Municipalities and service providers are struggling to support a growing number of homeless Vermonters.

I've been a social worker for 17 years, and I am experiencing the most moral injury that I've ever experienced in my career.

Just this week, I had to decide between an almost 80 year old person and with a catheter, a cancer, or a woman with a two week old baby.

Plus, hundreds of property owners are still waiting for FEMA buyout money and Green Mountain Transit faces challenges as it looks to the future.

All that and more ahead on Vermont this week.

From the Vermont public studio in Winooski.

This is Vermont this week, made possible in part by the Lintilhac Foundation and Milne Travel.

Here's moderator Mitch Wertlieb.

Thank you for joining us for Vermont this week.

I'm Mitch Wertlieb.

It's Friday, July 18th and with us on the panel today we have Carly Berlin from Vermont Public and VtDigger Calvin Cutler from WCAX and Derek Brower from Seven Days.

Thank you all so much for being here.

Carly, I want to dive right in with you on the news about, Vermont's motel voucher program, which, you know, was supposed to end on April 1st.

There was an extension, given the new deadline was July 1st.

There are a lot of families now that are exiting the program.

As we heard at the top, it's putting a lot of strain on social services.

What are the numbers we're talking about here, and what about some of those strains can you tell us about right.

So these evictions that happened on July 1st were the result of an executive order ending that had shielded families with children and people with really acute medical needs from from having to leave the program earlier this spring.

So they got this extension until July 1st.

There were over 800 people who had to leave the program that day or weren't eligible for a voucher anymore, including 300 kids.

And, you know, about 100 more people were, you know, just ran out of time for other reasons and had to leave on that date, too.

So it's a it's a really a large number.

Yeah.

And as we heard at the top here, moral injury I think was the phrase that was used.

It's very difficult to see these kind of decisions that have to be made about who can get shelter.

Now, what are advocates saying here about what should be done now?

Are they calling for some emergency measures at all?

You know, they're they're hoping to see people get some kind of extension to either remain in the hotel system or for the governor's administration to intervene and set up shelters, which we've seen the Scott administration do in the past when these motel evictions have happened before.

This is certainly not the first time.

At this point, we don't have any indication that the administration plans to set up temporary shelters.

And so, you know, service providers are struggling to figure out how to intervene.

You know, some have said that they they've really run out of funding to be able to to help pay some stopgap, you know, pay for rooms for a, for a brief period of time for some, for some folks.

So it's people are struggling.

Yeah.

Municipal cities are dealing with this as well.

Derek in Burlington, there are issues here.

There are people on the waterfront.

You know, what are the effects that we're starting to see here is this trickles out?

Yeah.

I mean, city officials in Burlington have said that the number of people camping along the waterfront is already twice as high as it had been, which is living in Burlington myself.

Is is hard to believe because it had already been pretty visible in the city.

One of the things they tried to do very quickly was, set up a car camping spot, down, on the waterfront at Perkins Pier.

This the idea was to have space for 12 people to live in their cars overnight.

This was met with, quite a bit of blowback from the business community and others who have been who've grown weary of all of the effects of this on downtown businesses.

And, within a day or two, the city, backtracked on this plan.

It does sound, too, like they didn't have too many people who had signed up to to put there to, to live in this, too.

But it's it's I think what you saw there too is the city trying to figure out what could be helpful.

And they're not even sure at this point.

Some people, it's, you know, not everybody is leaving the motels on the same day.

Some people are figuring out other solutions to try to avoid camping.

And so even these, these towns and city officials are trying to figure out what, what they can do cheaply and quickly.

That is also helpful.

Calvin Cutler, we're seeing some strain in, Vermont's capital city as well.

What's going on in Montpelier?

Yeah, I mean, homelessness and the issues that are laid bare from some of these challenges aren't really new to the capital city, but it really is started to reach a bit of a, a fever pitch, maybe.

There's this encampment earlier, for the past few weeks along the bike path, which had been growing, and it was right down by the the, transit center, the Taylor Street Transit Center at confluence Park.

And there were at any given time, there was maybe about 12 to 14 people that were were staying there and living there.

And, you know, there was there was troubling behavior that was happening there as well.

