WILLISTON, Vt. (WCAX) – Seven Vermont families now call the former Vermont State Police Barracks in Williston home. It’s one of two temporary family shelters the state set up at the start of November amid an outcry over reductions in the hotel-motel program over the summer. Reporter Ike Bendavid checked in with one of the families to see how they were settling in.
Robert Hudson and Jasmine Braley say they have been at the Waterbury family shelter for over three weeks.
“This is absolutely better than the hotel,” Braley said.
The recovering drug users were living in a state-funded hotel room but lost their room earlier this year, along with hundreds of others, when the state changed the eligibility rules. And with a baby on the way… “We were sleeping outside,” Hudson said.
The state opened two temporary shelters on November 1 in Williston and Waterbury. Both are full. The shelter at the former Williston Vermont State Police barracks has been converted into a shared living space with seven offices converted into bedrooms.
Hudson and Braley say their experience has been positive. “It’s a stepping stone, you know,” Braley said.
“To a better life for anybody struggling, maintaining sobriety, this is definitely helpful,” Husdon said. He said the state also provides other wrap-a-round services and counseling for them.
“With addiction and homelessness, that’s the last thing on our minds to go do. Even though we want a home and stuff, it’s easier when it’s in front of us and somebody helping you through it,” Braley said.
“I’d like to see more emergency shelters open up. I think that’s better than a hotel motel program,” Gov. Phil Scott said Wednesday.
Connecting services to clients is one of the reasons the Scott administration has championed the shelter program as a replacement for the hotel-motel program, which was dramatically scaled back over the summer and fall. And the state is ready to open more shelters, including at the former Loretto Home Rutland, but is still struggling to staff them.
“Our designated agencies don’t have enough people can’t find people and so that’s, again, a reflection, a result of demographics that continues to haunt us in so many different ways,” Scott said.
As for Hudson and Braley, they recommend anyone who wants to get back on their feet to try to get into these shelters but add that it requires focus and a desire to get better. “The biggest thing is you gotta want to do it. you can’t just come up here and think magically everything is going to be good, ‘cause you gotta want it,” Braley said.
Since the shelters were set up last month, state officials say at least four families have moved on to other housing options. The emergency shelters, which are run by an out-of-state firm, are expected to cost the state upwards of $3 million for the few months they are in operation.