Committee debates draft 'Vermont HEART' homelessness program; disputes which agency should designate regional providers

Lawmakers on the House Human Services Committee spent the meeting reviewing a draft bill to create the Vermont Homeless Emergency Assistance and Responsive Transition to Housing program — informally discussed as “Vermont HEART” or “VTR” — focusing on how the new program would be defined, who would oversee regional designations, and how emergency shelters would operate.

The bill would establish a statewide grant program to fund a range of homelessness responses including prevention and case management, temporary/emergency shelters, transitional housing and short-term extreme-weather shelters. Committee members and staff debated whether responsibility for designating regional resource organizations should rest with the Agency of Human Services (AHS) as a whole, with the Department for Children and Families (DCF), or by rule under an existing statutory office such as the director of OEO.

The discussion mattered because the committee is trying to fit the new program into multiple existing statutes and established provider roles. Committee members noted that community action agencies already have statutory recognition and national standards (the CSBG organizational standards) and queried whether the bill should create a new label — “regional resource organization” — as a supplemental authorization for a community action agency that would lead regional coordination and arrange service delivery.

Committee staff and members said they want the new language to avoid unintentionally re‑naming community providers by statutory designation. Amy Schallenberger, director (speaker identified as providing information for community action agencies), told the committee that community action agencies “comply with national standards” and offered to provide statutory citations the committee could review. Committee members asked staff to cross‑check the proposal against existing statute so the bill would not conflict with long‑standing community services language.

Members also debated whether the program’s short-term shelters should be limited only to "extreme weather events" or use broader language such as “refuge” or overnight refuge to allow flexibility for municipalities and regions that may need short-duration shelter outside strictly defined weather emergencies. One committee member noted the practical problem: listing many weather types risks being “all inclusive” and invites operational confusion, while too‑narrow language could prevent needed short‑term options where unsheltered people appear outside of the narrow weather definition.

The committee discussed program mechanics: a statewide organizing entity (members suggested the Vermont League of Cities and Towns, VLCT) could administer portions of the grant funding for municipalities, and award priorities could be given to municipalities with higher concentrations of unsheltered homelessness. Staff said the department’s grant agreements should require prioritization tied to geographic access and that the department should create a standardized plan template so regional plans can be aggregated for legislative reporting.

The committee flagged several technical decisions to resolve in drafting: whether to define “agency” as the Agency of Human Services or specifically as the Department for Children and Families; whether to create a statutory process or certification for community action agencies that take on the regional resource role; whether community service plans should be required annually or every three years (committee members proposed changing an existing annual requirement to a 3‑year cycle for the homelessness‑specific plans); and whether the bill’s structural sections (program overview and separate sections for extreme weather, temporary emergency, and transitional shelters) should be reorganized so prevention and case management appear first.

Committee members did not take a formal vote during the meeting. They directed staff to: (1) compare the draft against existing community services statutes and CSBG standards; (2) draft a clear short title (committee members favored a short, distinguishable acronym rather than reusing federal program names); (3) add a definition for “agency of human services” and for “regional resource organization” that references community action agencies where appropriate; and (4) produce a plan template and examine whether the community service plan submission cycle should shift from one year to three years so the department can aggregate and present unified data to the Legislature.

Looking ahead, the committee asked staff to follow up with AHS/DCF and with community action representatives to confirm statutory constraints and to supply citations and samples of existing standards before finalizing bill language. The committee repeatedly emphasized the need to avoid creating a new statutory “designated agency” term that could inadvertently rename or reassign authorities to local organizations.

The conversation also surfaced practical operational scenarios committee members wanted to preserve: flexibility for municipalities to apply for grants to operate short-term shelters, the need for strong linkages from triage points so people who show up at an extreme‑weather shelter can be assessed for higher levels of care, and maintaining voluntary, choice‑based service offers and peer support when people access temporary refuge.

The committee paused the discussion to take up sponsor bill presentations later in the session; no final statutory text or committee votes were recorded at the meeting.