Researcher tells House Human Services committee Vermont should adopt statewide Housing First strategy and favor non‑congregate interim housing for H.91

Anne Sossen, a public health researcher at Dartmouth College, told the House Human Services Committee during its discussion of H.91 that Vermont’s homelessness problem is primarily a housing-supply and affordability problem and urged the committee to adopt a statewide Housing First strategy, prioritize non‑congregate interim housing and set measurable targets.

Sossen told the committee: "Homelessness is primarily a housing problem. It's not a problem of unhousable people," and said Vermont faces both growing unsheltered homelessness and rising family homelessness while veteran homelessness is declining.

The researcher summarized five common myths and the evidence she says refutes them, then laid out policy recommendations the committee could incorporate into H.91. Sossen said Vermont has an estimated shortage of about 60,000 housing units, that half of Vermonters are cost‑burdened, and that Vermont’s housing wage is $29.42 — figures she offered to support the state-level framing of the crisis. She warned that individual-level factors such as substance use and mental illness do not explain geographic differences in homelessness between states.

Sossen described Housing First both as a program model and as a guiding philosophy. She said Housing First approaches emphasize immediate access to permanent housing with low barriers, choice and dignity, and separation of housing provision from support services. "Housing First is not housing only," she said, and cautioned that some programs that claim Housing First principles do not follow the full model or lack fidelity and scale.

On interim housing, Sossen recommended prioritizing non‑congregate options (for example, private motel rooms or hotel conversions) over mass congregate shelters. She cited pandemic-era uses of non‑congregate shelter and Vermont research showing better outcomes when people are placed in private rooms with private bathrooms. "Hotels should be used as long as necessary to replace congregate shelters, and those that can be converted to permanent apartments should undergo needed alterations as soon as possible," she said, summarizing national expert guidance.

Sossen also addressed supportive services, saying the evidence on the impact of services on housing retention is mixed. She argued for voluntary, individualized services delivered separately from the landlord or housing provider, because joint provision can create surveillance or tenancy risks that undermine housing stability.

Committee members asked Sossen for details and clarifications. Representatives raised data and implementation questions: how to measure program outcomes, whether motel stays fit Housing First principles, whether Vermont saw inflows after neighboring states ended COVID emergency housing programs, and what long‑term tracking looks like for programs with time‑limited affordability commitments such as the Vermont Home Improvement Program (VHIP). Sossen said she would provide slides and written citations and encouraged the committee to require program-level outcome reporting and to set state targets for units created and interim beds.

Sossen also highlighted costs associated with unsheltered homelessness, citing studies that estimate community costs per unsheltered person at roughly $30,000 per year (she noted many studies are dated and likely understate current costs) and said those costs are absorbed by municipalities, health systems, schools and criminal justice systems rather than federal homelessness programs.

The researcher concluded with a set of recommendations the committee could fold into H.91 or broader planning: adopt a statewide Housing First strategy, develop a comprehensive plan with measurable targets, set the explicit goal of zero unsheltered homelessness, invest in non‑congregate interim housing while minimizing use of congregate shelters, and track outcomes for all publicly funded programs.

Committee members asked the Department for program and eligibility details (for example, the committee discussed a residency requirement for the cold‑weather exception and deferred specific operational questions to DCF staff). Sossen repeated that much of the work needed is program design and better data collection, not a lack of evidence about which interventions work. The committee requested Sossen’s slides and cited research for follow up.