The Vermont state legislature approved a budget for fiscal year (FY) 2024 on June 20 in a special veto session during which it overrode a veto by the state’s governor, Phil Scott. The new budget includes significant investments in permanently affordable housing and supportive services. An additional bill, H.171, was also passed during the veto session that extended the end date for a statewide hotel sheltering program from July 1, 2023, to April 1, 2024. This last-minute action prevented more than 1,000 households from being evicted from their hotel rooms on July 1. However, its passage was too late to protect the nearly 800 households who were abruptly evicted from their hotel rooms on June 1 when the program began to wind-down. Advocates across Vermont played key roles in encouraging the legislature to prioritize funding for housing in the budget and create a more thoughtful strategy to wind down the hotel sheltering program for those still benefiting from it.
The General Assistance Emergency Housing Program was created during the COVID-19 pandemic to provide emergency shelter in hotels and motels to Vermont residents experiencing homelessness. Originally funded through the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the program’s funding was later extended multiple times by the legislature. Governor Scott vetoed the initial FY24 budget proposal, which would have continued funding the program, on May 27. This effectively eliminated the benefit for nearly 800 households on June 1, and almost all these households were evicted from their hotel rooms on that date, including seniors, people with disabilities and serious health conditions, and families with children.
The hotel evictions took place without a comprehensive statewide plan for where people would go or how they would continue receiving supportive services. Advocates attempted to prevent the evictions by requesting a temporary restraining order but were unsuccessful. Without clear direction from state agencies, service providers scrambled to connect the households to services and other housing options, though many still live in encampments or their cars and recent catastrophic flooding in July has further complicated their displacement. As of July 11, emergency shelter had not been offered in response to the state’s disaster declaration, and emergency shelters were at capacity. (See the Disaster Recovery section of this Memo for more information.)
Though H.171 does not guarantee shelter for those previously evicted households, those who are eligible under the new bill were given 10 days to reapply for assistance. The bill also sets up formal legislative oversight of the transition and allows some budget flexibility to support these households.
While the end of legislative session saw tensions emerge between lawmakers, the governor, service providers, and advocates, there was broad support to invest in increasing the supply of affordable housing in the budget. The final budget includes significant investments to address Vermont’s affordable housing crisis, including near-full statutory funding for the Vermont Housing and Conservation Board, $40 million for affordable housing development, and $10 million for shelter expansion. A further $10 million was allocated for the Vermont Housing Improvement Program (see Memo, 6/6/22). Additionally, the “Housing Opportunities Made for Everyone (HOME) Act” (S. 100) was passed, making modest reforms to zoning and Act 250.
Advocates across the state played a crucial role in building support for the expanded housing resources and zoning reforms. In particular, they highlighted the threats involved in ending the hotel sheltering program without a comprehensive plan to support impacted individuals and stepped up to provide critical services to the evicted hotel guests, despite a lack of state funding and coordination, and in the face of staff burnout and fatigue. Now, they will work with the Joint Fiscal Committee and the administration to make sure that H.171 supports as many people as possible.