State to keep family shelters in Waterbury, Williston open longer
April 2, 2025 | By Carly Berlin | VTDiggerState officials plan to extend two shelters for families experiencing homelessness in Williston and Waterbury that had been slated to close down next week, on April 1.
For families to have private space, rooms were constructed inside the Waterbury armory's main open space. Photo by Gordon Miller. (Scroll down for more images from the Waterbury facility.)
Chris Winters, the commissioner of the Department for Children and Families, said in a Wednesday interview that state officials want to avoid disrupting the school year for children.
“We don’t know for sure if folks have other options, but even if they do, you know, that might require them to move,” Winters said. “The concern there is that kids not be uprooted and potentially not stay in school through the end of the year.”
The Waterbury shelter, located at the former National Guard armory, will remain open until June 13. The state is extending a contract with North Carolina-based IEM International, Inc. to continue operating the shelter until then, Winters said. While the shelter will shut down during the warmer months, the state is interested in using the space as a winter weather shelter again.
“We’re in conversation with both the town and a potential service provider to continue the operation of it next year during the cold weather months,” Winters added.
IEM will continue to operate the family shelter at the former state police barracks in Williston until mid-May, Winters said. At that point, the Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity will take over the shelter.
The anti-poverty nonprofit will operate out of the Williston space for a few months as it develops a new family shelter location in the Burlington area. The transition to a new location is anticipated to happen by December, Winters said.
The new shelter would accommodate eight or nine families, according to Paul Dragon, executive director of CVOEO.
“The goal is to move them on as quickly as possible to permanent housing,” Dragon said.
State officials opened the two shelters in November, during a wave of evictions from Vermont’s motel voucher program last fall. New time restrictions on motel stays — paired with a lack of family shelter capacity statewide — resulted in some unhoused families pitching tents.
Without immediate legislative action, those restrictions, which were relaxed for the winter months, will kick back in on April 1. Democratic leadership in the Legislature and Republican Gov. Phil Scott are currently locked in a political battle over whether to grant a three-month extension for people currently sheltered in motels. If the two sides cannot come to an agreement on Friday, a new round of evictions for people with motel vouchers will begin on Tuesday and continue through the spring.
A room inside the family shelter at the former Vermont State Police barracks in Williston, Nov. 1, 2024. Photo by Glenn Russell/VTDigger
Since November, the Williston and Waterbury shelters have served 36 families, according to Winters. Twenty families have since moved onto other arrangements. Eight families have gone to live with relatives, and five have found permanent housing, Winters said. Two families have moved out of state. Three were granted access to the motel voucher program when a primary care provider noted a health condition that made living in the “semi-congregate” family shelter untenable. One family decided to pay for their own hotel room, and another moved into a program with Lund.
State employees have offered housing and employment resources onsite at the two shelters. While the sample size is small, Winters noted, he argued that the wraparound services there helped shelter guests get connected to the resources they needed more quickly than the motel voucher program.
“While it costs more, you really do get better results with this form of shelter versus the hotel-motel program,” Winters said.
Operating the two shelters ultimately cost $2.9 million to operate between November and March — about what state officials had anticipated at the outset. The funding has come out of DCF’s budget. The department hopes to use the shelters as a model for future shelters that keep specific populations together, such as veterans or people in recovery, Winters said.
The state ultimately ditched plans for a third family shelter in Montpelier last fall due to cost constraints and the inability to find a local service provider, Winters said.
own leaders in both Waterbury and Williston said the shelter operation has gone smoothly.
“I have not received one single complaint about anything related to the shelter — anything related to the operator, anything public-safety related,” said Tom Leitz, Waterbury’s municipal manager. “It has been quiet as a mouse.”
Inside the Waterbury armory family shelter | November 2024
Ahead of the temporary family shelter’s opening at the Waterbury armory in November, state staff gave Waterbury Roundabout reporters a tour of the facility, highlighting the renovations made to accommodate families with young children. Photos by Gordon Miller
