This story, by Report for America corps member Carly Berlin, was produced through a partnership between VTDigger and Vermont Public.
As two state-run shelters for families experiencing homelessness opened their doors on Friday, staff rushed to finish work on the temporary accommodations.
The two sites are in state-owned buildings about a 20-minute drive apart in northern Vermont: the former state police barracks in Williston, and the former National Guard armory in Waterbury.
The Williston site, located along Route 2A near a bus route, has space to accommodate seven families. By Friday morning, individual rooms — each with multiple cots and several with cribs — had been set up.
“We’re expecting some smaller children,” said Amanda Wheeler, press secretary for Gov. Phil Scott, on a tour of the shelter.
The state’s decision to open the family shelters comes on the heels of a mass wave of evictions from Vermont’s motel voucher program that began in mid-September, after new restrictions on the program imposed by lawmakers earlier this year kicked in.
As of Oct. 28, nearly 1,400 people had exhausted their motel vouchers this fall — including 343 children.
Restrictions on the motel program will be loosened during the winter months. But facing a severe housing shortage and maxed-out shelter capacity, many people leaving the emergency housing program have ended up in unstable accommodations.
At the Williston shelter, each room will have its own lock, affording families privacy and a place to securely store their belongings. A large common space is filled by rows of tables, where employees from the Agency of Human Services will be onsite daily to help connect people to a range of resources, like food support and employment help. A play area is set up in one corner, full of toys, many donated by the town, Wheeler said.
Shelter guests will also have access to a kitchen, currently stocked with food donations. They’ll be able to store their own food there and cook, too.
The shelter has common bathrooms with showers, Wheeler said, along with laundry.
While there won’t be onsite security, staff will be at the shelter around the clock, said Wheeler. She noted that the new Vermont State Police barracks is just down the road.
“It’s not an open door,” said Monica Hutt, Vermont’s chief prevention officer, on Friday’s tour. “Families will have access to the front door if they are staying here, but nobody else will.”
The shelters won’t have walk-in access — instead, families will need to go through an intake process with the state in order to secure a spot.
The Department for Children and Families, which initially provided an incorrect intake number earlier this week, said families seeking access to the shelter can call 802-798-9597 for the Waterbury location, and 802-760-0159 for Williston.
Officials expect at least one family to arrive at the Williston shelter today, with more “intaking through the weekend,” Hutt said.
On Friday morning, the Waterbury Armory appeared to be more of a work in progress. Somewhat removed from downtown, tucked against Interstate 89 at the end of an access road, state employees filed in and out of the building on Friday morning but did not allow a reporter and photographer inside to view the arrangements.
“That shelter had some more work to be done to it this morning so we opted to use the Williston facility for tours because it was substantially more complete and did not want to disrupt work or delay the opening in Waterbury to make sure families have a place to go this evening,” Wheeler wrote in a text message on Friday afternoon.
In a subsequent phone interview, Kristin McClure, interim deputy secretary at the Agency of Human Services, said that private rooms have been built into the large interior space of the armory with “large partitions.” Those walls don’t reach the ceiling, she said, but the spaces will still provide privacy and will have locking doors.
Similar to Williston, the Waterbury shelter will have showers and laundry available. The building has a large industrial kitchen, making it more difficult for individual families to cook, so breakfast and dinner will be provided, McClure said.
The shelters will be primarily staffed by state employees, with assistance from contracted workers, officials said. McClure confirmed Friday that the contractor is IEM, a North Carolina-based emergency management company. According to its website, IEM provides management and support for mass shelter operations, with a particular focus on asylum seekers and disaster victims.
The state plans to operate the Williston and Waterbury shelters through the winter, until April 1. An additional family shelter location is in the works for Montpelier, though officials have not yet decided on a building to use there, DCF Commissioner Chris Winters said in a Tuesday interview.
Have questions, comments or tips? Send us a message.
_
