This commentary is by Beth Ann Maier of Waterbury. She is a retired pediatrician, a deacon in the Episcopal Church and a member of Vermont Interfaith Action.Housing availability in Vermont is similar to a game of musical chairs. If there are 10 chairs and 10 players, everyone gets a chair. If you ta ke one chair away, everyone scrambles to get a seat. The person left without a seat is most likely to be the one who must navigate life with challenges.For some, it may be difficulty with mobility, breathing or frailty; others may have children in tow; others may be so confused, traumatized or depressed that it takes them longer to manage an effective strategy when competing to get a place.For at least three decades, Vermont has failed to develop the amount of affordable housing needed for everyone to have a place. Is it right that the burden of our failed planning should fall on the backs of those least equipped to deal with being unsheltered? The number of individuals in Vermont without a place to call home has tripled in five years. The goal of returning to our pre-Covid-19 world concerning homelessness is a false goal. They can’t go back to Grandma’s; she had to sell her house. They can’t go back to Mom’s; she’s moved in with Auntie.All the variables have changed, but the starkest difference is the rise in rents compared to incomes. Who is homeless now? People whose work doesn’t pay enough to cover the sky-high increases in rent; people who require elder and disability care in care homes that have closed due to inadequate funding of staff; people who need a supportive home for recovery and emotional stability; people who fell off an economic cliff when they became ill and missed too much work.Many are people who have grown up, worked and paid taxes in Vermont. These are people who lost housing. That should not cause them to lose their status as fellow Vermonters and beloved neighbors.Gov. Phil Scott has vetoed the budget adjustment bill even though state revenues are predicted to bring in close to $250 million more than when the budget was established earlier this year.Gov. Scott says in his veto letter: “Expanding the free ‘hotel/motel program,’ moves us backwards, reversing important progress made towards reforming this failed program.” A reformed program would be to make changes leading to improvement, not doing away with it without any replacement. The House has passed the budget adjustment bill a second time, cutting over $14 million of spending, but retaining the hotel shelter voucher extension for eligible Vermonters till the beginning of the next budget year, July 1, using existing funds.Gov. Scott has again threatened to veto this bill on the grounds that he feels he received a clear mandate from voters in November who demanded fiscal responsibility and wanted the state to be more affordable. Without the extension, about 1400 households (including over 400 children) who have been sheltering in hotels will begin losing that shelter as they reach their 80 days of eligibility. For many, that will mean leaving on April 1 with nowhere to go. All of the community-based shelters in Vermont have been operating at full capacity. For all its faults, hotel shelter has provided a warm, private and relatively safe space for households with children, elderly Vermonters, those with medical needs and those fleeing domestic abuse.The failure is that the administration has had five years to establish a “program” that connects those in hotel shelter with resources and a path to housing stability. They have not done that. The failure is that there has been no housing available for people to enter upon leaving hotel shelter. When the administration has attempted to provide shelter, it has been done at the very last minute, in exorbitantly expensive ways.The governor often refers to the need for “fiscal responsibility.” His veto letter stated: “We know this approach (hotel shelter) is far too expensive and fails our constituents, communities and taxpayers.”What happens when people become unsheltered? They lose the ability to keep warm, eat healthily, sleep restfully and take care of their medical needs. All of their time and energy is spent on survival. They can no longer coordinate with housing case managers. They can’t get up in the morning, shower and go to work. Their mental and physical health deteriorate.A night in a hotel costs $80. A night in a hospital costs $3079. Where is the fiscal responsibility in that? Unsheltered children need many more services from their schools to show up in the classroom ready to learn. Ask any town manager about the cost of emergency services to care for people living without shelter. Again — where is the fiscal responsibility in that? And what does this do to our hearts as community members?What are we doing? We can’t just walk by and do nothing. We are all less healthy, a little sicker, a little less able to thrive. This is not how Vermonters treat Vermonters. We must provide safe and humane shelter for our neighbors, as well as the resources that offer a pathway to permanent housing and stability. Read the story on VTDigger here: Beth Ann Maier: What are we doing, Vermont?. ...read more read less