Funding for Services at Food Shelf in Burlington Is Threatened

Read the full article at sevendaysvt.com. Below is an excerpt.

The food shelf on North Winooski Avenue has been under construction for a renovation and expansion during the past a year and a half. The reason? It has become the permanent home of an adjacent program that offers additional services to homeless people.

But now, even as the construction nears completion, potential spending cuts in Montpelier threaten the future of the combined enterprise.

Since 2021, staff of the Community Resource Center, a day shelter for homeless people, have shared the Old North End building with Feeding Champlain Valley, which operates a food shelf where anyone can seek assistance.

This partnership has become the state’s largest day shelter. Together, the organizations provide a weekday hot meal service while also connecting diners with social workers and doctors. They also offer essentials such as camping gear and services such as haircuts. Homeless people can use the place to spend time without having to pay for anything or being questioned.

The community resource center opened in the Burlington Holiday Inn in 2020 as an emergency response to the COVID-19 pandemic after congregate homeless shelters were closed. When the challenges of the pandemic gave way to a growing affordability crisis, the day shelter began to redefine itself. The Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity and Feeding Champlain Valley, which oversees food shelves throughout the region, brought their complementary services together under one roof — a former auto repair garage in Burlington’s Old North End where the food shelf has operated since the 1990s.

For the first years of its operation, the city paid for the resource center, but the state has footed the bill since 2024. Gov. Phil Scott has proposed cutting that funding, which would leave it short $650,000.

“If we don’t secure the funding that we need, we’re going to have to close,” said Brenna Bedard, CVOEO’s homeless outreach services director. Feeding Champlain Valley’s food shelf and hot meal service would remain but without the resource center’s complementary services.