Clear to partly cloudy. Low 54F. Winds light and variable..

Clear to partly cloudy. Low 54F. Winds light and variable.

BENNINGTON — The planned reduction and elimination of federal COVID-related rental and heating assistance worries Bennington housing and low-income advocates.

“It’s going to impact families, that’s all I can say,” Richard Morse, housing coordinator at the Sunrise Family Resource Center in Bennington, said Friday. Sunrise is a nonprofit, community-based organization that helps individuals and families with housing options and other vital issues.

Tom Donahue, chief executive officer at BROC Community Action, a nonprofit that provides assistance and a sustainable path forward for people and families in crisis through both state and federally funded programs, agreed the reductions could hurt low-income Bennington residents.

Morse said the reductions will affect everyone, but mostly those without permanent (Section 8) vouchers. “There’s a lot of concern with that. Families with Section 8 vouchers will lose a third of their rent that was being paid, so they’ll have to pick up that. But it’s where they were before the pandemic. So hopefully, those folks will be okay. I’m more worried about folks housed fully on the VERAP funding and still waiting to get permanent funding.”

Since the pandemic, the federal and state governments have stepped up with multi-pronged efforts to help families and individuals to pay rent and energy bills while the nation struggled with COVID-19. One of those efforts, the Vermont Emergency Rental Assistance Program (VERAP), will be winding down as the federal funds dry up and states try to return to a pre-pandemic normal.

The VERAP program will fade out starting Oct. 1 and end entirely in March. (Visit erap.vsha.org for more information.) It is estimated that over 1,000 families in Bennington County alone have participated in the program, which helped pay rent and energy bills throughout the pandemic. The Banner asked Morse and Donoghue what the end of the VERAP program might mean for families here in Bennington and the real possibility that some of those families could become homeless.

“There’s always that potential,” Morse said. “Yes, I would say that’s a big yes. If I was on the other side of the fence, I might have a different reaction, but I work with these families, and this will affect many people. And you know, doing this right before winter is another issue. Oct. 1 is, you know, it’s all about winter coming. Utilities are also rising now, so there’s a double-edged sword here. It’s going to be a problem. There’s a lot of concern with that, and with how abrupt a reduction and then the ending of it. We’re still in a pandemic.”

Donahue had a slightly different take but still shared many of Morse’s concerns.

“They’re ending the program as we know it. But it had to conclude at some point, and this is the point that they’re at,” Donahue said.

“There’s a lot to this to sort of unpack, as I like to say,” Donahue continued.

He noted that the program was originally intended to be 12 months, and was extended to 18 with the caveat that the funding doesn’t run out, “so it’s not that it was cut short, per se. It ran its course; a lot of people have been through 18-month assistance.”

Donahue estimates that there were 1,046 applications to the program in Bennington County alone — individuals, but many families, all members on one application. The total amount spent statewide was over $132 million, $8.2 million in Bennington County.

“This was critical funding to help people through one of the worst crises in history,” Donahue said. “Now there is a cliff up ahead, and you’ve got 1,046 families that you hope had prepared for this day. But if not, you’re going see mass evictions across the state. ... And then obviously, that’s a crisis in itself.”

Donahue is starting to see the results of some of these pandemic programs ending for many in the community.

“We still have the effects of COVID economically, made worse by increasing inflation, particularly in two or three areas that we hear about daily: gasoline, food and then soon-to-be oil costs,” Donahue said.

He said he sees a significant uptick in people coming to the food shelf, and worries about the need for fuel, come winter.

“Those are two areas that people will be lacking, because now they’re back to paying rent. They might be short, and food and fuel are critical staple things that we all need to survive in our, especially in Vermont, winters. It’s a little different, then. Running out of oil for the furnace is a crisis in January. It’s sometimes life or death.”

BROC is ramping up other programs that it expects families to lean into after others fade and disappear. But with housing, it’s different. The limited availability and the dearth of adequate family homeless shelters is a big part of the problem here in Vermont that can lead to disaster.

“The rental scenario is a little different because there are limited programs to help with that. And, the other side of that is that there hasn’t been much rental property available. The state has a problem with a lack of housing or congregate shelter. They’re rapidly trying to address that, but they’re behind. That could create a scenario of many more homeless people. There’s no doubt that homeless families will be created because of these impacts collectively,” Donahue said.

What do you say to the people who think it’s about time we ended these stabilization programs?

“There’s many people that have physical disabilities and mental health challenges,” he said. He added that the problem for some is exacerbated by the pandemic and issues with drugs and alcohol. And interestingly enough, day care is even an issue — whether families can find it or afford it. “There’s a lot of people that fall into those umbrellas, frankly, that it wouldn’t be fair to say, ‘Get out and work, figure it out.’ They can’t.”

He hopes many families did plan for the change. “If not, we will be ready to help. We will help everybody who turns to us. It might take longer because of the lack of housing availability, for instance, but we’ll walk people through that process and help them qualify (for other programs) everywhere we can.”

He cited a program called Reach up, “where we master lease apartments. ... And we transition people out of the motels into our apartments. And then, while they’re in our apartments, we work with area housing agencies to find stable, permanent housing. Those are critical programs that are getting people housed.”

Donahue emphasized the many programs that can help to stretch the dollar further. He said the food shelf is open Monday through Friday, 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. The crisis fuel program distributed $435,000 in crisis fuel last year, and Donahue thinks this program will be big this year. There is also a winter clothing program that clothed 27 families last winter, he said.

“None of this is easy,” Donahue said, “but I’ve got some great people working on it. And we do have some tremendous resources to help.”

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