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Vermont advocates urge $2.3M winter-shelter extension and major housing investments in Budget Adjustment Act
Summary
Homelessness and affordable-housing advocates asked the House Appropriations Committee to add a $2.3 million extension of winter weather emergency shelter protections and to fund multiple housing programs including $30 million for VHCB and $2.8 million for Developmental Disability Housing Initiative projects.
Advocates for people experiencing homelessness pressed the House Appropriations Committee on Jan. 23 to extend winter weather emergency shelter protections through June 30 and to add one-time funding for housing production and supportive housing.
The appeals came during the committee's public hearing on the Budget Adjustment Act. Brenda Siegel, executive director of End Homelessness Vermont, told the committee the organization saw seven deaths in a single week last November and multiple hospitalizations with hypothermia after earlier budget-driven limits on shelter. “We cannot let what happened last fall happen again,” Siegel said, asking the committee to appropriate $2,300,000 to extend the winter weather program, which she described as an immediate life-safety intervention.
The request for $2.3 million was echoed by Frank Knack, executive director of…
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