Green Mountain Meandering Missives

Updated (view updates below, with additional related photos as well as a rather lengthy missive of mine concerning these and related matters, after embedded video player; l ast updated on Wednesday, August 21, 2024 at 3:15 PM ): Photo: Montpelier City Council meeting (taken of TV screen while viewing archived video, via YouTube, after the meeting had adjourned this evening). During it's Other Business agenda item (item 7; view meeting agenda, here ), the Montpelier City Council heard about and discussed concerns regarding homelessness and related matters at some length on Wednesday evening (August 14, 2024).  Photo: Montpelier City Hall (taken by Morgan W. Brown; circa: July 2022). The meeting itself was relatively brief, just under two hours.  Later on, during his report (agenda item 9), Mayor Jack McCullough explained that the meeting had originally only been planned to be a relatively short one, however due to concerns raised by community members about recent events, the...

Updated (view update, below): Photo: An old homelessness awareness vigil poster (of mine): Housing removes "less" from homeless In 2013, after four (4) years of being permanently housed since my last go around that had lasted twelve (12) lengthy and grueling years of living unhoused (aka homeless ), I penned a commentary piece within which I posed the question within the title of it asking what works best to end homelessness (via vtdigger ), here , and stated: [...] I have been extremely supportive of “housing first” models and most especially Pathways Vermont, which serves this small rural state well. The fact is, it works. [...]  Nothing has changed my mind concerning these matters. It is still what I believe.  Permanent, affordable, safe and decent housing works where most other methods fall short or fail. In fact, the housing first model is still considered the best approach to ending homelessness (via Urban Institute, Housing Matters ; February 14, 2024), here : [...] ...

* Updated * (view update below) First photo taken by a neighbor last weekend. Due to getting a somewhat late start, it was not possible to do the tentatively planned greet and wave at the intersection of State and Main Streets on Thursday morning (December 21st).   Instead, Santa boarded the Green Mountain Transit City mid-day commuter bus for various stops along Route 302 in Berlin, including having breakfast at a roadside restaurant located on the border with Montpelier. The reception received at the restaurant was great as it was at the shelter for those living unhoused located down the road and also at a nearby pharmacy across the road where Santa went shopping for a personal item.  Then, while waiting for the bus back to Montpelier on his way home, he did a few different greet and waves at various locations alongside the road as well.  Once home, he took a break for a little bit before heading out again, doing a brief greet and wave at the intersection of Main and St...

Besides building additional permanent housing across Vermont as quickly as is possible and also providing enough funding to the array of housing and social service providers with which to ensure sufficient provision of various high quality support and services being made available and offered on a voluntary basis (read related commentary of mine, here ; via vtdigger ; circa: 2013), what more will be necessary to help better address the most dire needs of those living unhoused within our region? In a nutshell, according to my read of a recent vtdigger article ( here ) , it is providing an adequate medical respite housing program within an accessible home-like environment based in a community of one's choosing. Good Samaritan Welcome Center , located on Route 302 in Berlin and had been the former Twin City Motel, opened its doors to people living unhoused in the Summer of 2022 (read related blog post of theirs, here ): [...] With tremendous financial investment from VHCB and generou...