“What was a bad situation is becoming a terrible situation.” 

That’s the summation by Susan Whitmore, executive direction of John Graham Housing Services, of Vermont’s worsening homelessness crisis as reported in two stories in today’s Addison Independent by Middlebury College intern Ian Curry. 

The thrust of the reporting shows the stark comparison between the number of Vermonters who are without shelter compared to housing that’s available to them: According to the 2025 State of Homelessness Report released last month, there were at least 4,588 unhoused individuals, and of the 2,914 unhoused households, the state’s homeless shelters could accommodate only 602. 

The crisis hinges on the scarcity of affordable housing in Vermont, which has recently been exacerbated by a million-dollar cut in federal funding for the Vermont State Housing Authority, courtesy of Trump’s “one big, beautiful bill.” That reduction in federal funding forced VSHA to cut 12% of the existing housing vouchers that helped subsidize housing for those Vermonters who didn’t earn enough to afford existing rents.

To cut state spending in what he called his “affordability agenda,” Vermont Gov. Phil Scott issued an executive order that, effective July 1, 2025, cut the funding of an initiative known as the Hotel-Motel Program, which allowed homeless people with children and debilitating medical conditions to stay in a motel room for up to 80 days a year. Those cuts kicked 800 individuals, including 300 children, out of the program and in search of housing.

Other troubling facts from the report showed: 

• overall, there’s been a 200% increase in homelessness since 2020; 

• the number of people who have no access to any kind of shelter is up 62% since 2024;

• the increase in seniors without shelter is up 8% since 2024;

• and, since 2024, there’s a 59% increase in substance abuse and a 27% increase of mental illness among those who are homeless.

In short, Whitmore says, “low-income and moderate-income families can’t keep up. That to me shows a failure of the system in Vermont.”

The report agrees, stating: “This crisis is not the result of chance — it is the predictable outcome of decades of policy choices that have neglected the dire need for sufficient investments in permanently affordable housing development and our state’s homelessness prevention and response system.”

The two stories in today’s Independent not only detail the state of homelessness but provide a personal glimpse into the difficulties of dealing with the system. Bryan Plant II of Bristol explains his journey to find shelter and how trying the process can be.

The primary takeaway from the reporting is that homelessness is a problem that is likely to get worse in the near future. We all know the answer is to build more affordable housing, but finding ways to build affordably is the challenge. The answer is two-fold: first, don’t accept the status quo as sufficient, and secondly, as Plant says, is to engage in “some out-of-the-box thinking.” One avenue is encouraging towns that have the need to invest in their own futures through newly conceived tax-increment-financing tools. Waiting for others to solve the homelessness problem Middlebury and other communities are facing is continued folly.

Angelo Lynn