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Advocates urge House committee to keep appeal rights and strengthen rental bridge in H.938
Summary
Advocates and providers told the House Health & Welfare committee that H.938 offers a pivotal statewide homelessness response but must preserve administrative appeals, protect disability rights, and include sufficient funding and flexible timelines for a bridge rental assistance program.
Vermont advocates and housing providers urged the House Health & Welfare committee on April 15 to preserve administrative appeal protections and expand a proposed state-funded bridge rental assistance program in H.938, a bill to create a coordinated statewide homelessness response.
Diana Hartog, a poverty law fellow with Vermont Legal Aid, said the bill as written would be a step forward but warned that removing section 22.15 — the statute’s appeals provision — would strip due-process protections. "If the household is terminated improperly, they end up back on the street before the appeal is resolved," Hartog said, urging the committee to keep language that allows households to remain housed while appeals proceed.
Elizabeth Bateman, managing director of housing program administration at the state housing agency, laid out how a state Bridge rental-assistance…
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