You know, incidents of violence.

Police had to come several times.

You know, incidents of substance use, police, people in the community weren't feeling very safe about it.

And really, this is, caused the city council to take a look at their public camping policy.

Back in, I believe it was 2021, the city council, you know, passed a policy which said essentially, it, you know, it bans camping everywhere, you know, technically not supposed to camp, but if you are not in a high sensitivity area, like on a bike path or near a school or a public right of way, or, or if you're not causing trouble, you are basically the city will turn a blind eye and will sort of let, let people be as, as they are.

So the city council, next month is going to be taking a look at this, but it's a really complex, you know, you know, set that they're trying to, to balance here, you know, the comfortability and the safety of the community, but also people's dignity, people being able to stay in the community.

And also, you know, like we saw in Burlington, I think it was in 2011, there was a lawsuit with the ACLU that basically said, you can't criminalize homelessness if people have nowhere else to go.

So it's a real interesting balancing act.

Right.

And the city of Montpelier has now moved to clear that downtown encampment.

And I think the question will be, where do people go?

You know, Good Samaritan Haven, which is the main service provider in central Vermont, is working on opening a year round shelter in Montpelier.

It'll be the first one there, but that's not going to open hopefully until later this fall if everything goes as planned.

And so where do people go in the meantime?

They set up camp somewhere else, you know, and this is an issue that that crops up early every year.

And of course, the motel voucher program.

Carly, you've been reporting on this for a long time, and there really just isn't an alternative to that.

We know the governor never liked it to begin with.

But again, is there has there been any movement on a longer term solution?

You know, there was a bill that moved through the legislature this year that would have totally shifted away from the program as it exists now, and given a lot of authority and funding over to regional nonprofit agencies to basically be kind of that, that front line to responding to homelessness throughout the state.

The governor vetoed that bill.

He construed it as, you know, this is a continuation of the program as it exists now.

I think the concern there was that these local groups would turn around and just use grants to to put people up in hotel rooms, as you know, happens now.

So we really don't know what the next step forward is.

If, you know, lawmakers and the governor's administration can come to some sort of common ground on on how to respond to homelessness as a state.

Yeah.

The governor was asked about this earlier this week, and he said, you know, basically he alluded to the, the Hop grant program, the Housing Opportunity Program, as one of the, you know, challenges of, you know, why they didn't want to switch from the system that we had currently.

But he did say that each 91 could be a starting place.

But again, we don't know what that means.

And, you know, will there be the appetite or the will to revisit this in the second year of the biennium?

Is this going to maybe just have to wait until after the next election?

And, you know, we tackle it in two years?

It's really unclear as to where the policy, conversation is heading in Montpelier.

It sounds like in any of you can correct me if I'm wrong, that municipal dogs in Vermont are being asked to do more here.

Is that essentially the case?

Yeah, and we've heard that from multiple municipalities all the way from Saint Albans to Burlington to Barre, Montpelier, Brattleboro municipal officials really are saying we need either the state or the federal government to to come in and things are expected.

And I don't mean to paint to grim of a picture here, but when we talk with service providers, things are expected to get maybe a little worse.

The Medicaid cuts that are going to be coming in a couple of years, restrictions potentially to, food stamps, a reduction potentially in section eight vouchers.

All of these, the these cuts potentially to the social safety net are expected to really put pressure on, on a, on this area of, of work.

Well, one thing, that I was fascinated by, Derek Brower was an article you had that that humanizes this problem so.

Well, and this was an article you wrote about portraits that were painted for some of these homeless folks.

And we're going to be showing some of these pictures in a moment.

Who was it that you spoke to who got this project rolling?

How would you describe it?

Basically, yeah, I met a woman, who lives in South Hero, who, was a former therapist, and she's taken up Art, again.

And so she started, I think was actually on a vacation.

And, in the Caribbean, she, she sketched somebody she saw who was homeless.

And it really stuck with her that experience.

So she came back here and then started going to this, weekly dinner that one of the churches in downtown Burlington hosts the First United Methodist Church.

And she started meeting people there and talking to them, and, then began asking them if she could take their picture.

This grew into a months-long project.

And she, she produced, I think it was almost 20, portraits.

