Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Here we go. Hello, everyone. I'm Kimberly Adams. Welcome back to Make Me Smart, where none of us is as smart as all of us. Thank you for joining us, whether you're watching the YouTube live stream or listening to the podcast. This is Economics on Tap, our weekly happy hour episode.
Today, we are joining you live from Burlington, Vermont, and joining me to tell me about all things Vermont is Carly Berlin, a housing reporter for VT Digger and Vermont Public. Welcome to the show, Carly. Hey, Kimberly.
And tell us where we are.
Chapter 2: What are the current housing conditions in Vermont?
We are at Zero Gravity Brewery in Burlington. Okay, and what are we doing here? We are drinking some fine beverages. What do you have there? I have a Green State Lager. Why do you call it a Green State Lager? We're in the Green Mountain State.
This is my go-to beer here. Let's see what everybody is drinking in the chat. Oh, I should say, I am having a Mom's Manhattan, which is their twist on a Manhattan here.
Chapter 3: What factors are contributing to Vermont's housing shortage?
And Jeff here, the owner, was telling me that it's because during the pandemic, moms needed Manhattans. So cheers. Cheers. All right. It looks like Marty Ackerman is having a Kirkland sparkling water. Nice and healthy and refreshing. I love that for you. Allison is drinking fresh squeezed grapefruit juice, cranberry juice and sparkling water. Oh, that's a good combo there. Refreshing.
Chapter 4: How is the state addressing the housing crisis?
Yeah. Kevin Armstrong is drinking a field work sticky shuffle. Okay. Okay. And Mighty Unlikely with a Cali Cab blend. Actually, I know there's a distillery nearby where I've been staying in Jeffersonville. There's a distillery out there. I've been trying a lot of interesting wines out here and things like that. Tell us about the area.
Yeah, we're in Burlington.
Chapter 5: What are catalog homes and how can they help?
We're in the largest city in the state of Vermont, which is not saying a whole lot. It's about 44,000 people. And you've been staying out in the country in a small town on a ski vacation. Not quite a vacation. I was trying to work through.
But, you know, trying to get some skiing in here and there, doing my best pizzaing down the mountain as I try to learn. But here in Burlington, as well as in the state, you cover housing and homelessness. Give us a big overview of sort of what the conditions are like here.
They're not great. There obviously is a housing shortage and affordability issues around housing across the country right now, and we are no stranger to that in Vermont.
Chapter 6: What is the current situation regarding homelessness in Vermont?
And the situation is particularly acute here. We have one of the highest rates of homelessness in the country. We consistently rank up there with New York, California, Washington, Oregon, those states that you think about as having some of the largest homeless populations in the country. We have skyrocketing rates of homes for purchase and rents and just a really acute shortage of homes.
I was really surprised in prepping for this episode that you guys are ranked so high when it comes to homelessness. What is behind this housing shortage?
So many different things, right? I mean, this is partly due to just how much it costs to build housing here and everywhere. We have an aging workforce in Vermont.
Chapter 7: What initiatives are being implemented for winter sheltering?
We're one of the oldest states in the country. And so people who have made their living in the construction trades are retiring and not enough younger workers are replacing them.
And we have zoning rules and particularly statewide land use rules, environmental regulations that were put in place in the 70s in a moment when Vermont was seeing a lot of development around ski towns, in particular in an era when there weren't a lot of land use rules to kind of look at that development as it was happening. And so there were these laws put in place that were really meant to
scrutinize and and slow down building in a lot of ways and now that's coming back to bite us and i understand that there are a lot of different things that people are trying to do to alleviate this housing crisis including looking at that land use development law what's changing exactly so this has been a huge topic in the state house over the last couple years that i've been covering closely
And part of the idea of reforming this law called Act 250 is to try to make it easier to build in areas that are already developed in the state. And then there's a tradeoff in kind of increasing environmental regulations in areas that are deemed kind of important, significant natural resources. Right.
I also know that Vermont has a little bit of a reputation for being kind of crunchy when it comes to the environment.
That's true.
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Chapter 8: What fun Vermont-themed game do the hosts play?
This is a place where people care a lot about the environment. It's a reason why people move here. It's a reason why people come to visit to kind of have this sense of a place that...
you know you can spend a lot of time outside so that's a it's a huge draw and oftentimes um seen as this sort of balancing act and this real tension between wanting to conserve land and recognizing that we also need to build housing to really get a healthy market here yeah i can't imagine that with this housing shortage it's got to have a huge impact on the labor force here if people can't afford to live
Yes, huge. And so part of the workforce problem that I was talking about earlier in terms of building housing hits just all kinds of companies. I hear stories all the time about employers who are trying to court a new recruit to come move here from out of state and then they can't find housing and they lose that job candidate. And so that's, yeah, that's a huge problem.
There's some really interesting things that you've reported on that they're trying to do to encourage development, including something called catalog homes.
What's that? Think about your classic Sears catalog from about 100 years ago. These were really common all across the country. You would have a company send you blueprints and parts to build catalogs. And so many of our sort of like just middle of the road housing in this country was built in that way. And the state is trying to recreate that model.
And the idea here is that the state program, they'll create 10 designs of homes that will be free to anyone who wants to use them. And towns that participate in this program would then get, if you want to build one of these designs, you'd get a fast track through local permitting.
So the idea is trying to smooth this process of building, making it easier for people who want to add an accessory dwelling unit in their backyard or want to build a duplex in their neighborhood.
One of the other things you cover that's sort of ancillary to the housing crisis is the homelessness crisis here. What is the situation there and what's being done about it?
Yeah, I mean, it's it's we saw really skyrocketing rates of homelessness during the pandemic that have persisted. And so the problem is is really dire. And right now, one of the, you know, different approaches this season, we're in the middle of winter. It's really cold here.
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