Advocates and shelter operators tell House Human Services committee H.91 must preserve emergency housing and expand services

Advocates and shelter operators urged the Vermont House Human Services Committee at a recent hearing to keep the General Assistance emergency housing program as a backstop while lawmakers refine H.91 and related spending, saying the state’s emergency system cannot immediately replace motel and shelter capacity without risking more deaths and instability.

Frank Knaack, executive director of the Housing and Homelessness Alliance of Vermont, told the committee that "we had approximately 3,500 unhoused Vermonters across our state, including 737 children and 646 Vermonters over 55 years old," and that the point-in-time count is an undercount. He said the state’s shelter capacity — about 618 beds or households statewide — falls far short of that need.

Knaack said Vermont’s homelessness increase is sharp: "that 3,500 number is an undercount," and the most recent data show an increase of more than 300% between 2020 and 2024. He also highlighted the housing shortage identified in the Vermont Housing Finance Agency’s recent needs assessment, saying the state needs roughly 24,000 to 36,000 additional year-round homes this decade, including more than 3,200 units to address homelessness and roughly 3,900 to restore normal vacancy rates.

Why it matters: witnesses said H.91 and the committee’s budget choices will only succeed if the state maintains an emergency shelter safety net while investing in housing production, service capacity and coordinated entry so…