Why Green Mountain Justice Opposes H. 772
Why Green Mountain Justice Opposes H. 772
We submitted written testimony to the House Committee on General and Housing this week. Here is what we said, and why it matters.
Vermont’s legislature is considering H. 772, a housing bill that would shorten eviction timelines, speed up the eviction process, and reduce procedural protections for tenants. On balance, this bill will make Vermont’s housing and homelessness crisis worse. Green Mountain Justice opposes it. So does our Neighbor Matters Council, unanimously.
We want to share the core of our testimony with you, because this is not just a policy debate. It is a test of whose voices Vermont’s legislative process is built to hear.
We Were Turned Away
When GMJ reached out to participate in testimony on H. 772, we were told by the committee’s assistant that there was no room at the testimony table. A “full agenda” of other speakers.
Let that sink in.
A community justice ministry that works directly with unhoused and housing-insecure neighbors could not get a seat. But the landlords, the trade associations, and the industry representatives who stand to benefit from loosened eviction standards had no trouble being heard.
That is not an accident. That is what structural inequity looks like when it is built into the legislative process itself. When only one side of a housing debate can access the table, the outcomes will reflect that access.
What H. 772 Would Do
The bill originally included protections against no-cause eviction and rent stabilization. But the committee is expected to strip those provisions out. What remains is a bill that primarily serves landlord interests: shorter timelines, faster evictions, fewer protections for tenants.
That is not balance. That is capitulation.
Homelessness in Vermont has increased over 320% in five years. BIPOC neighbors are five times more likely to experience it. Hundreds of Vermonters face another winter without stable shelter. In this context, making it faster and easier to evict people is not a housing policy. It is a displacement policy.
Why This Matters to Us
At GMJ, much of our recent work has focused on advocating for neighbors under threat of eviction. These are neighbors suffering from multiple vectors of marginalization at once: poverty, disability, racism, untreated mental health challenges, substance use disorders. Eviction does not just take away a roof. It compounds every other form of harm a person is already navigating.
We also work closely with neighbors who have been further traumatized by Vermont’s system of “transitional” shelters and housing provided by nonprofit housing “providers.” Too often, these systems re-traumatize the very people they claim to serve.
We are building something different. Our Neighbor Care ecosystem is a living network of relationships that produces outcomes no transactional system can replicate. Neighbor Care Neighbors show up week after week with presence, not clipboards. Our Neighbors’ Table gatherings create “third spaces” where neighbors of difference build trust across every kind of boundary. Those relationships have directly led to families finding housing, neighbors finding employment, and isolated people gaining basic social connections that most of us take for granted.
Every eviction this bill makes faster and easier will tear through the relational fabric we are building.
Listen to the Stories
Our Voices from the Edge podcast features neighbors like Jessica, a working mother who fought for nearly two years to secure stable housing while raising three kids in a single motel room and volunteering as an EMT. Like Jerome, a Black veteran who was exited from Vermont’s motel shelter program and had to leave Addison County entirely because no rooms were available. Who chose to sleep outside rather than subject himself to the racism he experienced in shelters. Like Matt and Liz, who fell from working-class stability into sleeping under bridges after health crises devastated their finances.
These are not abstractions. These are your neighbors. They deserve to be heard.
Listen: Voices from the Edge | greenmountainjustice.org/stories
The Deeper Problem
Housing scarcity alone does not explain homelessness. Our systems are failing. And we are losing the humanity it takes to reach directly out to our neighbors in need. Relational poverty is real. Communities that have outsourced care to institutions instead of practicing it themselves. That disconnection is at the root of homelessness as much as any rent payment.
You cannot legislate your way out of this by leaning on “providers” already stretched past the breaking point. The path forward requires something harder: neighbors of privilege connecting directly with neighbors of difference. Human to human. Not through a program. Through proximity.
What You Can Do
Contact your legislators and ask them to oppose H. 772 in its current form. Ask them to listen to the neighbors it will harm. And ask them to open the process to the voices that matter most: the mother in the motel room, the veteran under the bridge, the young person whose entire disability check goes to rent.
Their expertise, born of lived experience, is as valuable as any lobbyist’s policy memo.
Support our work: greenmountainjustice.org/join-us
Green Mountain Justice is a Vermont community justice ministry. We care for marginalized neighbors. We connect people across difference. We collaborate for systemic change. Learn more.
