MONTPELIER, Vt. (WCAX) – Vermont has spent around $800 million over the last decade to help the homeless, but over that time, their numbers have tripled. The Vermont state auditor says that a dearth of data, has caused policymakers to throw good money after bad.
“To my knowledge, there is no comprehensive effort to collect the kind of data we’re talking about,” said Auditor Doug Hoffer, D/P-Vt.
In a recent newsletter, Hoffer says to devise solutions to homelessness and spend resources wisely, the state first needs to know what’s causing people to be unhoused. He points specifically to people who returned to homelessness after receiving help.
According to the Coordinated Entry System, nearly half of the people who experienced homelessness and moved into temporary or permanent housing fell back into homelessness.
“What went wrong after you were provided with temporary or permanent housing that required that you come back again? That data does not exist — not at DCF and not at the Coordinated Entry System offices,” Hoffer said.
Lily Sojourner, the director of the office of economic opportunity within DCF, says case-level data isn’t always available since they work alongside other agencies and programs. “This is where, absolutely, program by program, in those case files, you see a lot of nuance, and that goes beyond DCF. Because again, DCF is not the only entity that’s working with people experiencing homelessness,” she said.
Sojourner says they collect lots of data about the households, including whether they’re involved with the child welfare system, their financial capabilities, and if they are experiencing food scarcity. Once a family is in housing, little, if any, communication is shared with DCF. “Sometimes, it may be that they’re only with someone until the point that they’re housed, and then they no longer have a relationship with DCF,” Sojourner said.
Hoffer says the state should continue tracking what happens after someone receives help. DCF argues that there is enough data being collected between them and other programs and that what was used in Hoffer’s report was just one dataset. “We received a very specific question about a very specific set of data, and I think that’s what we responded to. If there are follow-up questions that the auditor has for the department, the department would be happy to collaborate,” she said.
One question many WCAX viewers have asked is whether the growth of the homeless population is due to people coming from out of state to take advantage of Vermont’s services. That’s hard to measure because once someone is in Vermont, they are considered a resident. DCF says the Economic Services Division did conduct a one-time data analysis in 2024 of nearly 4,000 households in the General Assistance program and found that about 16% had at least one individual with an ID issued by another state. DCF says that due to how time-consuming that analysis was, they have not continued to track where people utilizing the services are from.
