Bill aims to better support Vermont college students coming from homelessness or foster care

Homelessness rates in Vermont continue to skyrocket. Photo courtesy The Administration for Children and Families

by Holly Sullivan, Community News Service As Vermont grapples with rising homelessness rates and a choked housing market, some House lawmakers are training their focus on easing a particularly hard transition for people facing so much uncertainty already: young people without homes or leaving foster care who want to go to college. 

H.717, introduced on Jan. 17 by Rep. Jubilee McGill, D-Bridport, would require Vermont postsecondary schools to provide students who are homeless or exiting foster care with certain fee waivers, prioritize them for open campus housing and class enrollment and create official liaisons to help those students navigate the college world. 

Homelessness rates in Vermont continue to skyrocket. As of January 2023, 3,295 Vermonters were counted as homelessness, an 18.5% increase from the previous year. McGill is hoping her bill will support the young homeless population on their journeys after high school. 

“Youth experiencing homelessness and youth exiting who have been in the foster care system and have now aged out are the least likely to pursue higher education,” McGill told House education committee members Jan. 17. 

McGill said she spent the past spring and summer traveling around the country, participating in webinars on youth homelessness. After hearing about legislative support in other states, McGill wanted to take action in Vermont, she said.  

“In the spirit of looking at kind of upstream solutions to the chronic homelessness rates in our own state, this felt like one easy thing we could do,” she said, explaining the bill’s intent to “(remove) the barriers” that can interfere with those students’ educational success. 

Vermont Student Assistance Corporation President and CEO Scott Giles said he supports the concept of the bill, telling committee members on Jan. 26: “The value proposition possibilities that this work can create for students is extraordinary.”

Giles said he works firsthand with Vermont students experiencing homelessness or foster care, assisting between 150 and 170 students at any given time.

“They are absolutely incredible if you get a chance to work with them,” he told committee members. “The survival skills that they have had to develop — the resilience and the grit and the determination that they have — is inspiring.”

But Giles recommended that lawmakers make sure H.717 adapts to the needs of individual schools and their students. 

“I’m always wary of, you know, putting in a one-size-fits-all solution to a problem when populations are different and the schools can be different,” he said. “So the important thing is to make sure there’s the flexibility for a group. CCV’s needs for providing support are going to be different than UVM.”

Middlebury College Dean of Students Derek Doucet echoed Giles’ sentiment during a House education committee session Jan. 25., supporting H.717’s objective but suggesting to tweak the bill.

“We are enthusiastically in support of the intention of this bill and would welcome an opportunity to continue to work with its authors in the committee to figure out ways to practically and effectively implement it,” he told committee members.

Doucet said many provisions in H.717, such as priority housing and financial support, already exist at the vast majority of Vermont colleges. University of Vermont and Vermont State University representatives in the committee room agreed. 

Despite some disagreements with the bill’s demands, educational organizations appeared to fully support H.717.

Becca Smitty, director of Middle Tennessee State University’s one-stop enrollment services program, wrote in a Jan. 31 letter to committee members that she has seen liaisons like those proposed in the bill flourish at her university. 

She explained most homeless and former foster care students who attend college are overwhelmed by the process and lack the level of support their counterparts have.

“The benefits of having a liaison in place are both tangible and indefinite,” she wrote. “The (liaison) may be the only person that knows the struggle the student endured to get here.”

Rodd Monts, director of state policy for SchoolHouse Connection, a national nonprofit focusing on homelessness and education, agreed H.717 is a necessary step to provide students with equal learning opportunities. 

In a Jan. 31 letter to the committee, Monts mentioned nine states that have seen success with dedicated liaison programs. And, he wrote, over a dozen states have some form of similar legislation for homeless and former foster care students.

“H.717 checks many of these boxes and if passed, the bill would be one of the strongest pieces of higher education legislation for homeless and former foster youth in the nation,” he wrote. 

CNS reached out to the Housing & Homeless Alliance of Vermont for a comment but didn’t get a response. 

The Community News Service is a program in which University of Vermont students work with professional editors to provide content for local news outlets at no cost.

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