The low-barrier homeless shelter at Burlington's former Champlain Inn will have new management this fall.

On October 2, the Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity will take the reins from ANEW Place, the nonprofit that has owned and operated the Shelburne Road shelter for the past four years. The Champlain Housing Trust will assume ownership of the building and manage the property.

The shelter model is shifting, too. It will be staffed 24-7, instead of just overnight. And in place of the drop-in system used now — where people line up for a bed but aren't guaranteed one, and must share a room with others — guests will be assigned their own room for six months at a time or longer.



The change means the shelter will serve about 35 people around the clock, instead of the 50 to 70 people who can now sleep there each night. The guests will receive social services — such as financial counseling and renter workshops — that aren't offered now. With the help of a caseworker, they'll also be expected to seek out stable housing and employment during their stay, CVOEO executive director Paul Dragon said.

"The goal here is to do intensive, wraparound work to move them on and make that bed available for the next person," he said.
CVOEO was the shelter's first-ever operator when it opened as a pilot program in 2014, then only seasonally. Three other nonprofits have helmed the program since, including ANEW Place, which took over in 2019. At the time, the shelter was located in the basement of a building on South Winooski Avenue.

When the pandemic hit in 2020, guests were moved into RVs and tents at North Beach Campground until that winter, when ANEW Place purchased the former inn using $2.5 million in federal coronavirus funds. The shelter began operating year-round.

But the nonprofit struggled to fill shifts. When ANEW Place announced in May that it would be stepping away, former executive director Joe Domko told Seven Days that the shelter's clients — who don't have to be sober and often struggle with mental health issues — are "the toughest folks to serve in a meaningful way." He suggested a larger organization would be better suited to run the shelter.

CVOEO seems to fit the bill. The nonprofit runs a similar program in St. Albans called Samaritan House and operates Feeding Chittenden, a food shelf and hot meals service that already delivers dinners to the Champlain Inn. It also manages Burlington's Community Resource Center, a daytime warming shelter at Feeding Chittenden headquarters on North Winooski Avenue.

The housing trust has experience running transitional housing programs, too, including the city's "shelter pod" village on Elmwood Avenue.
At the Champlain Inn, the housing trust will install a sprinkler system, new floors and heat pumps in each room, along with a fence out front to give guests privacy.

"This really was just a nice way for us to team up together and make sure that this resource survives," the trust's chief operating officer, Amy Demetrowitz, said. "It's a really critical resource."

Mary Beth Pinard, vice chair of the ANEW Place board of directors, wasn't available for an interview but said in a statement that the organization is confident the two nonprofits "will work together to ensure that essential shelter services will continue to be provided at the Champlain Inn."
Mayor Miro Weinberger lauded the arrangement, calling the housing trust and CVOEO "trusted partners" who will offer a "public health approach to homelessness."

He also said the county needs more shelter capacity. The Burlington area has seen an influx of people living outdoors post-pandemic, a trend that worsened after the state evicted hundreds of people from motels this summer. Weinberger had proposed opening a shelter at a state office building downtown, but officials rejected the idea.

Samantha Sheehan, Weinberger's communications director, said the need for an additional low-barrier shelter "has only become more urgent since then." In a statement on Friday, Weinberger called on the state to do more.

"While this next step at the Champlain Inn represents progress, the State’s cold weather shelter program will need to be very robust this coming winter to avoid tragedy given the current and unacceptable number of Vermonters living without shelter,” he said.

Dragon also acknowledged the need for walk-in shelters but said CVOEO isn't equipped to run one at the Champlain Inn, particularly on short notice. He said rooms will first go to people who are living outside.



Dragon is hopeful that the shelter's latest iteration will help some of Burlington's most vulnerable people.

"We're trying to build a community," he said. "We're trying to get people on their feet."