Vermont cities and towns urgently need the state's help in handling their growing homeless populations, and the problem can’t wait until the next state budget cycle is complete, leaders from five municipalities said at a press conference in Montpelier on Wednesday. Officials from Winooski, Rutland, Montpelier, Barre, and Brattleboro issued their demands directly to the Scott administration, the legislature and the judiciary. They gathered on Wednesday to speak with reporters amid planned reductions this month in the state’s motel program, which has housed thousands of homeless people for the last several years. “We are calling on state government, all three branches, to take immediate charge of this situation and assume their legal responsibilities for this population in need,” Rutland Mayor Mike Doenges said. He noted that Vermont has agencies in place that are charged with helping vulnerable residents, and the state owns vacant buildings, land and other sites that can be used for temporary housing. He demanded that the state set up encampments with bathrooms, showers, trash disposal, supervision and support, and that prosecutors, courts and police work together to curb behavior that’s causing public safety problems. [content-7] “All of these resources need to be brought to bear now,” Doenges said. Without help, he said, cities and towns that are already overwhelmed just won’t have any means to help people who are living outside. “All of the municipalities here would give the shirts off their backs to help those in their communities,” Doenges said. “The problem is, we have run out of shirts and have nothing left of our resources to give.” Vermont’s motel housing program was created in the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic to help keep people out of congregate shelters. In the years since, the state has paid millions of dollars to motel owners to continue the program while searching for other, less expensive solutions. [content-1] A critical housing shortage is contributing, with the result that Vermont is regularly singled out as the state with the highest rate of homelessness in the nation. According to a report last month from the Vermont State Housing Authority, there were 3,458 Vermonters living without homes on a single day this year, including more than 700 children. More than a third of them had not had a home in a year or more, the report said. Earlier this year, under pressure to save money, lawmakers reduced the capacity of…