Witnesses tell Senate committee Vermont’s homelessness response is ‘clogged’; leaders urge sustained funding and more housing

Senate members convening the Economic Development, Housing and General Affairs committee on Jan. 24 heard testimony that Vermont’s homelessness response system is functioning but overwhelmed and in need of sustained funding and more housing units.

Frank Kinak, executive director of the Housing and Homelessness Alliance of Vermont, told the committee the state’s coordinated system for responding to homelessness — including coordinated entry and local continua of care — can triage people in need but lacks the “outputs” required to move people into stable homes. “The system works, but it’s clogged,” Kinak said, adding that the state lacks both sufficient case-management capacity and enough permanent affordable housing units to receive people out of shelter.

Kinak framed the capacity gap with programs and data already in front of lawmakers. He said the annual point-in-time count earlier in January will be reported this spring, and that the count reported in the most recent assessment showed roughly 3,500 people experiencing homelessness statewide (testimony transcript contains a numeric transcription that may be imprecise). He told senators Vermont’s statewide emergency shelter capacity is about 585 beds while the General Assistance (GA) emergency housing program is using more than 1,400 motel or hotel rooms to shelter vulnerable Vermonters; Kinak said those programs are currently sheltering “just over 1,900 people.”

Why it matters: Kinak and committee members emphasized that without more housing production and predictable funding, emergency programs will continue to be necessary and municipalities and first responders will absorb the cost. “The cost of not addressing the crisis is significantly more,” Kinak said, citing higher municipal, policing and hospital costs that follow unsheltered homelessness.

What the testimony described

- Housing needs assessment: Kinak referenced the Vermont Housing Finance Agency’s housing needs assessment, saying the state needs in the range of 24,000 to 36,000 additional homes by 2029 to address long-term demand. He cited smaller, targeted figures in that analysis — roughly 3,295 homes to address homelessness and about 3,957 homes to normalize vacancy rates — and stressed the two are interrelated.

- System outputs and services: Kinak said coordinated entry helps triage people experiencing homelessness but that the system is limited by a shortage of housing navigators, landlord liaisons and case managers. He and committee members noted many of those positions are funded with one-time federal grants (for example, ERA/ERAP-era funding) and that funding uncertainty makes long-term planning for shelter and development difficult.

- Shelter and GA program details: Kinak asked the committee to consider extending winter-weather protections and to avoid abrupt limits on the GA emergency housing program. He said current policy gives eligible vulnerable Vermonters a maximum of 80 GA nights under a cap of about 1,100 rooms; Kinak warned that when caps tightened last September, providers were forced into emergency measures, including outdoor tenting in extreme cases.

- Length of need and metrics: Kinak reported that the average time it now takes for a person to move from homelessness into housing in Vermont exceeds 400 nights, and he recommended tying any maximum eligible nights to actual, annually reviewed data on length of stay. Multiple senators asked for better performance metrics tying dollars spent to outcomes; Kinak said the state and providers are working to compile better data and to validate it with providers across jurisdictions.

- Production, rehab and funding asks: Kinak urged continued investment across several channels: production of new affordable units, rehabilitation/improvement of existing housing stock (including manufactured housing parks), and stability for pipeline funding that enables nonprofit developers to continue projects. He noted a legislative ask on the table that would allocate a statutory share of property-transfer tax revenue (he cited an $80 million figure for a housing board allocation) and asked that permanent finance streams be considered so the state does not rely solely on one-time appropriations.

- Equity: Kinak raised racial disparities in housing and homelessness — citing VHFA dashboard figures he presented — and urged that equity be central to any policy or funding response. He told the committee Black Vermonters have far lower homeownership rates and higher rates of homelessness than White Vermonters, and he said those disparities should shape program design.

Committee discussion and follow-up requests

Committee members pressed for clearer metrics and examples showing the effect of current programs. Several senators emphasized that preventing homelessness and stabilizing people requires not only shelter but meaningful, affordable housing opportunities to move households into. Members asked for evidence that investments (for example, the GA program and motel placements) lead to durable housing outcomes; Kinak said peer-reviewed and program-level research shows non-congregate and individualized shelter plus housing navigation improve stability, but that Vermont needs better compiled and jurisdiction-level metrics.

On operational issues, senators raised the role of motel and hotel owners used by the GA program, concerns about service delivery and case-management backlogs in places that received disproportionate numbers of placements, and the need to ensure coordinated entry and state agencies (including Office of Economic Opportunity staff embedded in DCF) participate fully in the system. Kinak said those connections are uneven and often limited by staffing capacity.

Requested near-term actions

Kinak’s testimony included several specific requests the committee can act on or track: extend winter-weather protections through the end of the fiscal year to avoid abrupt shelter caps on April 1; stabilize funding for programs that provide housing navigation and landlord engagement; continue or increase capital funding to state housing finance and conservation entities to keep the production pipeline flowing; and adopt data-driven rules for program length-of-stay and capacity limits.

Ending

The committee said it would continue housing-focused hearings, including forthcoming sessions on housing production costs and financing. Kinak and other providers were invited to return for additional briefings and follow-up on data and the GA emergency housing task force recommendations.