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 people in motels or shelters can be assessed and matched with housing and supports.

Key details and testimony

- General Assistance and winter rules: Several witnesses urged keeping or extending the General Assistance (GA) emergency housing program and warned against strict caps. Knaack and shelter operators described the GA motel voucher program as an essential, more effective alternative to congregate shelters. Knaack recommended that any length-of-stay limit be tied to an empirical metric drawn from HUD or coordinated-entry data rather than a fixed arbitrary cap such as 80 nights.

- Congregate vs. non-congregate shelter: Knaack summarized research and local experience that single-occupancy or non-congregate placements (hotel/motel rooms or apartments) are more effective than congregate shelters for many people because they increase stability, reduce conflict and improve access to services. Julie Bond, executive director of Good Samaritan Haven, said congregate shelters are not a humane long-term solution for many of the people now seeking help and urged the legislature to avoid creating large, long-duration congregate sites.

- On-the-ground impacts: Julie Bond gave local examples of the recent crisis in Washington County, saying Good Samaritan "sheltered about 76 individuals, about a third of the population in the motels in the county," including 14 families and 19 children, and that despite private fundraising and local coordination several people still died. She said the shelter network intervened to extend motel stays from roughly Sept. 19 to Dec. 1 and implored lawmakers "to ensure that there's no cap on the number of days people have in the motel program," arguing caps and abrupt program changes destabilized both people and providers.

- Coordinated entry, case management and funding: Multiple witnesses said gaps in coordinated entry and case-management capacity are a barrier to moving people into permanent housing. John Hooper of Groundworks Collaborative warned that requiring intake or engagement within 14 days (language in the draft bill) will create new workload pressures without explicit funding for expanded assessment and case-management staff. He noted an OEO survey estimating roughly $1,000,000 to expand coordinated-entry capacity statewide and urged two-year contracts and stable funding for providers.

- ERAP, HOP and Medicaid-based supports: Witnesses emphasized that federally funded ERAP positions and other COVID-era funds helped with housing navigation and must be replaced as those federal funds lapse. Groundworks and others described a Medicaid permanent supportive housing (PSH/PSHA) pilot as promising but administratively different from grants; Michael Redmond of the Upper Valley Haven said the Medicaid pathway tends to require different billing and caseload structures and currently covers a small number of participants, so it cannot substitute for flexible grant-funded HOP positions.

- Racial disparities and system costs: Knaack highlighted racial disparities in homeownership and homelessness in Vermont — citing VHFA figures that Black Vermonters are disproportionately affected — and argued that inaction is costlier than investing in solutions. He cited a pre-COVID estimate of roughly $35,000 per year in public costs per chronically unhoused individual, which he adjusted to about $45,000 in 2024 dollars.

- Local planning, zoning and infrastructure: Operators asked the legislature to fund shelter expansions already in local pipelines and to remove zoning hurdles that block motel conversions and other local projects. Michael Redmond credited the HOME Act of 2023 with helping his shelter project move forward by limiting some municipal barriers to emergency shelters.

Committee context and next steps

No formal vote was recorded during the testimony. Witnesses asked the committee to (1) extend winter protections and maintain GA emergency housing while alternative infrastructure is built, (2) fund additional coordinated-entry and case-management capacity before imposing strict time limits, (3) preserve flexible HOP grant funding and backfill ERAP-funded positions, and (4) invest in permanent affordable housing production so coordinated entry has housing to which it can refer people.

The committee heard multiple written submissions and told witnesses it will continue to receive testimony as it develops H.91 and considers budget adjustments.