Vermont adds homeless shelter capacity, but it’s still not enough to meet the need

Carly Berlin covers housing and infrastructure for Vermont Public, in partnership with VTDigger.

This week, some of the season’s first snow flurries are forecast to fly in Vermont. Across the state, emergency shelter operators are finalizing their plans to offer warm beds to people experiencing homelessness this winter.

Shelter capacity has grown in the last year by almost a quarter. As of late October, Vermont had space for 721 households in community shelters – up from 583 the same month in 2025, according to monthly counts published by the Department for Children and Families. More beds are expected to come online in the coming weeks.

Still, the state’s homeless population numbers at nearly 3,300 people, according to a tally from January released on Tuesday, and that figure is regarded as an undercount. This winter, Vermont will continue to rely on pop-up shelter projects that will kick into gear when temperatures drop to a certain threshold – an implicit acknowledgement that people are living outdoors during the coldest months of the year.

“We just don’t have enough beds for folks to sleep in inside,” said Tom Morgan, the project operations director for the state’s emergency GetWarmNowVT initiative. “Really key to all of this is going to be to try to keep people alive through the winter.” 

More year-round beds 

For the first time in recent memory, Vermont currently has more beds in traditional shelters than the number of motel rooms paid for by state vouchers for people experiencing homelessness. 

Many communities have expanded year-round shelter capacity in recent months, a push that will help unhoused Vermonters during the harshest months of the year. 

This fall, Groundworks Collaborative opened a new 40-bed shelter in Brattleboro, replacing a facility the organization closed in 2023 after its shelter coordinator was killed there.

Charter House in Middlebury has expanded into a neighboring building, and in White River Junction, the nonprofit Upper Valley Haven hopes to open up 20 beds at its new shelter and resource center by the end of the month, according to executive director Will Towne.

Several winter shelters opening this season ultimately hope to keep their doors open after the season thaws. 

In Montpelier, Capstone Community Action plans to offer an overnight low-barrier shelter at the Unitarian Church beginning on Nov. 16, but is searching for dedicated space to expand operations beyond winter, said Linda Anderson, director of family and community support services at the antipoverty organization. 

And in Newport, the Joshua House Warming Shelter opened at the beginning of the month and will run through mid-April. Volunteer Cathy Valley doesn’t expect the shelter’s 13 beds to accommodate the community’s need, particularly since the shelter offers some of the only respite for people experiencing homelessness in all of Orleans and Essex counties. The organization’s ultimate goal is to open a larger shelter that can run year-round.

“It weighs on our hearts, the idea that we would be full and that we would have to turn folks away because we didn’t have room,” she said.

Extreme cold response 

Vermont will continue to rely on a network of state-funded extreme cold weather shelters this season. This winter, they’ll be authorized to operate more frequently: the state has raised its temperature trigger for these shelters from zero degrees to 10.

“Now we’re looking at, you know, a significant increase in the number of opportunities for unsheltered neighbors to access shelter,” said Morgan, the project operations director for the cold weather shelter initiative.

Also new this year is a coordinated state website – GetWarmNowVT.org – that will show when the shelters are activated. 

The state contractors running the initiative, Vermont Interfaith Action and Green Mountain Justice, are currently finalizing extreme cold shelter operations in Bennington, Burlington, Middlebury, Montpelier, Springfield and St. Johnsbury, according to Morgan. 

Rutland and Brattleboro, which both offered extreme cold shelters last winter, have yet to submit applications, though talks are ongoing in both communities about offering additional winter shelter options. 

Unlike the other locations, Burlington’s cold shelter will continue to use a lower temperature threshold at -10 degrees windchill, according to Sarah Russell, emergency services director at the Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity. That’s because the city’s emergency management plan activates at that temperature, Russell said. More frequently staffing the shelter – which typically sees 70 to 90 individuals when it opens – would be challenging, she added.

CVOEO had hoped to open a new year-round 100 bed shelter before this winter, but has tabled those plans for the moment after failing to find a suitable location in time. One possible site was nixed after South Burlington city leaders pushed back. The organization is now exploring different options for significantly expanding long-term shelter capacity in the region, Russell added.

Motel rules loosen 

For years, Vermont’s primary mode of responding to homelessness during the winter has been its motel voucher program. That program has gone through many rounds of cuts, and state leaders are currently overhauling it.

Still, motel access rules will be loosened during the winter months, as is typical. Beginning on Dec. 1 and ending on March 31, state law mandates that DCF can utilize 1,000 rooms a night – up from 700 during the warmer months. This is the first winter when the state will implement a room cap at all.

Additionally, nights spent in motel rooms during that time period won’t accrue towards people’s 70-night maximum stay per year. 

Read the story on VTDigger here: Vermont adds homeless shelter capacity, but it’s still not enough to meet the need.