March 14th, 2024
REMARKS FROM VERMONT SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE, CHAIR OF HOUSE HUMAN SERVICES ON HOUSING CRISIS
Montpelier, VT - Today, House Speaker Jill Krowinski and House Human Services Chair Theresa Wood provided statements to the media on housing legislation and the emergency housing crisis that is currently unraveling. The transcript of questions posed and subsequent answers is available upon request. The following remarks have been edited for clarity.
House Speaker Jill Krowinski:
“Today, Thursday, is the first week of crossover. It’s part of the legislative process to hold ourselves accountable - it provides deadlines this week and next week to ensure both bodies move bills to the other chamber.
“I am really proud of the work our members are doing. Across all committees, we continue to fight for an economy that works for everyone and leaves no one behind.
“I want to directly respond to the Governor’s claims and misleading statements about some of our priorities.
“First, I want Vermonters to know, and I’ve said this from day one that creating more affordable housing is a top priority for us. We have three bills that address this: H.829 that creates a 10-year roadmap for affordable housing and rehabilitation of housing for Vermonters of all walks of life, H.639 sets housing goals and includes accountability and flood notification and, H.687 is our Act 250 land use modernization bill.
“Second, our Act 250 modernization bill makes it easier to develop housing while conserving our Vermont landscape. The Governor has stated that the bill focuses too much on conservation, but let me be absolutely clear – this bill is pro-environment and pro-business. It is built off of recommendations from a broad coalition that has been supporting this work. I’m disappointed that the Administration has stopped coming to the table and has instead chosen to engage through press conferences and social media with broad, misleading statements about our work.
“Lastly, I am deeply worried about the Administration’s action regarding the exiting of 500 Vermonters from hotels. They are clearly not following our legislative intent. I don’t understand how the Administration could negotiate the $80 cap for a motel room before the bill even reached the Governor’s desk but then at the same time say they couldn’t work with folks in the program until the bill was signed. It makes no sense and raises more questions than answers. This is harmful and completely avoidable.
“The Vermonters being housed, and the communities where this is occurring were not consulted and not even told about the change until two days ago. An hour ago, the Town of Bennington sent out an email to community partners stating that they had just been made aware of the effort to put an emergency shelter in their community for tomorrow and only found out about it through news articles. I received notice that Mayor Weinberger and Burlington officials will be holding an emergency town hall meeting this afternoon to inform the community of this sudden development. The Mayor of Rutland released a statement earlier today saying that they were only informed of the plan to stand up an emergency shelter yesterday, and when the city had questions or gave other options, they were brushed aside and it was clear the state had no intention of working to find alternative solutions. Lives are at risk and communities are completely in the dark. This has to stop.”
Representative Theresa Wood:
“The first thing I want to say is that we find the action around the unhousing of people from the motels, with such poor planning to be totally unacceptable, period.
“At the outset the House approved a Budget Adjustment Act that included housing all individuals from the Adverse Weather Conditions group through the end of June. The Senate proposed a more moderate approach that prioritized those who were most vulnerable. The Administration did not want to house people in adverse weather conditions beyond March 15th. The House and Senate agreed.
“We crafted language that was extremely clear about the legislative intent, what’s happening now appears to us to be in direct disregard to legislative intent. Achieving what the Administration wanted to do from the beginning, which was to unhouse the people in the adverse weather conditions group.
“The BAA that's been approved and now been signed by the Governor, accounts for 1,500 motel units through the end of June. There is not a need to unhouse these people. That being said, we did know that there would be approximately 300 households who would not qualify for the extension through June. The administration tells us they need these temporary shelters, which are only nighttime shelters. People will not be able to stay there during the day, so they will be essentially wandering around wherever they're going to wander during the day.
“The Administration has told us that they need this upcoming week in order to be able to complete the vetting process to determine whether or not individuals who are currently in the motels under adverse weather qualify for the regular general assistance rules, or whether they will qualify under the disability or health condition form that was included in the BAA.
“I want to be very clear about the policy that was in the Budget Adjustment Act. We do not do these things in isolation. You all have been around the State House long enough to know that the governor's staff, when we're doing budget discussions, are in close contact with the governor. None of this was a surprise to the administration. The language that was included in the Budget adjustment was known about and discussed with the Governor's Administration yesterday in testimony. Commissioner Winters, the Commissioner of the department for children and families said and I quote, “we have not communicated very much at all.” That might be the biggest understatement of the week.
“The fact that they have not communicated with the towns and cities that they're talking about standing up shelters in, that they've not communicated with local providers until today, that they've not communicated with the people who are going to be most impacted by this is really unacceptable. It is unacceptable, and we know that, of the 500 people, roughly half of those people will qualify under the provisions of the BAA.
“Those folks, if they haven't gone through the process already, were notified at noon time that, of the households that had been identified, four households had been identified for continuation. Well, that's a far cry from almost 500 people. So those four households will be fine, but the remaining people will be exited from the motel. They'll be told about the availability of these temporary shelters. They may or may not be provided with transportation, that seems to be an up in the air kind of question. Yesterday, when local legislators asked about that, Vermont Emergency Management said no, that they were not being responsible for transportation. The Agency of Human Services said that they would provide transportation. We don't know how that's being done.
“The fact is, there are more questions than answers when it comes to this topic, the key takeaway here is the process for those individuals be to move from a motel room where they one they don't have to vacate during the day, to wander around the street to a temporary shelter, where they can only stay during the night, and the purpose of this ostensibly is so that the administration can complete the assessment process to determine whether they can then move them back to the hotel. Now that does not seem very logical to me.
“The March 15th deadline is set in policy by the administration. They can change that deadline if they need an extra week, to complete the assessment process which frankly, they could have been doing during the last 10 days since the bill was passed out of both bodies. That hasn't been done. We are calling upon the Administration to change that March 15th deadline. If you need an extra week, or if you need an extra 2 weeks, then make that change. You can do that. Do not force people out of places where they've had some stability to move them to a temporary shelter where they're going to have to only stay at night and then move them back to where they were. It just does not make any sense, and it clearly comes from a place of not understanding the trauma that that involves when that kind of thing is done to people's lives.”