In Burlington, the issues that our neighbors are most concerned about, and are feeling most affected by are:

• Lack of affordable housing

• The connected issues of mental health, addiction, homelessness, and crime

• Property taxes and education spending

 

At the state level, people’s concerns are focused on the same issues, but in addition there is serious concern about:​

• Climate change, with three areas of concern:

  • Restructuring our housing and commercial buildings, transportation, energy, communications, and agriculture to function in an era of ever more violent and extreme weather.

  • Reducing fossil fuel use and deforestation.

  • Ensuring a just transition to a clean energy future.

• Health care costs

 

Many of these issues are connected. 

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Property Taxes, Education spending, and Health Care spending

The sharp rise in property taxes is driven by the sharp rise in the cost of education, and that’s driven in part by the sharp rise in the costs of health care for people working in education. Addressing health care costs will help with the property tax challenge, and it will also make it a lot easier for small businesses to thrive, in addition to the most important reason to address health care costs, which is to improve Vermonter’s access to quality health care.  Reducing the cost of  health care, like reducing the cost of education, is complex and difficult, and touches on many sensitive issues: how and how much we pay doctors, particularly specialists; end-of-life care; the viability of small, rural hospitals; the role of insurance, particularly employer-based insurance; the number and cost of health care administrators . . . as I said, a lot of difficult issues that we need to approach with sensitivity to patients, communities, and health care providers. That being said, we have to address the costs, and that will entail hard decisions. One place to start is with State Auditor Doug Hoffer's 2021 report on moving to reference-based pricing, which several other states have done, which Hoffer projects could save Vermont tens of millions of dollars each year in health care costs.

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Regarding other components of education spending, with declining enrollments, we as a Vermont community may need to move toward fewer districts to reduce administrative costs. My parents were both teachers, and I have been deeply impressed with the classroom teachers my four children have had in the Burlington school system. I strongly support community elementary schools, and I think that as a community, again in light of declining enrollments, we may need to look at consolidation of middle schools, high schools, and school districts. Many of us like our local schools and local school district, and we may have to make the tough choice between keeping all the schools and districts, which means living with high property taxes, or addressing some of the costs in the school system to get lower taxes.

 

Mental Health/Addiction/Homelessness/Crime, and Affordable Housing

Recent research from the University of Washington, which was the basis of a book called Homelessness is a Housing Problem, has some compelling data suggesting that the level of homelessness in a given city is not related to the levels of mental illness, or addiction, or poverty, or generous benefits: homelessness is most strongly linked to low rental vacancy rates and high rental costs. The authors note that poverty, mental illness, and addiction make people much more vulnerable to losing their housing, but suggest those factors are not causing homelessness. In fact, their data suggests that sometimes, homelessness causes mental illness and addiction, rather than being a result of mental illness and addiction. Being unhoused makes it really hard to get and keep a job, so homelessness also is a cause of poverty.

 

Here's a summary of the research: https://www.sightline.org/2022/03/16/homelessness-is-a-housing-problem/

 

All of which suggests that a primary focus, for this and other reasons, needs to be on building a lot more affordable housing, preferably in town centers where people can walk to work and services, which generates other social benefits and multiple environmental benefits.

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More affordable housing will also make it easier for young people to move here or stay here, will make it easier for businesses large and small to hire people to come work here, and will make it easier for empty nesters to downsize, so their family homes can become available for younger families.

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Climate Change: Resilience and reducing green house gasses

Finally, regarding the immediate threat posed by violent weather, and the long-term threat posed by a warming planet, please see the Climate Action Plan, which I contributed to as a member of the Vermont Climate Council. This is a global problem, and every member of the global community has an obligation to reduce emissions as quickly as possible. We also know that the weather will grow more violent over the next decades, so new construction and renovations to buildings and infrastructure, telecommunications, energy, and agriculture need to make all our sectors robust enough to keep working through violent weather while we ensure a just transition to clean energy, clean heat, clean transportation, and clean industry.

 

Those are the things I’m seeing as focus areas right now, and I'm looking forward to hearing much more about your issues and concerns, and thoughts about how to address them, over the next few months.