Vermont’s housing and homelessness crisis is the result of multiple factors, including a lack of sufficient permanently affordable housing units, skyrocketing housing and constructions costs, more people moving to Vermont, increasing short term rentals, a failure to ensure a living wage, a failure to provide adequate mental health and substance use services (and continuing to criminalize people who use drugs), and more. While we urge the Legislature to make the sustained long-term investments necessary to ensure perpetually affordable housing with the necessary support services to meet the demand, we also urge the Legislature in the shorter-term to provide the resources necessary to ensure sufficient emergency shelter. 

The Alliance supports the Housing & Homelessness Alliance of Vermont (HHAV) in its request for the Legislature to ensure there is sufficient state funding in FY26 to:

• maximize the capacity of Vermont’s affordable housing developers
• maintain Vermont’s existing homelessness prevention infrastructure; and
• provide emergency shelter for unhoused Vermonters.

LEAD ORGANIZATION: Housing and Homelessness Alliance of Vermont

Data and Talking Points

• According to the 2024 Point In Time count, there were 3,458 unhoused Vermonters on a single night, including 737 children.