Homelessness exists behind the scenes

Author: Kacie Sherman

Homelessness has its stereotypical depictions: men and women in dirty clothes begging in the street, shantytowns in cities' peripheries and people sleeping on park benches. In Vermont, and especially in Middlebury, those images couldn't be further from the true nature of homelessness. Though the supply of adequate and affordable housing makes finding shelter for the homeless in Addison County an increasingly acute problem, its realities are veiled.

As Sarah Lauing, a student leader for Hunger and Homelessness week, said, "When you don't see panhandlers on the freshly plowed paths of the campus, it's hard to remember that poverty exists right outside our 'bubble' and right inside our county."

Each year, over 4,000 Vermonters rely on homeless shelters as a primary means of residence, and part of this dependence is due to a lack of affordable, appropriate housing. Simply put, the supply of affordable, maintainable housing severely shortchanges the demand for such units. The 2005 Addison County Needs Assessment Report estimates that the county is facing a shortage of 1,149 affordable rental units.

Kate McGowan of the Addison County Housing Coalition, clarified the definition of affordable, "Often [units] are called affordable, but this is based on median income in the county. That doesn't mean it is affordable for people living below the median income level".

Unfortunately for Addison County and its residents, many of the rental units that fall into this price category are either occupied by households with upper-level incomes (and who therefore are spending less than 30 percent of their income, the technical definition of affordability, on housing), or are vacant. The concept of vacancy is misleading, however, because a healthy real estate market depends upon a total five percent natural vacancy rate, and Addison County's rate is only 3.6 percent.

The Addison County Housing Coalition, which is a subcommittee of a group called the Poverty Task Force, is focused on one of the Force's four main goals - helping Addison County residents gain access to affordable housing. The Coalition has created an educational DVD and a booklet for the community that provides practical advice regarding finding and financing housing.

A much larger project is also underway, a project that McGowan described as a "shared risk pool or community loan fund." It is meant to provide home renters with a reasonable loan and repayment option for their often hard to finance down payment. The fund would be a streamlining of local housing agencies' discretionary funds, and would simultaneously provide landlords with a reliable deposit and those who were renting with a mean to develop good credit.

In regards to the landlord/renter relationship, McGowan recognized that fissures may be more subtle than financial default. "Many people raised in intergenerational poverty haven't been taught the middle class rules by which many of us operate - these are soft skills, hard to teach, hard to quantify and qualify, but often are deal breakers," she says. This intangible challenge in addition to the realities of financial limitations is one of many that the Coalition and its allies face in combating homelessness in Addison County .

Households in Addison County's lowest income brackets are most likely to suffer from mobility and healthcare issues, and are also most at risk for home maintenance issues. Furthermore, children that are raised in homelessness are five times as likely to suffer speech and stammering problems and twice as likely to experience emergency hospitalizations, showing the psychological and physiological impacts that this housing crisis may have on future generations.

Addison County's unemployment rate is only three percent, whereas the national average is five percent, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. If a greater majority of residents have work than the national norm, where lies the financial burden? In Addison County, the four most common forms of employment are in the "lower-paying service oriented positions," according to the Needs Assessment report.

According to their calculations, the average hourly wage in this labor force is $14 an hour, which would be just barely enough to afford the average rent for a two-bedroom apartment in Middlebury, which is $723 a month. According to the John Graham Shelter in Vergennes, 62 percent of the homeless population they serve have earned high school diplomas, but the affordability gap for employed people, low-income or not, is skyrocketing. As housing prices rise unimpeded, and incomes barely break inertia, an average of $90,000 stands between one who wishes to own a house and actually owning a house.

In an effort to illuminate the realities and relationship between homelessness and hunger, Middlebury College's Alliance for Civic Engagement hosted a variety of awareness events last week. These included an interactive simulation of homelessness in the lobby of the Main Library, a food drive competition and a Pub Night to support the Farm Bill. The events incorporated homelessness and hunger awareness into many arenas of the average Middlebury student's daily life, rendering the invisible injustice of Addison County visible.

As Kate McGowan said, "Housing may not be seen as a community-wide crisis, so people may not feel compelled to act," she described the scenario of a local family who was turned away from fully-occupied shelters and who is now living out of its car with their 11-month-old child, saying, "they are experiencing nothing less than a crisis."

Expressing the reality of most Middlebury community members, McGowan reflects that throughout her life she has been provided with unasked-for and unrecognized support. Verbalizing her ideals and those of her organization, she said, "If people who are struggling have not been given support and encouragement in the past for whatever reason, what could be more empowering [for them] than finally getting that key component and having all the pieces fall into place?"