Rep. Wood: H.91 replaces hotel/motel vouchers with a ‘major step forward’ to house Vermonters
April 14, 2025 | By Rep. Theresa WoodThe issue of homelessness is not new to Vermont, but the COVID-19 pandemic illuminated just how many people in Vermont lack the safety of having a roof over their heads.
The housing crisis and skyrocketing rental rates have only made the issue worse. According to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s 2024 Annual Homelessness Report, Vermont had the 4th-highest rate of homelessness in the country. Only Hawaii, New York and Oregon experienced higher rates.
In 2024, Vermont counted 3,458 unhoused individuals; 737 of those Vermonters were children under 18, and 646 were people over the age of 55. This is a significant change from the count prior to the COVID pandemic which showed 1,110 homeless individuals in Vermont.
How to address this issue has been a hot topic at the State House for the last five years. Ultimately, the need for more affordable housing and shelter beds is necessary. However, those solutions take time and even with those investments, the need outpaces the supply and will for the foreseeable future. How do we work towards the goal of unsheltered homelessness being eliminated? How do we work toward homelessness being rare, brief and nonrecurring?
The House Human Services Committee which I chair has created a real step forward that integrates emergency housing with the supportive services necessary for many individuals to have successful transitions to permanent, affordable housing.
The bill H.91, which has passed the House and is now being considered by the Senate Committee on Health and Welfare, creates the Vermont Homeless Emergency Assistance and Responsive Transition to Housing Program (V-HEARTH for short). This program is intended to replace what has become known as the “hotel/motel program,” which has never really been anything but vouchers paid to hotels on behalf of individuals who are homeless.
It uses existing resources but moves the management of those resources to Vermont’s five Community Action Agencies. These agencies will work with other community partners to not only provide emergency housing, but to integrate supportive services such as referrals to substance use treatment, mental health services, financial and job coaching, assistance with landlord-tenant relationships, etc. In essence, each household will participate in a needs assessment and have an individualized plan to achieve housing security.
This is a major step forward, without increasing the state’s current budget, to address a basic human need for shelter in a way that can maximize the possibility of preventing homelessness through earlier intervention, and to provide links to supportive services many people need if they do become homeless.
The bill still has several steps before it becomes law, including passage by the Senate, and it is unclear whether the governor will use his veto pen, even though indications were that this is the direction that his administration desired.
Rep. Theresa Wood, D-Waterbury, represents the Washington-Chittenden House district which covers Waterbury, Bolton, Huntington and Buels Gore. She chairs the House Human Services Committee. twood@leg.state.vt.us