Moving Towards Home: Strategies for Ending Homelessness in Ten Years
City of Burlington, Vermont
February 2004

People are homeless because the "safety net" or other part of the "mainstream system" has failed.

There are a variety of public social support systems - such as TANF / Reach Up, Food Stamps, fuel assistance, Supplemental Security Income, Veterans Benefits - which are supposed to serve as a "safety net." There are other public systems - the criminal justice system, the child welfare system (foster care) - which assume temporary care and custody for some people. If clients or wards of these mainstream public programs end up homeless, the programs do not have good outcomes.[40]

• Vermont is one of only three states in the country where youth must exit foster care at age 18.
• Around 75% of the youth seeking shelter and basic services at Spectrum Family & Youth Services are former clients/wards of the Vermont Department of Social & Rehabilitative Services.
• The largest age group among Vermont's corrections population is age 19-23. Over 90% of those youth are high school dropouts.[42]
• Discharge planning for those exiting the state corrections system is inconsistent and often does not provide realistic means of shelter and support in the short- or long-term.
• Every year the Dept. of Corrections releases hundreds of inmates into Chittenden County without a plan for securing housing and support services that is effectively implemented - placing additional strains on existing resources for the homeless.

Mainstream programs are publicly funded. Generally speaking, these programs, while large in terms of their scope and budgets, are overenrolled and underfunded relative to their responsibilities.[42] Limitations in capacity, eligibility restrictions, high costs, and constraints on accessibility are barriers to serving those in need.

• The corrections population in Vermont has gone from 408 in 1975 to just under 2,000 in 2003.[43] That's consistent with national trends - the U.S. incarceration rate has more than quadrupled since 1972.[44] The number of jail beds continues to increase even though crime is declining.[45]
• In Chittenden County in 2002, around 44,000 people received services from the Vermont Agency of Human Services. Statewide, around 42% of Vermont's population received AHS services.[46]
• In Chittenden County, many mainstream and related social services are available principally in Burlington - but public transportation to and from other areas of the County is often limited, making the services difficult to access unless you live in the City.
• The AHS budget for services in FY 2004 is over $1.2 billion, with around three quarters of that funding coming from federal and other non-state sources.[47]

By comparison, the homeless system is not large or well-funded.

• The state's largest homeless provider, the Committee on Temporary Shelter, has an annual budget of around $1.8 million.
• Federal funding for local homeless programs under HUD's Continuum of Care program has fallen from $1.6 million in 1996 to $919,679 last year.
• In Burlington, money for caring for the homeless depends in large part on private donations. While those donations demonstrate our citizens' compassion, they are an uncertain funding source for such basic (and often life and death) services.

The homeless system can meet immediate needs, but it cannot prevent people from becoming homeless, and it cannot address their fundamental need for housing, income and services. These are issues that mainstream public systems must address.

Page last updated March 5, 2004