And then from there, the church decided to help her host an art show recently, in downtown Burlington.

And one of my favorite things about this, too, was that as she was doing these portraits, she she met some folks who themselves are artists who live on the street.

There was one woman, who I met, who carries all of her art supplies in a suitcase.

And she's living in the homeless shelter right now.

And so some of their art was then, displayed in this art show, as well.

So.

Well, for those who are watching, there's a photo right now.

There's the artist, Ngoni, Stewart is her name, and she's with a gentleman named is at and again, he allowed the picture to be taken.

There are some of the sketches that you can see now, for those of you who are listening to the program right now, Derek, these sketches are, first of all, they're really well done.

They're beautiful, but they, you know, they I use the word humanize, but I think that they bring out the dignity.

And you use that word to in these folks.

And I just think it's wonderful to see that.

Here's a picture of a woman.

I think this is pink Kitty, the portrait there.

We can tell us about that one.

Yeah.

I think, this was this was a woman who is known to explain to me was, pretty gruff with her when she first appeared.

Sure about this.

And then, after.

But she did ultimately, consent to to have her portrait drawn.

And then when Noni, brought it to her, she she was bringing a prince of these to everybody who agreed.

And, she said the woman, broke down.

She was really overcome, and and seeing this after seeing it, she's got the pink hair and then that and looking, you know, very dignified and staring right at what would be the camera for that sketch.

There's a booth up showing now, you mentioned this.

These portraits were shown in downtown Burlington.

Some money was raised about how much and where to go.

Yeah.

That's right.

I understand it was almost $2,000 raised for the church's, homeless work.

The that the homeless outreach work that they've been been doing for the past couple years is fantastic.

And last one I want to show here, this is a work of art that was done by a homeless person.

Sandy Toronto, I believe, is the name, for those who can't see this, this is an absolutely wonderful, painting.

There's like, a dragon breathing fire, and there's sort of like this medieval, you know, contingent of soldiers.

And I believe in the background, you can see the lake and is there in the paint as well.

Yes, yes.

This is a bit of an allegorical, painting as she described it to me.

But this is actually the woman I mentioned who carries all of her gel pens and in a suitcase, around town.

And she told me she just finished this after my story ran after, a few weeks ago.

And she told me that she's going to be selling this, at the Art hop in Burlington later this summer.

That's fantastic.

Those of you were able to see that, you can see how good she really is.

And those listening at home, trust me, that is a really, really talented artist there.

So thank you, Derek, for for doing that article and bringing, you know, these issues to light.

I think it's really important.

I want to move on now to talk about and this comes back to, you know, people who are dealing with homeless situations in a different way.

Carl, you've been reporting on FEMA buyout money.

Now, we know the last couple of years, a lot of folks have had their homes completely destroyed or really heavily damaged.

They would love for FEMA to buy out their homes.

Tell us about how that's working.

It's not a great percentage.

Right?

Right.

So this is the FEMA buyout process is notoriously lengthy for, you know, takes years and years to overcome.

But, you know, as we reached the anniversary of the 2023 flooding this month, I really wanted to check in and see just how many of these buyouts have have actually gone through at this point.

And what I learned is that the state is currently overseeing 264 FEMA buyout applications.

That's tied to the 23 floods, 24 floods, kind of big bucket.

Of those, only eight payouts have happened so far.

And zero demolitions.

Wow.

Okay.

I mean, I'm trying to wrap my head around that.

That's incredible.

These are folks who've been waiting for at least a year, in some cases two years now.

And only eight of those 264 have actually gotten a buyout.

I know the process is slow.

I know it's difficult.

But what it's only going to get tougher, right?

Because now there are new rules regarding tumor buyouts.

All right.

So when I was in the middle of reporting this story, I learned that the federal government had had changed its rules for which buyouts it will approve going forward.

And, you know, very sort of in the weeds.

But, FEMA was changing a rule how it determines which projects are cost effective.

Basically, this was, you know, an algorithm in a spreadsheet as described to me by Vermont Emergency Management.

And so all of the projects that the state was getting ready to send off to FEMA, they suddenly, when they learned about this change in May, had to go back and basically repackage every application.

