A basic goal of civil government is that its citizens should have a secure place protected from the elements in which to live and perhaps raise a family.

The latest statewide count for unsheltered Vermonters is 3,458, a nearly 5% increase over 2023, the second highest rate in the country, and this is deemed by experts to be a significant undercount.

Meanwhile, discussions of homelessness are overshadowed by our governor’s headline focus on “affordability,” which has led to steep cuts in the motel voucher program.

According to a VTDigger story last month, “Lawmakers budgeted about $44 million for the motel program this fiscal year. Before new restrictions on the program went into effect earlier this fall, around 1,400 households had motel vouchers. With an $80 rate cap on rooms in place, the program cost roughly $112,000 per night.” And we’re talking about building a new $70M prison. How much permanent housing shelter would $114 million fund?
Stoking a warmer, stronger Vermont together

If we take a broader look at the root of the problem, or better yet the hierarchy of causation, we will see a more intelligent and cost-efficient strategy.

Homelessness is primarily caused by poverty, mental illness and substance use disorder. Over the decades, we’ve made largely ineffectual efforts to thoroughly deal with these drivers. We’ve made marginal progress but will continue to come up short until the homeless struggling with poverty, mental illness or substance use disorder are safely housed.

Our neighbor Canada is pioneering a way to provide housing with the necessary support systems to meet these complex health needs. The “highly supportive housing” project has been a resounding success, and plans are underway to expand it to other areas.

Across the pond, Finland has become the Euro leader, virtually eradicating homelessness within its borders with its “housing first” policy. The model is based on the belief that decent, safe housing is a basic human right — like universal health care — commitments we in the U.S. seem loath to consider. Instead, we choose to believe health care and housing should be lucrative businesses, even as their accelerating costs make them increasingly out of reach for our average citizens.

The Finnish theory is founded on the view that if a person does not have a stable home, it’s virtually impossible to make significant improvements in other areas of life. This approach sets “housing first” apart from the “treatment first” models, which have been shown to have little long-term impact in reducing homelessness. Finland learned that the requirement that potential occupants be intoxicant-free and able to take control of their lives has proven to be an insuperable barrier for many homeless people with multiple problems, and that the pathway to help in fact comes with a secure place to live with wrap-around services —the “housing first” principle. Housing is understood not as a reward for getting one’s life back on track but rather a precursor to doing so.

It should go without saying that housing is a matter of survival as well. The recent deaths of Lucas and Tammy Menard in Wolcott, although undetermined as to cause, highlights the lethal danger of “living rough” in the Vermont cold. Another unidentified person has been found dead as well in an encampment in Berlin.

We should start by committing to a “no homeless in Vermont” strategy now. Does this mean we will achieve that goal immediately? No, it means we will do whatever is necessary over the next two legislative sessions to achieve that goal.

We can start by surveying all available shelter space to get people inside over this winter. We have empty dorm space at several colleges. There are many of us older folks living in houses designed for our younger families who are now gone and on their own. Could some of us share living space with those who are otherwise healthy but cannot afford housing? Might HomeShare Vermont be a resource to expand options for the healthy homeless? We have a young couple living with us in their school bus parked on our lawn.

One solution to the cost problem would be to create a voluntary income tax for high-income Vermonters to fund construction of energy-efficient “wrap-around-support housing” in our larger communities.

Vermonters rebel at the idea of paying higher taxes when they’re unclear as to what the money raised will pay for. When a clear, humane goal that directly benefits one’s community is within their reach, the benefits of which they see immediately, the popular resistance to taxes, especially voluntary ones, subsides. Look at the success of “gofundme” in supporting specific families in need in our communities.

We Vermonters like to imagine ourselves as outgoing, caring and focused on the well-being of our friends and neighbors. Our “better angels” go to work during calamities such as severe weather events. But in the chronic, gradual erosion of community well-being exemplified by the “three Hs,” housing, hunger and health care, we’re often mystified while looking to our government to provide solutions.

The plaint of “affordability” that our governor applies to any solutions brought forth to solve our larger problems doesn’t relieve us of our obligation to our communities and neighbors to alleviate suffering here at home, especially in housing. Nor does it eliminate neighbor-to-neighbor solutions. Do we really want to leave these problems to fester unsolved forever?

Seventy-three countries, comprising 69% of the world’s population, have declared health care a universal right. Others of our peer nations are working on finding ways to eliminate homelessness. Solutions are possible. But here at home, the $4.5T trillion health care business is apparently too lucrative for the few elites who benefit from it to declare it a universal right.

Meanwhile, private equity is slurping up housing around the country and raising sales and rental rates in a market that is increasingly unaffordable to many. Is family housing now so lucrative that we’re willing to tolerate homelessness to support its profits as well?

Meanwhile, access to housing, health care, and education are proven to be three drivers of economic growth.

Perhaps we could start to tackle our own housing crisis here in Vermont by learning from other societies that have done it successfully. A focused “voluntary community housing tax” funded by better-off Vermonters who care about their neighbors in need would enable us to begin building public housing with support services and achieve a shared goal of eliminating homelessness in Vermont.

Are we really okay with our neighbors freezing to death in winter?