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Formerly unhoused witness urges legislature: extend shelter stays and make reasonable accommodations permanent
Summary
A woman who recently exited homelessness testified to the House Human Services Committee that current emergency housing day limits and application of reasonable accommodations put families at risk, urged continuous shelter until permanent housing, and recommended Task Force proposals to prevent repeat unsheltering.
Shelby LaBaron, who described herself as a Springfield resident and a staff member at End Homelessness Vermont, told the committee about her family’s experience in emergency hotel shelter and warned that current time limits would have left her and a premature newborn outside during winter if rules had not changed.
LaBaron said her family entered a motel after a no‑cause eviction while she was pregnant and that a flyer from End Homelessness Vermont led to advocacy that extended their stay. “End Homelessness Vermont paid for us to stay for a couple of days, and then within 2 days of our exit date, we got word that Economic Services would finally count my eviction under constructive eviction,” she told the committee.
LaBaron said the previous program gave different day amounts to different people and called that chaotic; she described being initially given 28 days, then extended to 56 days when the eviction was recognized as constructive. She warned that current policy changes mean reasonable accommodations are not being granted in the same way today, and said, “If my family had the same situation today, I would have been living outside in the cold with a premature baby.”
Speaking from frontline experience after she moved into paid work in the field, LaBaron told lawmakers that shelter case managers’ caseloads are too large, that providers lack adequate funding to keep people sheltered while they find housing, and that the income contribution requirements for hotel stays can prevent households from saving for permanent housing.
LaBaron also described a collaboration between End Homelessness Vermont, Springfield Supportive Housing and Economic Services Division staff who now help complex‑needs clients navigate the process so they do not lose shelter because of paperwork or access barriers. She said she supports recommendations from the General Assistance Emergency Housing Task Force and urged lawmakers to ensure shelter day limits are “data driven” and never permit the unsheltering sequence that occurred last fall.
Ending
LaBaron urged lawmakers to keep people continuously sheltered until they can secure permanent housing, to make shelter policies data driven, and to adopt task‑force recommendations aimed at reducing chaotic exits from emergency housing.
