38 Years of Fireworks: Matt and Liz Are Finally Home for the Holidays
Thirty-eight years ago, a teenage girl grabbed a boy and kissed him. There were fireworks. They’ve been together ever since.
Today, Matt and Elizabeth Hunt moved into their own apartment in Rutland.
On Monday, November 17th, you’ll hear their full story when their episode of Voices from the Edge drops—just hours before Vermont Edition features our podcast series live on Vermont Public at noon. It’s time for Vermont to truly listen to neighbors like Matt and Elizabeth.
Where It Started
Over two years ago, I met Matt and Elizabeth under this bridge in Middlebury. They were sleeping rough with their beloved dog Junior, forced from Vermont’s motel shelter system along with hundreds of other neighbors. Elizabeth battles serious illness. Matt does everything he can to care for her. They’ve raised two sons together. They’ve lost nearly everything. But they’ve never lost each other.
Through it all—through living in their car, through camping outside in Vermont winters, through the state exiting them from shelter on July 1st—they’ve held onto their dignity and their love for one another.
What Changed
This didn’t happen by accident. And it didn’t happen because “the system worked.”
Working alongside our partners at Pathways Vermont, Green Mountain Justice fought back against Matt and Elizabeth’s wrongful 2024 eviction. We challenged the state’s decision to exit them from shelter. We advocated for them when doors kept closing. We stood with them when Vermont’s so-called progressive systems treated them as problems to be managed rather than neighbors deserving dignity.
We overturned that eviction. We got them back on the Rutland Housing Authority list. And today, they moved into their own place.
This Is What Liberation Looks Like
Matt said something to us during our podcast interview that cuts right to the heart of why this work matters: “You’ve just let me vent… It’s like the little things in life are what mean the most sometimes. Makes you feel like there’s actually love still out there in the world. That somebody actually cares about us still.”
And that’s it, isn’t it? In a state that prides itself on progressive values, too many of our neighbors feel like nobody cares. Like they don’t matter. Like they’re invisible.
Matt and Elizabeth’s story—which you can hear in full in our upcoming Voices from the Edge podcast episode—reveals what we at Green Mountain Justice know in our bones: homelessness isn’t just a housing crisis. It’s a moral crisis. It’s what happens when we trade in our humanity for our personal comfort. When we allow systems to dehumanize our neighbors rather than standing alongside them in solidarity.
Not the End, But a Waypoint
This isn’t the end of Matt and Elizabeth’s journey. They’ll face challenges ahead. Elizabeth’s health needs ongoing care. They’re rebuilding their lives from the ground up. And we’ll continue to walk alongside them, because that’s what relationships of caring look like.
But today matters. Today is a waypoint that demonstrates what becomes possible when we refuse to accept that our neighbors should live without dignity. When we put proximity and advocacy into practice. When grassroots power challenges systems that fail.
This is what happens when we actually mean it about freedom and unity.
Listen to Their Story
🎧 Listen now and hear Matt and Elizabeth’s journey from the edge and back home again.
Matt and Elizabeth’s story is the latest episode of Voices from the Edge, our podcast series that amplifies the voices and wisdom of neighbors living on society’s margins. Their love story, their resilience, and their insights about what Vermont needs to change deserve to be heard.
Monday, November 17th, Vermont Edition on Vermont Public featured Voices from the Edge live on the air—bringing these stories of our marginalized neighbors to listeners across the state.
Join Us in This Work
If this story moves you, don’t just feel good about it. Act.
Become a neighboring supporter with a regular monthly donation at greenmountainjustice.org. Every contribution helps us stand alongside more neighbors like Matt and Elizabeth.
Share their story. Challenge the narratives that blame our unhoused neighbors for systemic failures. Talk to your friends, your faith community, your local officials about what real housing justice requires.
Come journey with us. This work of proximity and advocacy, of building relationships of caring with marginalized neighbors—this is how we create the beloved community Vermont claims to want but has yet to fully embrace.
Because liberation isn’t just about Matt and Elizabeth finding housing. It’s about all of us refusing to subordinate the needs of the marginalized to the comfort of the privileged. It’s about actually living our values instead of just proclaiming them.
As Matt reminded us: somebody actually cares about us still. And that caring—that’s where liberation begins.
Green Mountain Justice is a grassroots organization working for housing justice and amplifying voices from society’s margins across rural Vermont. We operate from Unitarian Universalist values through a model that emphasizes proximity and presence, relationships of caring, grassroots power, and dignity for all neighbors.