And so they had, you know, sped up their timelines actually over the last couple of years.

And then when this change happened, in addition to some funding pauses, you know, those timelines were starting to stretch out for folks who had not already gotten their FEMA approval.

I mean, the frustration level must be incredible for these folks.

So have you spoken to some of them and what are they telling you?

Right.

I mean, part of what I wanted to do with this story was just sort of explore, you know, what kinds of financial decisions do people need to make as they're waiting for so long to get this money?

And, you know, I spent time with one family who got flooded out in peach, last summer.

They have since gone on to buy another house, but not until, you know, friends helped them pay off both their down payment, both their mortgage, rather on their former home and a hefty loan that they had for for a flood repair work that they had sustained from Irene.

So they had, you know, owed a lot of money on this house.

They got totally destroyed in peach, that they, you know, spent over $100,000 to fortify that they then had to walk away from.

So, you know, they have another option now.

But not everyone is in that position.

You know, I've talked to other people who are living in small apartments with all of their stuff from their former home that they lived in for decades, or people who are effectively homeless, living with friends, trying to keep their kids in local schools.

We hear that there are some people who are still paying mortgages on homes that they literally cannot live in.

They're paying the insurance on that.

I can't even imagine what that must be like.

You have to make these payments, but you can't even utilize the home right?

It's really it's really frustrating.

And there's a real emotional impact too.

I mean, the main family I spent time with for this piece in peach, you know, they have their two teachers, this couple, they've got teenage kids.

They wanted their kids to be able to have a home here in Vermont before they go off to college.

And so they took this huge financial risk to buy a new home that is really way outside of their price range.

And so they're paying, you know, almost tripled the amount per month on their mortgage than they had been.

And they're just, you know, waiting for this buyout to come so they can refinance.

And hopefully this can be more sustainable for them long term.

Calvin Cutler, I know you've been reporting on yet more flood damage.

And this happened very recently in the Northeast Kingdom, kind of very localized, almost very specific, but really devastating for some folks.

What can you tell us three years back to back to back July 10th, I'll tell you to date, that really sort of sits heavy in a lot of Vermonters minds.

West Burke, Sutton, Lyndonville.

There are a few communities up in the northeast Kingdom that really took it on the nose.

Last Thursday, I believe it was one of these showers that just sort of swoops in.

There's no wind, and it's very localized and it just dumps a lot of rain.

And, you know, the mountain valleys channel it, and it can be really disruptive.

There were several homes that were really damaged.

You know, we'll see where that recovery stands.

We still don't know whether we're able to meet that threshold for a disaster declaration.

The governor, you know, they said they're still tallying up the damage, but for, for Sutton, I was there earlier this week.

And, you know, road crews have been working around the clock, you know, seven days a week to try to reopen these rural roads.

And right now, when I talked to the road foreman, there was about $1 million that they had taken in the town of Sutton budget.

And they don't necessarily have a lot of play in their, their local budget.

And so, with other projects that they have going on, I mean, there's a real concern they're going to have to take on a loan, pay interest on the loan.

I mean, this really does kind of fall on on property tax payers in town in many ways.

You know, there's the individual FEMA home buyer, you know, the home ownership, excuse me, angle to all of this.

But in terms of like the municipal, side and how we fund these shared services and what the impact of climate changes and devastating flooding.

It's a real tricky situation.

And as we alluded to, there's just a lot of uncertainty really still on the federal level with with what's happening with FEMA.

You know, President Trump has said maybe doing away with it altogether and delivering some sort of aid in another way.

Senator Peter Welch wants to reform FEMA.

It just it's super unclear as to where where the ball is heading.

Yeah.

Well, speaking of that, I'm sure a lot of Vermonters would love to have some kind of program in place to prevent future flooding or what to do for future flooding.

Well, we've got an update on that.

Vermont's attorney general has joined 19 other states in suing the Trump administration over its decision this spring to shutter a multibillion dollar federal program that helps communities prepare for natural disasters, like the flooding.

You were just talking about Calvin in Vermont, funds have largely been used to make public infrastructure more resilient to climate change.

This is through upgrading culverts, protecting wastewater and drinking water facilities, and raising bridges.

