Housing has been a major focus of the Legislature for the past five years – we’ve invested significant funding into housing development and stabilization, particularly during and just after the pandemic, and made meaningful changes to state and local regulatory requirements. While we have started to see the impact of these investments and improvements, including the opening of Vergennes Grand Senior Living and the groundbreaking of Stonecrop Meadows in Middlebury, there’s still a lot of work to do to stem the housing and homelessness crisis in Vermont.
Housing Development (S.127/Act 69) – Act 69 tackles housing access and development in several ways. Because the cost of the necessary infrastructure (water, sewer, roads, etc.) often drives up the cost of housing development, Act 69 creates the Community and Housing Infrastructure Program (CHIP), a project-based approach to tax increment financing. CHIP authorizes a sponsor—a municipality, a developer, or an independent agency that meets State lending standards—to finance the costs of infrastructure improvements required for housing projects using future property tax revenues from the parcel or parcels on which a housing development is constructed. The projects are subject to Vermont Economic Progress Council (VEPC) approval and the terms of a housing infrastructure agreement. The Program includes various requirements and limits to ensure accountability and appropriate oversight, particularly because the funding for the program is derived from taxes withheld from the Education Fund.
Act 69 also updates some of the financing and rental requirements for the Vermont Housing Improvement Program, and adds people displaced by natural disasters to the populations targeted to benefit from the program. It also updates and extends funding for the Manufactured Home Improvement and Repair Program (MHIR) and creates the Vermont Infrastructure Sustainability Fund at the Vermont Bond Bank to provide funding to municipalities to make infrastructure improvements that enable housing development. Importantly, Act 69 also updates the State Public Accommodation and Unfair Housing Practices Act to prohibit discrimination against individuals based on citizenship or immigration status. It permits landlords to accept different forms of identification to conduct criminal or background checks and prohibits them from requiring a Social Security number on a residential rental application. For more details about Act 69, see this excellent summary created by the Joint Fiscal Office.
Homeless Emergency Assistance (H.91) – This bill would have replaced the General Assistance (GA) Emergency Housing program, also known as the Hotel/Motel Program, and Housing Opportunity Grant Program with the Vermont Homeless Emergency Assistance and Responsive Transition to Housing (VHEARTH) Program. The bill would have retained state oversight and moved many services for people experiencing a housing crisis or homelessness to regional community action agencies, such as Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity (CVOEO). Read a good summary of the bill here.
Unfortunately, Governor Scott vetoed H.91 and the Legislature did not have sufficient votes to override his veto so the bill did not become law. While not perfect, the bill would have enabled the state to end the controversial and expensive hotel/motel program and the in-and-out cycle for people experiencing homelessness. For the past three years, the Legislature and Governor have battled over how to provide housing to Vermonters who are homeless during our acute housing crisis. Many of the provisions in H.91 came out of recommendations from the Emergency Housing Task Force that met last year to figure out how to better address emergency housing needs in Vermont.
Despite his dislike of the expensive hotel/motel program, Governor Scott vetoed the bill because he thought it would also spend too much money to provide housing for people who are homeless in Vermont. Recently, the Governor also ended an executive order that provided housing for the most vulnerable Vermonters, pushing hundreds of people, including children, seniors, and people with disabilities into homelessness. Housing, especially during a housing crisis, is not cheap, and housing people with social service needs is especially costly. But forcing vulnerable people to live on the streets or in the woods is even more costly in the short and long term, and it’s cruel, particularly during increasingly common extreme weather events. This cruelty from the Governor, combined with the cruel Republican federal budget bill will mean that even more Vermonters will suffer from homelessness, food insecurity, and a lack of health care. Unlike Governor Scott and his fellow Republicans, I will continue to fight for the health and safety of all Vermonters.
Photo Note: Construction site at Stonecrop Meadows in Middlebury. The first units are expected to be available later this year.
Ruth for Vermont 