This winter New York, Vermont and much of New England have experienced bone-chilling temperatures, with wind chills dipping past 40-below zero. In Vermont, officials are opening Extreme Cold Weather Shelters for the unhoused when the wind chill reaches 10-below zero.
Vermont’s Department for Children and Families has partnered with groups across the state to fund six extreme cold weather shelters. This winter has been so cold that the temporary low-barrier shelters have been activated more than 20 times.
Vermont Interfaith Action administers the grant that funds the shelter program. Executive Director Melissa Battah says the level of demand for the shelters varies.
“Places like Montpelier I am pretty sure that every night they’ve operated they have been at capacity. Same with Brattleboro. Other places like the Northeast Kingdom they only see a couple people coming in to their location, but there’s also a secondary shelter in that area. But whether there’s only a couple of folks or they’re totally maxed, it’s about providing shelter for the most number of people possible.”
In Burlington, the Miller Center’s gym serves as the city’s Extreme Cold Weather Shelter. It has a capacity of 100 people, and on Sunday night 87 people were there.
Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity Executive Director Paul Dragon explains that other shelters the city operates are at capacity and the Miller Center provides a temporary solution during extreme cold.
“We operate several year-round shelters and we also operate an additional winter shelter and there’s just not enough capacity and there’s not enough funding from the state of Vermont to have enough shelters throughout the whole winter. And this is just an additional resource for when temperatures get very, very cold.”
For nearly a month in the fall of 2021, End Homelessness Vermont Executive Director Brenda Siegel slept outside on the Capitol steps in Montpelier to protest the state’s intention to end a hotel-motel general assistance program.
“When we stayed out there it got as cold as 19 degrees, so nothing close to the life-ending temperatures that we’ve experienced in the last few weeks. And it’s important to note that we had lots of supplies and that is not the experience of people who are living on the street. Their risks are much, much higher than ours were on the steps and even still I got sick.”
The 2025 Vermont State of Homelessness report found more than 3,300 Vermonters were experiencing homelessness, marking a more than 200% increase since 2020.
Siegel says the state funding of six extreme cold weather shelters is not enough to protect that community.
“The state really needs to have a system where people are already sheltered because creating crisis that we then have to respond to is not taking care of our most vulnerable Vermonters. It is leaving them to be sick outside. It is leaving them to die outside and it is not supporting them in a way that gets us out of the crisis of homelessness.”
Battah says protecting people from dying in the frigid weather is the goal of the cold weather shelter program.
“I’m a member of the Episcopal Church in Barre and the first night that we opened in December, just that morning, we talked to a gentleman, Rick, who ended up passing away that night due to exposure. My pastor had reminded him that the shelter will be open and then they said that they never saw him come through. We don’t know why. But I think that that’s a real concern that every single night there is a possibility of one of our unhoused neighbors not making it inside in time and passing away.”
