Advocate urges clearer rules, notifications and faster discovery for Human Services Board fair hearings

Brenda Siegel, executive director of End Homelessness Vermont, told a legislative committee considering H.92 on Thursday that people appealing emergency housing decisions to the Human Services Board face inconsistent procedures, frequent delays in discovery and limits on how authorized representatives are notified and involved.

Siegel said the problems matter because many appellants are people experiencing homelessness or have complex disabilities and rely on expedited fair hearings to challenge emergency housing exits. She told members the group’s work with economic services staff has reduced the number of hearings but that the remaining cases reveal procedural gaps that can harm vulnerable clients.

Siegel described several recurring problems. She said authorized-representative forms exist but are not consistently used to notify advocates when a client requests a fair hearing; she recommended adding a checkbox on the form so departments automatically notify a designated representative. “If the person is representing themselves, then often the department speaks with them, which, in my opinion, is a little bit of a conflict,” Siegel said.

She also urged clearer recognition of representatives during hearings so advocates can receive communications unless a client expressly declines. Siegel said some clients have cognitive or medical conditions that make it unrealistic for them to manage a hearing without a designated agent and asked that rules explicitly allow a representative to act on a client’s behalf in those circumstances.

Siegel criticized the current handling of preliminary hearing findings. She said a party that loses a preliminary decision may appeal that decision to the Human Services Board while the prevailing party does not have an automatic route to have the finding made part of the public record or reviewed by the full board. That practice, she said, prevents advocates and hearing officers from referring to prior decisions as precedent. “We really think that’s a big flaw in the system,” she said, recommending that preliminary findings either automatically go to the full board or be incorporated into a searchable record.

On reasonable accommodation, Siegel said the Human Services Board’s interpretation is generally closer to the Americans with Disabilities Act than the department’s practice, which she described as narrower and often focused on wheelchair access. She gave examples of clients who needed accommodations for medical or psychiatric disabilities — including one client on supplemental oxygen whose levels sometimes fell below 50 — and who prevailed before hearing officers but continued to encounter noncompliant department practice.

Siegel also raised concerns about the tone and timing of hearings. She said discovery documents are sometimes provided the night before an expedited hearing, leaving advocates and clients inadequate time to prepare. She recommended that standard discovery materials such as CAT notes be delivered within 24 to 48 hours when a hearing is requested. She described instances where Assistant Attorneys General questioned vulnerable witnesses in a manner she considered aggressive and inconsistent across hearings, and she praised hearing officers who intervened to moderate questioning when necessary.

Other recommendations Siegel offered to the committee included: adding entities that contract with the Agency of Human Services to the appeals pathway to avoid internal, nonneutral appeals; clearer guardrails about when representatives may be treated as witnesses; and improved tracking of prior decisions so similar cases do not require “reinventing the wheel.”

The committee heard questions from Representatives Bishop, Cole and McPhan and others. The panel indicated it will hear additional witnesses on H.92; a staff member said one scheduled witness, Michael Donahue, would appear by Zoom.

The testimony did not conclude with any formal committee action; members pressed for follow-up material and said they would take Siegel’s recommendations under consideration.