Lawmakers working on homeless program bill: Hear from Vermonters who've lived it

Read the full article at rutlandherald.com.

People who experienced the state’s “hotel-motel program” told lawmakers what it was like for them and what they hope to see — and not see — in a new bill being contemplated to reform it.

H.594 saw a fair amount of discussion last week in the House Committee on Human Services. It is slated to be talked about even more this week.

The bill is another attempt to overhaul the General Assistance Emergency Housing Program, which uses state-funded vouchers to shelter otherwise homeless people in hotels or motels. The program was used during cold weather for years until it was expanded, and tweaked many times, during the pandemic. Debates have been ongoing about its future. Last year, Republican Gov. Phil Scott vetoed a bill that would have overhauled it, saying what was proposed was too expensive.

Norman Croteau Jr. said he lives in a motel in Colchester with his partner, who has mobility restrictions and chronic health problems. They became homeless, along with several others, when their landlord sold the rental property they’d been living in.

Croteau said he and his partner have had to move around a lot since this event.

“We have had nowhere to live for about four years. We’ve applied for every apartment that we can. We’ve stayed connected to services and we continue to keep our medical appointments with our providers,” he said. “This past spring, we were denied medical vulnerability under the Governor’s executive order, and I don’t know what we would have done if we didn’t find End Homelessness Vermont.”

End Homelessness Vermont is a statewide nonprofit that helps people experiencing homelessness find housing and services.

At one point, the state capped the number of days a person had in the GA program at 80. As a number of individuals were set to be exited from the program last year, Scott signed an executive order carving out some exemptions for medically vulnerable people. There was, however, some issue with who was exempted and how those days are counted.

Croteau told lawmakers he and his partner had trouble accessing the program and were living outside until November before it was sorted out.

“During that time, my partner, with her health conditions, got much worse. She was … she was not doing well … when we were outside,” he said. “When we first got put back into a hotel, we ended up having to go to the hospital because of her health conditions getting worse, but it could have been prevented. I can’t imagine how expensive her recovery was, but it all could have been prevented if we would have just stayed sheltered.”

Having to sleep outside made their situation worse, as they had to focus on finding places they could stay when they weren’t allowed in many areas. He said staff at the hotel he’s been in currently have been good, and he and his partner are able to reach service providers.

He said his own disability payments amount to $1,200 per month, making any available housing — without some kind of subsidy — unaffordable.

Working with the services the state provides has been overly difficult, said Croteau.

“There’s absolutely no way that we could have gone all through this all alone. Absolutely no way. We have never refused any services or turned them down. But every step of this has been complicated and hard to navigate and we feel like we are judged at every corner,” he said.

Living in hotel rooms is not luxurious, he said, but the program has kept him and his partner alive.

“We needed support to be able to get through the process to communicate and understand the renewal and voucher process. It is not a simple process. It is complicated. Please do not make this more difficult. Whatever program you make, please, please, make sure that people experiencing homelessness do not end up living outside. It doesn’t help us and it makes us sick. It would make anybody sick to be out there.”

Tamara Hodge said she does not support H.594 as it is currently drafted.

Hodge works for End Homelessness Vermont, but two years ago was someone in need of its services.

Hodge said she was born and raised in Vermont. In 2020, she and her three children went to South Carolina for her recovery, and returned around 2023 when a relative’s health declined. She said the apartment they were set to rent was rented to someone else, leaving them with nowhere to go.

“We were left with nowhere to go and sitting in my little Toyota Camry with my three children and my wife. All of our stuff was packed around us and we had no clue what we were going to do. Living with family was never a possibility for us. So, we were left with nothing,” she said.

She said she was only able to get 28 days in the GA program.

“At the end of our 28 days, we were going to end up outside with three children and we were offered nothing but a tent in October,” she said.

With help from the organization she’d come to work for, she said she was able to get enough days in the hotels to find more permanent housing, but it was a stressful time for the family. She said it was good fortune that saw her family housed in the end. Many of their friends weren’t so lucky, she said.

“Some of the folks that my family and I met in the hotels have since died from being unsheltered. And so many of my clients now who I’ve formed connections with, and built trust with, have ended up the same way; suffering outside, freezing and begging for help that I can’t give them, and going unnoticed,” she said.

She echoed Croteau’s point about the service system being hard to work with, especially for people with disabilities anxious over the possibility of living unsheltered.

“Throughout my time in homelessness, I kept up with all of my paperwork. I applied for every apartment that I could find that we could afford, but I couldn’t understand the systems due to my own disabilities, and my mental health was just spiraling out of control,” she said.

Hodge read written testimony provided to the committee by Ernest Cormia, of Rutland.

Cormia stated that he lived in the Cortina Inn in Rutland Town for a time, through the GA program. He stated that when he was 22, he was diagnosed with muscular dystrophy. He’d been working for a construction company but by his late 20s was no longer able to work.

He said he has four adult children, two in-state, and only gets $1,000 per month from being disabled.

“They give me incredible help, but they do not have the resources to have me live with them or support me financially, so, I live entirely on Social Security. That means that I can not afford any available apartment without a subsidy of some kind,” he said in his testimony.

He said he was living with one of his sons when their landlord sold the building.

“My son had a hard time finding an apartment and definitely could not find one that my wheelchair could go into,” he said.

He said there were services in the hotel initially, but those drew back, and there were several times he had to convince the state he qualified to remain in the program.

“Finally in November, just before Thanksgiving, I got a place through the Rutland Housing Authority,” he stated. “I got the keys to my apartment and I’ll never forget that day. I was able to throw a turkey in my own oven. I have not had that in, oh my god, years. I love cooking. I was just so happy and it did not fully hit me for a few days.”

Cormia stated he was able to engage with services and find permanent housing because he was sheltered while doing so.

“I needed to be housed first. I don’t know if anyone has lived in a hotel or been homeless for so many years, but it is a lot of stress. I needed to find a stable place to be, where I was not always worried I would be carried outside and left there. All the pressure to do more while I was living in this situation with no way to get out only made me more depressed,” he stated.

The House Committee on Human Services is scheduled to hear from Paul Dragon, executive director of Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity, and Chad Simmons, director of Housing and Homeless Alliance of Vermont, on Tuesday at 1 p.m. The committee is slated to work more on the bill through the week.