Vermont residents say their famously beautiful green state is increasingly plagued by homelessness, crime, drug addiction and other social problems in its largest towns and cities.
The downtown areas of Burlington and Brattleboro, among other cities, were too dangerous to walk at night, following reports of passersby being attacked by thugs, locals told DailyMail.com.
Some blame the crises on costly social programs in a Democratic-leaning state that has Bernie Sanders as a senator and gave President Joe Biden a 36-point landslide victory in 2020.
“People don’t feel safe going to cities anymore,” small business owner and Republican candidate Mark Coester told DailyMail.com.
‘They can walk down the street and visibly see people with needles stuck in their arms. Our towns and cities are suffering and now the feeling of hopelessness is only getting worse.’
Dirty homeless encampments like this one can increasingly be seen in and around Vermont’s largest towns and cities.
It’s a dramatic change for the idyllic Green Mountain State, partly a result of rising property prices during the pandemic.
Vermont’s problems are on display in Burlington, its largest city, with about 44,000 residents, including about 350 homeless people who live on the streets or camp on the idyllic shore of Lake Champlain.
Many of them congregate at night on Church Street, the beloved red brick house of boutiques and restaurants, ravaged by drugs such as fentanyl and xylazine, also known as ‘tranq’, that drive away locals.
Residents recently told Fox News that the area gets “really dangerous” at night.
An older woman commented that locals don’t set foot in the area after dark because “people get beaten at night.”
Since late August, Burlington police have been warning residents of the need to be on guard, following a series of attacks by “large groups of suspects and perpetrators,” including young people.
In one incident, a victim was hospitalized after being attacked on the street by a group, thrown to the ground and kicked.
In another, a young man from New York was shot in the torso and seriously injured at an oceanfront skate park.
Meanwhile, downtown store owners are complaining about an increase in retail thefts.
The Church Street CVS saw up to 20 robberies each day in August.
Cafe workers complain that thieves have even stolen their tip jars.
Mark Bouchett, the owner of Homeport, a gift and home goods store downtown, said he recently hired security because his annual losses from thefts reached $75,000, in a interview with youtuber Pedro Santenello.
Bouchett said thieves have become more brazen and violent in recent years, stealing with a sense of impunity.
He called for greater support from local police, so that there would be “meaningful consequences for misconduct” in an increasingly lawless city.
Locals express concern about the growing number of homeless people in Vermont, but they also worry that crime and drug abuse will worsen.
An apparently homeless person sleeps on a bench in downtown Burlington, Vermont’s largest city.
Burlington officials say they are working with the local community and the government to help the homeless by making public housing, mental health care, shelters and drug treatment centers more available.
But locals say they want security and more police on the streets arresting criminals.
The city is working to hire more police officers and funnel money into law enforcement after budget cuts. Nearly a third of the city’s force was lost to attrition.
Vermont’s social problems are not limited to Burlington. Homeless encampments have also become common in Brattleboro and the state capital, Montpelier, among other places.
The statewide homeless count reached a record 3,458 homeless people this year.
That’s 163 more than the 3,295 recorded in 2023 and a staggering three-fold increase over the state’s pre-Covid numbers.
They include 107 veterans, 737 children, 855 mentally ill, 309 people fleeing domestic or sexual violence and 568 who had a long-term disability, researchers found in January.
The homelessness epidemic has been exacerbated by the end in July of Vermont’s pandemic-era voucher program, which had covered the costs of motel rooms for the homeless.
In Montpelier and Barre alone, between 100 and 140 families were expected to leave motels this fall.
Vermont social worker and TikToker Chibi Chanwick warned that those affected would soon face snow and freezing temperatures in Vermont’s harsh winters.
“I hope to see a lot of elderly people dead, minors dead, people with disabilities dead, because they are out there and it’s not good.” she said.
Rapidly rising property costs in Vermont have also forced families to downsize or even lose their homes and apartments.
Two security guards walk through Church Street Marketplace in Burlington, which has beefed up security amid fears of drug activity, gun violence and retail theft.
Burlington opened a homeless shelter community last year, but more people than ever are sleeping on the city’s streets.
Prices soared during the pandemic, as Americans abandoned big cities for small towns and wooded rural areas, including Vermont.
The state has a rental vacancy rate of just 3 percent. It needs to create between 24,000 and 36,000 homes between 2025 and 2029 to meet demand, according to the latest Vermont Housing Needs Assessment.
More than 90 Vermont lawmakers this month signed a letter asking Gov. Phil Scott, a Republican, to declare the rising rate of homelessness a state emergency and expedite funding for temporary shelters.
“We are well past the point at which our local communities can absorb the costs, both human and financial, of dealing with this in the coming months,” they wrote, warning of the colder winter months ahead.
The myriad problems represent a dramatic reversal of fortune for Vermont, known as the Green Mountain State and has a reputation for healthy outdoor living and strong social services.
John Klar, a farmer and former tax attorney from the small town of Barton, attributed the crisis to “expensive and inefficient progressive policies that inequitably tax working-class Vermonters.”
“This has been compounded by sanctuary city laws, reduced police and drug interdiction, lax criminal law enforcement and skyrocketing property values during the pandemic,” Klar told DailyMail .com.
He added: “Vermont natives and youth are fleeing the state in droves.”