With nighttime temperatures now dipping into the low teens, the effects of Hartford’s crackdown on homeless encampments this fall are about to become more apparent.
Did it spur some of the unhoused to seek safer shelter, which is in short supply? Or did it drive people already living on the edge to outlying towns, where access to free hot meals and social services are harder to come by?
I’m presuming the latter.
Either way, curbing homelessness in the Upper Valley will take more creativity than ordering people with limited options and resources to move on.
As shortsighted as Hartford’s strategy was, one good thing did come out of it.
On Monday, Upper Valley advocates for the homeless and Hartford officials made public a plan that will hopefully lead to more of the unhoused eventually getting a roof over their heads.
Under the proposal, Hartford’s zoning regulations would be amended to allow recreational vehicles, or RVs, for short, to be used as sleeping quarters year-round. Currently, the town’s zoning ordinance limits the use of RVs — even when parked on private property — to 14 days a year. (Permitted campgrounds are an exception.)
The RVs that homeless advocates have in mind are much more basic than the behemoths seen cruising on interstate highways. The prototypes feature two one-room units divided by a solid wall. Each unit has its own door and window.
The makeshift structure sits on a truck chassis and is registered with the Vermont Department of Vehicles, which means it can be towed to different locations.
It’s an imaginative approach — and communities across the country are working on their own variations. Two weeks ago, Massachusetts officials announced they were building so-called sleeping cabins, each with one or two beds, and heating. Plans call for 18 cabins to be placed on the grounds of Lemuel Shattuck Hospital in Jamaica Plain, a Boston neighborhood.
In Hartford, the effort to alleviate homelessness took on more urgency in the throes of the coronavirus pandemic. Last December, the Selectboard established the Ad-Hoc Committee on Emergency Shelter to work with town officials on finding alternatives to people living in tents, under bridges and in cars.
But months went by without much happening.
Oddly enough, it was only after the town cleared out several encampments with the threat of police action that the effort gained momentum.
It didn’t hurt that during a Selectboard meeting in October, Chairman Dan Fraser voiced his displeasure at the slow pace in which the town’s staff and the Ad-Hoc committee were moving. “We’re going to have people dying because there is no place for them to be, and that’s not OK,” Fraser said. “People need places to live.”
On Monday, the Hartford Planning Commission held a workshop, where homeless advocates and town officials proposed changing zoning regulations to eliminate the 14-day limit on RVs.
Lori Hirshfield, the town’s director of planning and development, stressed the proposal only allows for one RV with a maximum of two families or households on one property. A zoning permit would be required.
Provisions would also have to be made for the unhoused to have access to potable water and 24/7 use of a bathroom, which could be a portable toilet set up on the property.
Monday’s rollout was an attempt to put skeptics at ease. I can envision the RVs outside a church, social service organization or on the property of a private homeowner who wants to do good.
Selectboard member Dennis Brown, who was among a half-dozen people in the audience, asked “Why do we need these structures?”
A good question.
As Brown pointed out, the state recently rebooted its emergency housing program that provides motel vouchers to people in need this winter.
“Certain individuals don’t want to stay in hotels,” Bryan Luikart, of the Ad-Hoc committee, told the planning commission. They might be dealing with anxiety and mental health issues that “being so close to other people” is a struggle, he said.
Some homeless people also have “outstayed their welcome in hotels,” he added.
Vermont’s motel voucher program, funded by the feds as part of a COVID-19 relief package, ends in the spring. Even with roughly 70 hotels, including three in Hartford, it’s not enough to meet demand. Last month, about 1,700 adults and children were already trying to book rooms.
At Monday’s workshop, Hartford Fire Marshal Tom Peltier assured the planning commission that the RVs must pass muster with him. Each heated unit would be equipped with fire and carbon monoxide alarms.
“We’re trying to make sure that folks have the same protections if they’re living there for two days or two years,” Peltier said.
Which brings up another issue: How long can an inhabited recreational vehicle stay on a property?
The current 14-day limit goes back longer than anyone at Monday’s meeting could recall. It was enacted partly to avoid creating a “nuisance in a neighborhood,” Planning Board Chairman Bruce Riddle said.
Two weeks seemed long enough for out-of-town RV owners to park in a driveway while visiting family or friends, Riddle said.
“Does 14 days become 14 years?” another commission member asked.
A time frame for how long a zoning permit will be good for still needs to be worked out, Hirshfield said. The planning commission wants to hold another workshop before even contemplating a vote on any proposed zoning changes.
Public hearings must also be scheduled, and the Selectboard will have to weigh in as well — a process that could take four to five months.
In the meantime, for many of the homeless, another long, cold winter lies ahead.
Jim Kenyon can be reached at jkenyon@vnews.com.
