After losing their motel room, a family of four prepares to pitch a tent

James and Teala Ouimette began their day at the Harbor Place hotel in Shelburne getting their two daughters off to school. The two girls, ages four and five, both have autism; the younger is nonverbal. Just like each morning, a shuttle picked the girls up to take them to school in Burlington, because the family’s car doesn’t reliably run. 

After the girls left, James, 38, and Teala, 28, faced the task in front of them: packing up the rest of their belongings. Thursday would be their final day in the hotel room the family had shared since January, using a voucher from Vermont’s emergency housing program. Around 9 a.m., the bare mattresses held neat stacks of diapers, blankets and toys. With no other option in front of them, tonight they planned to camp.

James had been placing call after call, trying to figure out where they could put up a tent legally. So far, he hadn’t gotten an answer.

“I just don’t know what to think, or even what to do,” he said through tears.

The Ouimettes were one of roughly 230 households reaching the final night of their vouchers on Thursday, according to projections provided by state officials on Wednesday. This past spring, lawmakers imposed a new 80-day-limit on voucher stays in an attempt to rein in the housing program’s costs. This fall, the clocks are running out. The Department for Children and Families anticipates more than 400 additional households will reach their 80th night through mid-October. 

That means the emergency housing program is primed to largely empty out this fall, before eligibility loosens back up during the winter months, beginning Dec. 1. 

The Ouimettes had been in the program since late last year, after they received a no-cause eviction from a Burlington Housing Authority rental in the city’s Old North End, James said. The place had a fenced-in backyard and its own driveway, and seemed like an upgrade from their old apartment in Winooski, owned by the Bove brothers, where maintenance problems have long drawn the attention of reporters. But the new place turned out to be rife with mold that exacerbated his asthma, James said. The family had been trying to find another place to move before the eviction notice came.

Now, the Ouimettes have a housing voucher in hand to help them pay rent, but they haven’t been able to find anywhere to use it. The apartments they’re finding have higher rents than their voucher will cover, and their current extension expires next week. Just across the street, Champlain Housing Trust – which owns and runs Harbor Place – is building new affordable homes, but they won’t be ready in time. 

“Housing is getting worked on now, but that doesn’t do anybody justice for right now,” James said.

The family’s income is primarily from Social Security payments – they make about $1,500 a month. James used to work installing carpets and has held stints at restaurants in Burlington, but a bad back and a lack of reliable transportation have made holding down a job difficult. 

They can’t pay for a hotel room out of pocket, especially as their financial reserves run low toward the end of the month. When James recently called COTS, a Burlington shelter provider, he learned their family shelter had a lengthy waitlist. The Ouimettes don’t have their own family to call upon: James’ mother died when he was young, and his father passed away two years ago. Teala’s dad died this summer. 

“The people for support for us…is just not there,” James said.

Mid-morning, James packed up the sedan to bring another load of the family’s things to their storage unit, where they’re keeping extra diapers, baby gates, and strollers. In the lobby of the hotel, workers staged supplies: flashlights, bottled water, bug spray, and tents. 

“Did we get the kids sleeping bags?” one worker asked another. 

Outside, other hotel residents wheeled out their things on luggage carts and waited for friends to give them a ride. Many discussed pitching tents. Dennis Cusson, 48, was slightly more fortunate: He had recently managed to purchase a camper with a generator.

Still, he worried how he and his fiancée Sherry would fare as temperatures begin to fall. After bouts with pneumonia and RSV, Cusson relies on oxygen, and needs to keep his machine “plugged in somewhere at all times.” 

“There’s other people in here that have breathing apparatuses and everything. They’re confined to wheelchairs,” Cusson said. “And they’re like, ‘No, you gotta go. Your 80 days is up.’”

Around 11 a.m., Teala waited in the parking lot for her daughters to return home early from school. They were running behind schedule. Teala checked her phone, and learned the school had thrown a little celebration for the girls. 

“For their last day,” Teala said.

She wasn’t sure if the girls would be returning to school, once they left the hotel. “We gotta figure out transportation, because they have to have a physical place to pick them up,” she said. 

Teala had called the school to inform them that the girls wouldn’t be coming in tomorrow. The person who picked up the phone told Teala: “‘It’s funny, we have a lot of kids that called out for tomorrow,’” she recounted. A recent memo from the Chittenden County Homeless Alliance estimates that 87 children will become unsheltered in the county when their families lose their motel vouchers in the coming weeks. 

Eventually, the shuttle arrived, and the girls unbuckled their car seats and made their way back to their vacant room with Teala. They were confused: where were all their things? Teala stalled, turning on a cartoon. After a few minutes, she looked out the window.

“Daddy’s home,” she said. “We gonna go camping?” 

James came in. “Hello, pumpkin,” he said, greeting his daughters. He sat down at a table to collect himself, looking at his family, and tears welled in his eyes.

Hours earlier, James had sat in the same spot, recounting how he had shuffled between 70 different foster homes as a young adult before getting discharged into homelessness at 17. He slept on playgrounds in Burlington before getting on his feet.

“I grew up in state custody,” he said. “I don’t want to have the fear of my children being taken, or services to be stepping in, because, you know, we don’t have a place to stay.” 

James had been trying and trying to get through to any official he could – from the city of Burlington to the governor’s office – to make his family’s plight known, or ask for help, or put down a formal complaint or grievance. Few had heard him out. 

“We’re just people trying to better ourselves and get to a better situation,” he said. “And this…this is a step back instead of a step forward.” 

The family went outside to finish packing up the car. They spent one final moment of semi-normalcy playing on the swingset behind the hotel. Their next step would be finding a bigger tent that could accommodate them all – and figuring out where to put it.

This story, by Report for America corps member Carly Berlin, was produced through a partnership between VtDigger and Vermont Public.