Senate committee reviews H.91 draft, debates emergency-housing definitions and funding

The Senate Health & Welfare Committee on May 13 continued work on H.91, reviewing a new draft that adds a VHART chapter, considers new definitions for homelessness, and identifies one-time funding proposals for community action agencies and Bridges to Health.

Committee members and staff emphasized municipal concerns about the local costs of homelessness and questioned how proposed dollars would be allocated. “I have been receiving a lot of very upset municipal municipalities about how much homelessness is costing municipalities in terms of public safety, and other services,” the Senate Health & Welfare Committee chair said, summarizing local officials’ complaints. The committee did not adopt final budget allocations during the session.

The bill draft retains a legislative-intent section that references housing-first principles and includes language modeled on Vermont’s emergency-housing statutes and policies. The chair said the Department for Children and…