BURLINGTON, Vt. (WCAX) – So far, few people have used the temporary emergency homeless shelters the state opened as Vermont’s seasonal hotel voucher program ended.
Four locations were opened in Vermont to provide temporary shelter to about 500 households that lost hotel rooms when the adverse weather voucher program ended on Friday.
Here’s a breakdown of the number of people who used the shelters for each night since they have been open:
Burlington: Friday-3, Saturday-7, Sunday-10
Rutland: Friday-2, Saturday-2, Sunday-3
Berlin: Friday-0, Saturday-1, Sunday-0
Brattleboro: Friday-0, Saturday-0, Sunday-0
Burlington had the most use with 10 people Sunday night. Rutland had three people Sunday night. And Berlin and Brattleboro were both open with no one at those shelters Sunday night, and a combined one person for the whole weekend.
These are very low numbers after the state said about 500 people were getting kicked out of the hotels on Friday.
I learned Monday that about 100 people were able to get a waiver to get back into a hotel room, but state officials say it’s unclear where other displaced people ended up.
“Hopefully, what this means is that people knew that adverse weather was ending on Friday and were making plans and did have other alternatives to take advantage of,” said Chris Winters, the commissioner of the Vermont Department for Children and Families.
The governor said more needs to be done to bring more housing to the state.
“I am concerned that we haven’t seen either bill pass– any bill pass the House or Senate at this point in time– should be a priority. If it’s a crisis, we should treat it like one,” said Gov. Phil Scott, R-Vermont.
There’s no word from DCF on what it is costing to run the shelter program which is only expected to last a few more days.
There are still well over 1,000 people living in hotels under the pandemic-era program. Those are families with children, elderly and disabled people, and people with medical conditions. Funding for those rooms lasts through June 30 unless the Legislature takes action to extend the program.
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