel said she witnessed people with acute medical conditions forced onto the street on June 1 who didn’t qualify as “disabled” because they weren’t receiving Social Security disability benefits.
She blamed bias against poor people and an unspoken belief that their troubles are often self-imposed, she said. “It’s time for people in power to reflect on what made this OK with them,” she said.
With supermajorities in both chambers, Democrats overrode Scott’s veto of the budget, Brattleboro’s law to drop the voting age to 16 in local elections and a bill to increase most professional licensing fees.
They could not whip up sufficient votes to override vetoes of a bill that would have restricted police interrogations of juvenile suspects and another that would have doubled compensation and offered health care for legislators. Backers of the latter bill have said better pay is needed to enable typical Vermonters to serve on the legislature. Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (P/D-Chittenden-Central) said barriers for average Vermonters to serve in the General Assembly are “astronomical.” That, she said, “is one of reasons we have such a difficult time meeting the needs of average Vermonters.”
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