A temporary homeless shelter operating out of a vacant state office building in downtown Burlington closed on Monday morning after a flurry of last-minute developments.

The state had opened the shelter on Cherry Street — and three others around the state — on March 15 as a way to accommodate hundreds of people who were being kicked out of a seasonal program that had housed them in motels.

The emergency shelters were only intended to stay open for a week, and last Friday, the state announced that the four locations would close. The decision came despite pleas from Burlington Mayor Miro Weinberger, who wanted the local shelter to stay open longer, given the city's already high levels of homelessness.

By Friday afternoon, with a snowstorm bearing down on Vermont, the state had reversed course, telling Weinberger's office that it planned to keep the shelter open through the weekend.



Around the same time and just down the street, Vermont Legal Aid attorneys were in Superior Court, waiting for a judge to decide whether the state had carried out the recent motel evictions legally.

The challenge centered around legislation that laid out new guidelines for Vermont’s seasonal motel program. The bill said people with a disability or certain health conditions could stay in the motels through June 30. But residents were told about the new rules only a few days before the March 15 evictions, leaving them little time to figure out whether they qualified.

The state should have kept people in the motels while it screened them for eligibility, the attorneys argued. Instead, they were kicked out, then offered cots at the hastily-conceived shelters.

Judge Helen Toor ultimately sided with the state, ruling that the recent change in law did not specifically mandate that the Vermont Department for Children and Families keep people in the motels during the screening process.
But she also lamented the “overly complicated bureaucratic and financial maze” that defines Vermont’s current approach to homelessness. The chaos created by the last-minute legislative changes "cannot be the best way to manage the problem," she wrote in her ruling.

It wasn't the most cost-effective way, either. Between March 15 and March 22, the state spent roughly $360,000 — or $45,000 a night — to staff the temporary shelters, according to the Agency of Human Services. (Vermont Public/VTDigger.org first reported that figure.) By comparison, the 458 households that were evicted from the motels could have stayed in them for a total of $36,500 a night.

In a statement, the Agency of Human Services called the comparison unfair.

"We had no idea how many people would show up at these shelters," the statement said. "We are glad they have not been heavily used. Most of those who did use them were not from the hotel/motel system."

As of Monday, 196 of the 458 households who lost vouchers earlier this month have been approved to reenter the program because of a health condition or disability. Those who don't qualify can still apply for nightly vouchers whenever the temperature dips below 20 degrees or snow is forecast over the next few weeks.

It was not until around 8 p.m. last Friday that the state confirmed that the Cherry Street shelter would remain open. City officials scrambled to get the word out, and even with the late notice, the shelter served a dozen people that night. The number grew to 26 on Saturday night and 38 on Sunday night.

At a city council meeting on Monday, Weinberger, who is entering his final days as Burlington’s mayor, said he welcomed the state's "11th-hour reversal." But he said the city could be in for another "difficult summer" if the state doesn't follow through on his administration's request for a new permanent shelter.

Burlington has already done far more than any other municipality in responding to homelessness, he said, but the city can't solve the problem on its own.

Officials from the Agency of Human Services say they have met with Weinberger’s successor, Emma Mulvaney-Stanak, and look forward to working with her administration on finding a location and provider for a new shelter.



One location that’s off the table: the Cherry Street building. A sale of the state-owned office building is pending, officials said, and it is therefore “no longer available for future use as a shelter.”