Chittenden County Needs Shelter Beds

Read the full article at VTDigger.org. Here is an excerpt:

In Chittenden County, more than 800 individuals were counted as unhoused in a single night, according to point-in-time data conducted in January. In June, 266 people were sleeping “rough” — in tents or somewhere outside — according to data from the Chittenden County Homeless Alliance. Only 80 individuals were in similar conditions just two years ago.

As the number of people in need of temporary shelter continues to grow, the number of shelter beds — traditional beds or those provided through the state’s motel program — has not kept pace. Queen City officials have increasingly been sounding the alarm that they’re shouldering more that they can handle — and they’re asking neighboring municipalities for more support.

Out of the state’s 550 total number of traditional shelter beds, 223 are in Chittenden County, and of those, 183 operate year round, according to data from the Chittenden County Homeless Alliance, a coalition of individuals, organizations and government officials. All but 28 of Chittenden County’s traditional shelter beds are in Burlington.

In September, Paul Dragon, the head of the Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity, was approached about taking over operations at the Champlain Inn, a low-barrier shelter off of Shelburne Road in Burlington. ANEW Place, the nonprofit operating the shelter, had notified the state and the city that it could no longer manage.

CVOEO took over in October and soon began staffing the shelter 24/7, changing the operation to ensure guests were assigned rooms for six months at a time or longer.

A year and a half prior, a similar situation had played out in St. Albans, when CVOEO decided to take over operations at the Samaritan House on Kingman Street. The former organization there said it could no longer successfully operate the site.

The Champlain Inn was the third shelter that CVOEO had either started or taken over in three and a half years — not counting the group’s operation of the Holiday Inn during the pandemic. In November 2021, the organization started Burlington’s Community Resource Center, a low-barrier daytime warming shelter off of South Winooski Avenue, which now sees up to 180 people a day, the majority unsheltered.

Altogether, Dragon said about 80% of the people at the Community Resource Center have some form of disability or are elderly. Dragon said it speaks to the larger needs of society and who is falling through the cracks. But it also highlights the difficulty of the work for staff who are often not trained to work in a mental health facility or a facility for the aging.

“It’s extremely difficult for organizations to run and sustain shelters because they’re expensive, they’re really difficult work, and the funding doesn’t always match what the organizational needs are,” Dragon said.