Homelessness
We agree with the 2014 Vermont Progressive Party Platform:
"We will work to:
• End homelessness by providing safe, stable and affordable housing, rent subsidies and supportive services to all who desire and need them.
• Facilitate the creation of affordable housing by easing building and land use regulations without compromising safety, smart growth principles, or the livability of existing neighborhoods.
• Reverse federal cutbacks and increase funding for affordable housing, including Section 8, Community Development Block Grants, Public Housing, and the HOME program, among others.
• Maintain the balance between the rights and responsibilities of renters and landlords.
• Make it easier to apply for subsidized housing by instituting a universal, online application form.
• Increase the ... supply of affordable housing by providing full statutory funding for the Vermont Housing and Conservation Trust Fund.
• Preserve existing subsidized housing when current subsidies expire or the owner decides to sell or otherwise end its affordability.
• Create a ... system for ensuring basic minimum standards of safety and habitability in the state’s rental housing."
We agree with the 2016 Green Party Platform:
"Measures to Address Homelessness
Prevent homelessness before it occurs by addressing its structural causes, through raising the income floor under the working poor, creating living-wage jobs, providing job training and education that will enable low-wage workers to obtain living-wage jobs, preserving and expanding affordable housing, providing affordable health care, ensuring sufficient mental health care and substance abuse services, availability of healthy food and providing effective, holistic assistance that connects vulnerable individuals with sources of income and essential services.
Recognize that there are multiple, related and individual- ized causes of homelessness, and develop solutions that address them. Maintain and expand the social services nec- essary to address the varied aspects of homelessness.
Move people rapidly into stable living arrangements, where they will not be under constant threat of displacement or worrying about untreated health problems or other personal difficulties. Support and encourage service integration at all levels and move beyond the shelter approach to provide supportive housing that combines accommodation and an array of necessary services, to transition people out of homelessness.
Responding creatively to provide additional transitional housing through master leasing of private apartment blocks; purchase for-profit single room occupancy hotels; and where feasible, conversion of short-term emergency shelter facilities into permanent supportive housing.
Provide the resources necessary to advocate, develop and monitor discharge practices of local hospitals, jails and foster care through a zero-tolerance policy for discharging people to the streets.
Increase employment for homeless people. Set aside a share of public-sector jobs for homeless people who are able to work. Ensure that public agencies devoted to job creation are active in providing job training and work opportunities for homeless residents. Support non-profit agencies that do the same.
Ensure that public assistance is enough to allow recipients to afford a roof over their head. Help homeless who are en- titled to federal Social Security benefits and veterans’ disability payments to obtain them.
Repeal laws that criminalize homelessness.
Involve homeless people in decision-making about short- and long-term solutions to homelessness.
Educate homeless people about their right to vote. Encourage voter registration and voter participation among homeless people."
We agree with the Justice Democrats:
"More than 600,000 Americans are homeless on any given night, including over 57,000 veterans. Studies show the cost of leaving a homeless person on the streets is $30,000 while the cost of housing them is just $10,000. Addressing this crisis is both the moral and fiscally responsible thing to do."
ORGANIZATIONS:
National Coalition for the Homeless (NCH)
A national network of currently and formerly homeless persons, activists and advocates, community and faith based service providers, and others committed to a single goal: to end homelessness.
National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty
Works to prevent and end homelessness by serving as the legal arm of the nationwide movement to end homelessness.
A national network of currently and formerly homeless persons, activists and advocates, community and faith based service providers, and others committed to a single goal: to end homelessness.
National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty
Works to prevent and end homelessness by serving as the legal arm of the nationwide movement to end homelessness.
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