Housing Crisis Gripping in Vermont:
To address the housing crisis gripping the State of Vermont, we propose a Vermont-sized solution that would rapidly increase affordable housing in Vermont by addressing serious systemic limitations to advancing housing solutions.
1. Subsidies to encourage building and renting Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs)
2. A Single Resident Occupancy (SRO) Voucher Program
3. A statewide framework for developing SROs
4. Expanded peer support and recovery coaching
5. An equity framework for funding affordable housing development
The problem
Vermont currently has a homelessness and affordable housing crisis. According to official counts, there are currently approximately 2,780 people experiencing homelessness in Vermont. These official counts are woefully inaccurate, counting only those people who are identifiable on a single day in the year, and we know there are many more Vermonters experiencing housing insecurity on any given day.
The bulk of the people we do know about are living in hotels and motels participating in the Vermont Agency of Human Services’ Transitional Housing Program (THP) and congregate shelter settings. Reports from street outreach staff around the state indicate there are likely at least several hundred additional people across Vermont experiencing homelessness who are unsheltered and sleeping rough outdoors in tents and vehicles.
Vermont currently has approximately 80,235 rental units. Of these, about 8,139 are subsidized to meet affordability standards. Currently, our vacancy rate is hovering near 2.5%,5 meaning there are around 3,450 available units at any given time, including both market rate units, and subsidized, affordable, units.
On paper, there appear to be enough units to house everyone currently experiencing homelessness in our state. But in practice, there are precious few vacant apartments available in any community in Vermont, and fierce competition for every unit. People experiencing homelessness typically have great difficulty accessing what little available housing does exist due to a perfect storm of insufficient or poor credit, lack of or poor landlord references, past criminal record, and low and unstable income.
This has led to very slow movement from congregate shelter settings and THP motels and hotels to permanent affordable housing for people experiencing homelessness in our state. So slow in fact, that it is very unreasonable to imagine the bulk of people currently in the THP finding housing before it ends in the spring of 2023.
We can’t build our way out fast enough
It would be tempting to try to build our way out of this predicament, and that is certainly part of the solution, but there are a host of confounding factors: supply chain issues, soaring materials costs, and a pronounced shortage of skilled tradespeople in the construction and engineering industries. Also, the majority of funding designated for the construction of affordable housing units is only available to affordable housing developers who have to work within a very exacting set of requirements which severely limits their ability to build at the scale and pace needed in Vermont.
Limitations of funding and zoning
Most municipalities in Vermont have density restrictions, height limitations, and other restrictions on building sizes, such as single-family versus multifamily. The funding used for affordable housing development projects requires a socio-economically diverse composition of residents to avoid concentrating too many vulnerable individuals with the same challenges in one place.
This means that a new apartment building will have a mix of “fair market value” apartments, units meant to provide some combination of subsidy either through tenant-based vouchers and/or project-based vouchers, and units designated for people experiencing homelessness. A Governor’s proclamation dictates that fifteen percent of units across all Vermont affordable housing developer’s portfolios shall be designated for people experiencing homelessness.
Finally, the mechanisms used to fund these affordable housing developments require that rigorous standards be met in terms of building code, energy efficiency, accessibility, “permanent affordability,” and other variables culminating in a cost of approximately $350,000 per new unit – and rising. In addition, affordable housing developers typically have to braid numerous funding sources together to fund any given project – each rife with myriad administrative hurdles.