Organizations work to raise money for
Vermont’s 927 homeless people
By Kaitlyn Couillard, Staff Writer
He never really cared much for high school. After being constantly picked on at his first school, he transferred to another. He made friends, but did not make it to class. After several absences, he was expelled.
He lived at home with his mother and his stepfather. The majority of nights were filled with screaming and police officers continually knocking on their door.
He moved out.
He was in foster care when he was younger. He lived in a motel with friends until they lost their jobs. On occasion, he stayed at Spectrum Drop-In center.
He is the face of a former homeless youth. He asked that his name be withheld.
He is now 17 years old, living in an apartment with his girlfriend and friends. He often stops by Spectrum, catching up with old friends and meeting new people. He has his life to together now, he said.
“I learned that it’s not all about partying. It’s about working hard and finding a warm place to live.”
The struggle, however, continues past youth for many. Vermont has 927 homeless people.
Fifteen percent of Vermont’s population is homeless, and 24 percent of them are not living in shelters, according to a 2005 study conducted by the National Alliance to End Homelessness. Although this is small compared to the estimated national average of 744,000, programs across the state are working towards further reduction.
There are several levels of alleviating homelessness. Emergency shelters such as the Committee on Temporary Shelter, the Burlington Emergency Shelter and Spectrum are for those seeking immediate care. There they are given a bed, food and various forms of counseling.
Executive Director of Spectrum Youth and Family Services Mark Redmond is striving to provide more than temporary care. He is pushing for Gov. Jim Douglas to extend the age for those in foster care up to 22. Funding is an obstacle.
“If you house a dog in a kennel it’s around $30 a day, while foster parents are only receiving around $20 a day,” Redmond said.
Many children come out of foster care and have nowhere to live, Redmond said. Spectrum provides transitional housing, but Redmond said there is a lack of such housing in Vermont.
Redmond also wants funding for education. Vermont does not pay the tuition for a foster care youth who has been accepted by a state university. Vermont has Emily’s Law, which gives foster care youth $1,000. This is roughly a little more than the average college student spends on books in one year.
“The plan is to help them to become self-sufficient, not just to give them a warm place to live,” Redmond said.
Programs such as Spectrum, in collaboration with the Vermont Housing Finance Assistance, attempt to provide a smooth transition from emergency care to independent living. Because VHFA targets people within the 60 percent range of the median income, not all are eligible. For those who are, they must spend 30 percent of their income on housing. There are roughly 6,000 participants and many more waiting, according to Maura Collins, VHFA’s policy and planning coordinator.
The process usually takes three to four years, Collins said. Developers, both nonprofit and private, formulate a plan and request financing from VHFA. The company provides several forms of low interest loans. In addition to emergency shelters, they work with the Howard Center, Recycle North, the Lund Family Center and the Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity.
“Our role is more to help them know what resources are available and to connect them to the resources and act as a technical assistance,” Collins said.
VHFA has 11,780 subsidized units on roughly 490 different properties, she said.
“It’s had a tremendous impact considering we have almost 12,000 units and 70,850 apartments in the state. That’s about 17 percent of the state’s housing stock that is subsidized,” she said.
The increase in property taxes and the stagnant minimum wage are not helping, Collins said.
“We’re working fast and furious, but we’re still not close to meeting the need out there,” she said.
On Nov. 29, 2006, the state asked shelter and service providers for their homeless count on that particular day. The number, 317, only included state sponsored shelters and not the hundreds on the street. Of that 317 people, 35 percent were 17 or younger.
Because homelessness costs the state money, VHFA argues that it is cost-effective to end chronic homelessness.
“Say you have a toothache and it starts to hurt really bad and you let it go, and then your tooth cracks in half and then your gums start to bleed and you get an infection. The problem is three times as bad,” Collins said. “Where as if you lived in supported housing you would have someone who would set you up with a dental clinic right away so things don’t get out of control. Solving a toothache is much cheaper for the state then having to deal with a cracked tooth and a bad infection.”
Prison and mental illness are also costly.
“It costs about the same or less to provide permanent supportive housing as it did for people with serious mental illness to remain homeless,” according to the National Alliance to end Homelessness Web site.
Sophomore Kelsey Soderblom, a volunteer at St. John’s Hall, said she thinks that supported housing is necessary.
“It’s a definite start. It gives a structure to start and gives goals to get there. It’s almost a light as the end of a tunnel and shows a way to get there, and I think that’s what people need. I think that middle ground is something that’s essential,” said Soderblom.
Contact Kaitlyn Couillard at kcouillard@smcvt.edu
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