On April 3, social worker Leah Rosin-Pritchard was working at a Brattleboro shelter for people experiencing homelessness when she was killed, allegedly by a shelter resident.

The brutal murder of the 36-year old shelter coordinator shocked the state. It struck especially close to home for Rick DeAngelis, co-executive director of Good Samaritan Haven, which operates shelters and transitional housing in Barre and Montpelier. In February, DeAngelis’s son Gabe was stabbed multiple times while working at a Montpelier warming shelter. He is recovering from his wounds.

Vermont’s system of care for people who are unhoused or in need of mental health services is in a perilous state. This fragile system will be further strained as pandemic funding for emergency housing is about to end for about 3,000 people who are currently living in motels. Affordable housing is in critically short supply, psychiatric beds are scarce, an opioid crisis rages, and homelessness is rising. Vermont has the second-highest per-capita rate of homelessness in the country, behind only California, according to a recent government report. 

Rick DeAngelis began working with people who are experiencing homelessness in Boston in the 1980s. DeAngelis went on to work at the Vermont Housing and Conservation Board and was the first executive director of what is now Downstreet Housing and Community Development before becoming co-director of Good Samaritan Haven in 2020.

DeAngelis said “there is a perfect storm of factors that have come together over the last couple of years to create this crisis situation.”

Anne Sosin, interim director of the Vermont Affordable Housing Coalition, insists that the shortage of affordable housing is the primary driver of homelessness. “The vast majority of people who are experiencing homelessness can be successfully housed.” She said that a strategy “that combines housing with a supportive service model [has] made really dramatic progress” in other cities.

DeAngelis, a lifelong advocate for people experiencing homelessness, said that despite the current challenges, “we have an opportunity in every moment, to try to rebuild, to heal, to start again.”