Completely disagree with you. There are limits to who can enter the emergency housing program and you can’t simply walk into the state and get housed the next day. If there even is an appeal to the emergent housing program for homeless individuals in other states, the reality hits the second they arrive here and realize they can’t get housed.

~ someone who works with the homeless population

Ew, meth is better

I really can’t wrap my head around the need for yelling slurs and harassment for sports. I didn’t grow up in a sports family, so I just view sports as a game. It’s for funsies, to have a good time. It ain’t that serious!! Good on these students.

Agree with you. I work with homeless populations and can tell you that this data absolutely tracks with my lived experience. And for all the people saying the HUD count is inaccurate (which it is), that likely points to the real homeless population being even larger than the count suggests it is - NOT smaller. This is a major problem that folks need to wake up to. Everyone working in my field has been living in a state of crisis for the last year + and I’m glad to see VT Digger acknowledging the problem as it really is.

I didn't know black people existed up north tbh, I figured white people were trapped there

The biggest slam against them has been the dragging of feet, causing significant delays in getting licenses for growers and retail stores.

Walmart in Claremont and Littleton also got bomb threats.

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Vermont doesn't have cities like other states do. And better housing needs to be a statewide issue, not just foisted on Burlington, Rutland, Bennington, etc.

Even an EMP would still be regional, it takes careful placement to cover an area as large as the CONUS. Any entity that wanted to do so would realistically need at least 2 and 3 would be best if they wanted to to hit the entire country at low altitudes.

Unlike what you may have learned in econ 101, the "free market" doesn't exist. Instead the market is unpredictable and tends to favor the rich. They just wave that off as externalities, but ultimately durable goods markets behave differently than widget markets.

A couple of my cousins went to rice about 20-25 yrs ago and as a kid, I remember wearing stereotypical clothing as a means to show school spirit when I attended one of my cousins games. Cringe.

Hundreds of houses in the STR market is not a drop in the bucket here.

Also we could seriously go for more density in the villages and downtowns. Most of them have a few mixed use "Block" buildings already and they could probably use a few more.

Yeah, no kidding! It's all over the place. From $6/gram to $500+/ounce. I obviously understand differences in strains/suppliers, etc, but it's wild the market supports $70/eights

Tax the crap out of them, for sure.

But given how much of a housing crisis exists right now, I wonder if it makes sense to enact a 1-2 year ban on AirBnB rentals in the state as a temporary emergency measure, then figure out a taxation scheme as a long-term disincentive. Folks who want to buy starter homes or rent in the state need relief now, and unfortunately the STR slumlords causing this problem already benefit from a number of tax loopholes, so I'm not fully confident it will fix the crisis. Surely not until next tax season, when the tax bill comes due.

To this day, I don’t understand the reason for such disdain towards less fortunate people.

I'm not familiar with the program you mention from the 90s, but will check it out.

Otherwise, we seem to be on the same page. Yes, we need federal funding/support but of course the action part of it happens locally.

Can VTers ever just accept that there is something, anything, wrong with the state without trying to distract from the issue? This comment is basically “yeah there’s a homeless problem but look at other states”.

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Thanks for the response. The article didn't include info about past years, so it wasn't clear to me if it was an anomaly or not. And if it was a significant difference from before the pandemic then I'd suggest housing the homeless is a really great way to keep track of the problem .

I also want to make it clear that I'm not trying to minimize the scope of the problem. Even if Vermont were 43rd instead of 3rd, 2000 people homeless is 2000 too many.

I mean did SBHS think they could keep being the rebels forever? They had a rebel soldier on their basketball court a couple decades ago. Like ew. Not sure if it’s there now but I bet no. Same with rice as the little Indians. Green Knights sounds better anyways.

Regardless of the intent, it will not take the aithorities long to find the device or devices used to make the calls.

Oh absolutely. Most folks do try to stay closer to where they may have family, friends, any sort of network for as long as possible, and often come back if they need to go somewhere warmer for the winter. People in general tend to also prefer to be in places they are familiar with.

That said, about half of the homeless population in our country lives in 3 places, California, New York, and Florida. The majority of those folks are not from those places originally. They migrate there because of the weather or available help/community.

While it is true that most folks TRY to stay where they have a network, they also tend to eventually burn bridges and use up available resources and they wind up moving on. Others, like yourself, stay put and eventually lift themselves out of it. I also think a lot of folks underestimate the way homeless folks utilize trains and busses to get around the country. I even met a dude from Bennington while doing outreach in Santa Monica on that cliff where everyone camps. He told me his family stopped offering any help (shelter) after a while so he made his way out there to embrace living the rest of his days on the beach (this is what he told me).

If you want to drop a link to the org your work with in central VT, I would love to donate and volunteer myself. I have done homeless outreach in NY, FL, and Los Angeles and would love to get involved here.

I like this take on things. Thank you smooth

> this is a national issue and we need to discuss it and address it as such.

Well yes and no. You are right in that it is a nation-wide problem and needs national scale resources to get solved. Id prob agree that some work at and reform at the federal level desperately needs to happen too. The solutions are going to have to come from as close to the local level as possible though imo.

I have to wonder what happened to those building trades hs projects of the 90's and before? Did those programs stop? I hate to even mention it because it reeks of exploitation but has anyone considered bringing back the 'poor farms' of yester-year? These are solutions that can only come from local action backed by federal funding.