AHS urges changes to homelessness bill, warns against shifting administration to OEO
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Summary
Agency of Human Services officials told the Senate Health & Welfare Committee that the homelessness response bill should be adjusted to clarify eligibility, remove a proposed Human Services Board authority and keep administrative functions and key staff at the department level rather than shift them to the Office of Economic Opportunity.
The Agency of Human Services told the Senate Health & Welfare Committee that a proposed homelessness bill that stays within the governor's $82,634,153 total should be reworked to improve clarity and implementation. AHS officials said the measure can strengthen shelter development, expand case management and create clearer pathways to permanent housing while warning that some sections as written are unworkable.
"We recommend removing this section entirely," Christian McClure, deputy secretary at the Agency of Human Services, told the committee when describing the bill's provisions that would create a new human services support authority. McClure said the section raises legal, programmatic and logistical concerns and that the agency has submitted a legislative report with recommendations to clarify the Human Services Board's role.
The agency walked the committee through the bill's allocations and how they have been "bucketed" across base and one-time funds. Presenters identified roughly $39.3 million for operations, about $44.4 million for shelter development, $23.9 million for emergency hotel-and-motel housing, $2.4 million for case management, $4.2 million for permanent supportive housing, and smaller line items for rental assistance, municipal support, cold-weather sheltering and staffing. A Joint Fiscal Office analyst cautioned that some figures in the charts are labeled differently and that the charts are intended to show how the bill's distributions compare with the governor's recommendation.
"Any money that's not spent in this fiscal year would be carried forward," the fiscal analyst said, describing language in the bill that would allow unspent appropriations for general assistance, emergency housing and the housing opportunity grant program to roll into fiscal year 2027.
AHS recommended three priority refinements. First, the agency asked the committee to strike the bill's proposed expansion of Human Services Board authority, arguing the provision would allow after-the-fact policy imposition and create uncertainty. Second, AHS urged replacing broad "prioritization" language with clearer eligibility criteria specifically for the hotel-and-motel program, while maintaining tailored approaches for specialized shelters such as family, recovery and medically vulnerable shelters. Third, the agency asked the committee to codify and sustain the state's emergency cold-weather shelter policy; AHS noted the state raised its threshold for openings this past winter and, in partnership with BIA Vermont Interfaith Action, opened six additional emergency shelter sites.
Officials also pressed the committee on administration and staffing. AHS said moving full program administration to the Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO) would be impractical given OEO's current infrastructure and that many implementation functions are DCF responsibilities. The agency asked that administrative oversight remain at the department level and that positions to manage eligibility and hotel/motel staffing be reinstated.
Committee members questioned how much of the program relies on one-time general fund dollars versus base funding and asked whether regional areas such as the Northeast Kingdom have sufficient services to support new shelter models. AHS responded that grant timelines and community partnerships will determine rollout pace and that the bill's intent is to fund locally identified needs through a grant process rather than instantly create large numbers of new beds.
AHS officials flagged a specific cut to permanent supportive housing that they said would prevent 13 families from accessing services under the current allocations. The agency also noted differences between how the House and the governor distributed funding even where the overall total tracks to the same bottom line, meaning some programs would receive more or less money depending on final language.
The committee did not take a formal vote on the bill during the hearing. The chair said the panel would take additional testimony, proceed quickly to markup and reconvened briefly, suggesting a seven-minute recess before continuing the agenda.
