The work connecting poverty relief to environmental justice is undeveloped and nearly nonexistent. We need a new paradigm in our traditional anti-poverty and social service thinking to include a focus on the environment, and environmental organizations need to include people living in poverty as they develop their thinking and practice.
These past months of the pandemic have driven home the point that we can and need to do much better as a society for people who are homeless and living in deep poverty. We realize that the people who work in shelters and emergency housing facilities play a vital role in medical prevention, medical care and public health, but this is something that the medical community and most of society by and large neglect to acknowledge.
People experiencing homelessness are much more likely than the general population to have chronic medical conditions along with mental health and substance use conditions.
No-cause eviction is particularly worrisome for children and older Vermonters as well as people of color. According to the National Low-Income Housing Coalition, people of color have less access to safe and secure housing than their white counterparts.