These funds were already allocated by Congress, and the lawsuit alleges the Trump administration's actions are unconstitutional.

And we will keep you updated on that, as that lawsuit progresses.

I want to move on to another story that you reported on, Derek Brower.

And this is about Green Mountain Transit, which, bus service a lot of people use, but fewer people using it now, some of the routes are being cut back.

What is the is it an existential crisis in a way that GMT is facing here?

You could say that.

Yeah, that's how they're seeing it as well.

I mean, they're they've been on a crash course for a long time at this point.

And some of that was delayed because of one time pandemic fund funding that has run out.

And so we're finally, at this point, they instituted cuts last year and they're, expecting to have to potentially cut more service next year unless the legislature or some other collective group of, of, stakeholders steps up here.

But, really, this is leading to a question as, as the general manager, Clayton Clark, explained to me, is, is is to search for the soul of Green Mountain Transit.

And what he meant by that is that, you know, this this network is trying to please a lot of different people from towns and employers in the state that's doing rural and urban service.

And, they want to figure out what does this community actually want the bus to be and what not not what we hope it could be, but aren't willing to fund.

But what do we need it to be, and what are we willing to support it to be?

Is it is it going to be this option of last resort for folks who don't have any other transportation choices?

That's kind of what it is right now.

Or is it going to be something that can compete with car use that is a real, driver of our response to climate change, things like that.

And right now with, with the amount of money they have in the cost they're dealing with, they don't have the ability to serve the geographic area that they have at the frequency that people, would expect a bus service to, to serve that.

So they have to make some hard choices.

And one of the tricks here is going to be, how do you get all of these different entities, all of these towns and employers and the state and the feds, all together to to come to some kind of agreement about what this should be.

They're kind of on their own with this, right?

I mean, they service their own vehicles.

There's not a lot of help from the state for GMT.

Well, yeah, I mean, they actually there is actually funding from both the state.

And of course, a lot of our public transportation funding is federal too.

But, you know, it's expensive to run public transit in Vermont.

We are trying to operate an urban style transit system in, in a rural state.

One thing I would urge people to do, very much like with the, homeless portraits, you got to talk to a lot of people who rode the busses and got to know them a little bit, and they're featured in these stories.

That must have been interesting.

Yeah.

I mean, that's another story about, budget challenges and cuts.

But, I really enjoyed reporting this piece.

I got to spend some time riding the bus.

I got up early a couple mornings to catch the first bus at 6 a.m., and I met some fascinating people who use the bus in different ways, whether it's to to get to work, to visit relatives or to get to the, to get to medical appointments.

And they and to be clear, they, they really want this service to be successful and continue.

They do.

Yeah.

I mean, one guy I talked to is like, I wish they would have brought fares back sooner.

I mean, the bus was free during the pandemic for a time and and people are willing to pay for a bus system that works.

But it's this combination of having to pay for a bus system that also doesn't work, that, is really a bad trajectory.

Okay.

I want to finish up on, sort of a positive note here.

And this has to do with, Vermont's own, Ilhan Omar, who this week won an SB award.

Now, if you're not familiar with the SBS, I think everybody at this table is.

But if you're not, it's kind of like the Oscars for athletes.

You know, they they give out these awards for, athletes who've done extraordinary things over the year.

And a lot of Ma, who was born in Burlington, won for best breakthrough athlete.

Of course.

She, you know, made her name, as helping the U.S. women's rugby sevens team win its first ever Olympic medal in the 2024 Olympics in Paris.

They picked up a bronze, very much thanks to her play on the pitch.

And, you know, she was also given this breakthrough award because she became kind of a media star, on TikTok and her, her, videos from the village.

And, you know, her humor came through.

It was all kind of wonderful.

And she helped introduce a whole new group of young women to the joys of rugby.

Here's what she had to say.

My message stays the same.

Strong is beautiful.

Strong, powerful.

It's sexy.

It's whatever you want it to be.

And I hope more girls can feel how I feel.

So congratulations to Ilhan Omar and Go Vermont Green FC.

They're playing their first playoff game this evening in Burlington at Virtue Field.

That's it for Vermont this week.

Thanks for joining us.