The City of Burlington will soon open a portion of a gravel parking lot at Perkins Pier to allow a dozen homeless families to sleep in their cars overnight.
City officials are enacting the new program in response to the latest mass exodus from state-funded motel rooms that has left more than 800 people looking for alternative shelter around Vermont. The city will offer 12 special permits that allow individuals or families to park overnight in a far corner of the lot between 6 p.m. and 8 a.m. each night without charge. The city will install a portable toilet at the site and provide some additional police patrols of the area.
The decision to hastily establish a car-camping site on the waterfront has angered some businesspeople, who complained that they weren’t consulted and fretted about further impediments to the summer tourism economy.
“This is an important area, particularly during this time of the year, that has gone relatively unaffected by our current, unfortunate housing situation,” the Lake Champlain Chamber wrote in a letter to Mayor Emma Mulvaney-Stanak. “Surely your team can find an area that is better suited to this purpose.”
The city informed local social services agencies of the new program on Tuesday morning. Officials announced details publicly during a press conference at city hall on Wednesday, after several news outlets had already reported them.
The Perkins Pier project is a six-week experiment, the city’s special assistant to end homelessness, Sarah Russell, said on Wednesday. Officials will decide whether to extend or alter the program beyond August 15.
“It’s a very small number of vehicles over a very short period of time, which we hope will allow us to see what the benefits are and if there are challenges that need to be worked out,” Russell said.
Homeless shelters across Vermont are full. The state’s ongoing efforts to curb spending on its motel program have pushed many people into more precarious settings. Camping near the Lake Champlain waterfront has been surging, according to officials.
The worsening statewide crisis has led to local conflicts. A city-run emergency shelter, operated only on the coldest nights last winter in a New North End school gymnasium, prompted some pushback because of its location near a daycare. The business community has clashed with activists and the mayor’s office over a lunch line in a downtown parking garage run by an anarchist-inflected mutual aid group. The city council recently ordered the mayor to force the activists to move to another spot. The mayor has since allocated $10,000 in city funds to help them do so.
The Perkins Pier lot is used by tourists and diners at nearby restaurants along the waterfront, though it is typically empty overnight. The city’s most recent data suggests that at least 17 people have been living in cars throughout the city, many in residential areas. That number is likely higher and could increase as more people leave motels this week. State officials anticipated that about 100 households were leaving motels in Chittenden County, including 35 families with 61 children.
Russell told reporters that the city has been discussing the possibility of operating a “safe parking” program for several years. She also said the urgency of the latest motel program changes — which the city and others had urged Gov. Phil Scott to halt — didn’t leave time for officials to solicit public feedback on their plan.
Nonetheless, the city looked at other properties, including a small parking lot across from the police station, Russell said. The police lot wasn’t available because of ongoing construction at the station, and city ordinances bar overnight parking in some other city lots.
Burlington will use previously set-aside funds to pay for the portable toilet, Russell said. Otherwise, the initial costs amount to forgoing a few dollars of parking revenue each day for the occupied spaces.
People hoping to use the lot must apply for a permit with Russell’s office by noon on Thursday. Overnight camping will commence on Friday night, the Fourth of July.