Soulia: VT emergency housing reform bill scrapped for a bill nobody has seen

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

Representatives Eric Maguire (R – Rutland-5) and Teresa Wood (D – Washington-Chittenden) introduced H.594, a 30-page bill establishing the Temporary Emergency Housing and Accountability Program for fiscal years 2027 and 2028. On February 3, the House Human Services Committee heard testimony indicating most of its provisions will be replaced by a committee bill that hasn’t been written yet.

What H.594 Proposes

The bill creates a five-tier continuum of care ranging from high-barrier shelters with mandatory case management to permanent supportive housing, including repurposed hotels and motels.

Eligibility requires physical presence in Vermont, verified by a state-issued ID, utility bill, or documentation from a Vermont provider. The bill prioritizes individuals with verified disabilities, those over 60, pregnant individuals, parents with minor children, and domestic violence survivors.

Time limits are defined: 60 days for emergency shelter tiers, 180 days for transitional housing, with hardship extensions requiring written findings. Case management ratios are capped at 1:25 in high-barrier shelters and 1:35 elsewhere. Hotel and motel use is capped at 400 rooms in FY27 with a mandate to reduce further in FY28.

Fraud prevention provisions allow benefit termination and repayment recovery for knowingly false claims. A Return Home Program offers voluntary relocation assistance for non-resident individuals, with written consent and a 72-hour cooling-off period.

The bill appropriates $30 million for FY27 and $25 million for FY28. Reporting requirements include cost-per-household data, transition outcomes, fraud enforcement metrics, and corrective action triggers.

What Happened in Committee

Chair Wood opened the hearing by announcing the committee will not mark up H.594. She and Vice Chair Goffano have been negotiating directly with the Agency of Human Services, advocacy groups, and legislative counsel to draft a replacement. Wood described ideas that have “honestly only existed in my head so far.”

Wood identified two H.594 provisions as “non-starters.” First, the residency verification requirements — legislative counsel advised they could constitute unconstitutional “durational residency.” Wood acknowledged there is no data on out-of-state individuals accessing Vermont’s emergency housing. “We have anecdotes,” she said. “We don’t have data on what those numbers are.” Second, the Agency’s intent to return to pre-pandemic night-by-night adverse weather hotel authorizations.

An advocacy coalition — Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity — CVOEO, the Housing and Homelessness Alliance, the ACLU of Vermont, and others — presented a counter-proposal: no caps on hotel rooms or time limits, eligibility determined solely by being homeless, all services voluntary, rooms available every day of the year. When pressed on how to prioritize with finite resources, the coalition pointed to HUD’s coordinated entry system. Testimony revealed that system is incomplete, relies on voluntary self-reporting, and operates as two separate systems with state agencies participating in neither.