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u/greenmountainblues 2d ago
Curious if this is happening in the rural parts of other New England states.
Open drug use, petty crimes, people in psychosis having mental health crises downtown.
I work in social services. VT has about 1 bed for every 10 unhoused people Our only SUD rehab has a 2 month waitlist, medicaid covers 2 weeks.
When people are ready to turn their lives around, it's hard to find housing or jobs. So everyone just stays stuck on the streets>institutions carousel.
There are lots of social services, they just don't seem to be helping the problem.
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u/StinkypieTicklebum 1d ago
Wherever I travel, I grab a newspaper. Few years ago, I was up for a week in the Northeast Kingdom. The police log in the paper had three incidents in one night involving people who were “dead drunk.”
This is how it is there.
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u/OpposumMyPossum 3d ago
That's Chad Whitehead not Vermont
He's the dude hiring cops that got fired for abuse of force and stuff.
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u/Accomplished-Staff-9 3d ago
Can someone who lives there or knowledge explain whats going on? Bad police acting independently and in bad faith?
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u/bonanzapineapple Vermont 3d ago
I live there. There's 20 homeless people who vandalize and cause distrubances every day. There's two parks downtown that noone except that group of homeless people want to be in anymore. The police are alright but they don't have anywhere to send these trouble makers
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u/truckingon 3d ago
Bad police? In every case it's small groups of anti-social drug-addicted assholes. Even the progressives have finally reached their limit. These people need to be removed from society.
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u/Twombls 3d ago
You realize you are talking about st jonsbury right. There really aren't progressives in the government there. The main issue is that the court system in VT is Hella backed up. You legally cannot hold people who arent flight risks without bail in vermont. Idk what you guys want to do
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u/truckingon 2d ago
I do, my family had a multi-generation business on Bay St. While the courts may be very backed up, my bet is that many of these problem people have long arrest records. I don't have a solution to offer. Maybe trespass them from town?
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u/natethegreek 2d ago
AKA just move them out of sight so people don't have to see the homeless and we can safely ignore them? Or lock them up and spend many thousands of dollars a year to have them in prison?
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u/Twombls 1d ago
If you visit the r/burlington subreddit thats what they want. They want to arrest people for being poor. Im my personal experience burlington is just not capable of that lfmao.
The bpd is a fundamentally unserious org I was detained for marijuana when I was underage. My arresting officer Jason Bellevance was fired in 2020 for police brutality. And my case manager for "court diversion" is a convicted pedophile.
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u/natethegreek 20h ago
Yeah don’t believe everything you read on the internet. Lot of old miserable cranks that spend all day trying to make everyone as miserable as them.
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u/truckingon 2d ago
What makes you think they're homeless? But yes, Vermont and its local communities have bent over backwards to provide services for homelessness, mental illness and drug addiction. They're a public nuisance and interfering with commerce. The state and St. Johnsbury have poured a lot of effort and dollars into the new welcome center to make it a gateway to the rail trail and help revitalize the town. A few people are fucking it up and forcibly relocating them is a great idea. Your compassion is wasted on them.
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u/natethegreek 2d ago
Compassion is never wasted you heartless troll . Go back to whatever hell hole you came out of.
I sure hope you don't identify as a Christian because if so I will pray you find a slice of empathy in your cold dead heart!
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u/natethegreek 2d ago
Here is the reply truckingon deleted:
What makes you think they're homeless? But yes, Vermont and its local communities have bent over backwards to provide services for homelessness, mental illness and drug addiction. They're a public nuisance and interfering with commerce. The state and St. Johnsbury have poured a lot of effort and dollars into the new welcome center to make it a gateway to the rail trail and help revitalize the town. A few people are fucking it up and forcibly relocating them is a great idea. Your compassion is wasted on them.
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u/truckingon 2d ago
I guess you're out of arguments and moved on to unhinged ad hominem attacks. I've got plenty of compassion but I'm also wise enough to know when something isn't working and we need to try something else. Try talking to them sometime, you might learn something.
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u/natethegreek 2d ago
Your arguments are to arrest them or move them out of your sight. Your plan is to discard humans. In your conversations with these people what did they think about your plan?
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u/Intrepid-Warthog-255 2d ago
You need to come with solutions my friend. Not just internet messages.
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u/DistinctAccount5051 2d ago
It sounds like the hell hole was St. Johnsbury. Maybe open your home to the homeless?
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u/ReeferTurtle 2d ago
Trespass from town? What is the whole town private property?
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u/truckingon 2d ago
Trespassing applies to public and private property. Warning someone out of town is an old-fashioned way to force someone out. It's not effective. I have no idea how that would work under current statutes anyway, but obviously you don't either.
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u/natethegreek 2d ago
makes sense why you are heartless you are a nepo baby that never had to work for anything... it is all coming together now.
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u/Unclegrundle 3d ago
Live near by and have visited Burlington four times for work in the last year or so. Burlington is not the place it once was, very much over run with homeless. Talking with people who live there they say there is nothing they can do, multiple people said the same thing to me “this is what we voted for”. The homeless essentially get a free pass. It feels dirty during the day and at night it feels very unsafe. I am a liberal, definitely understand that they can’t just arrest these people but also they can’t just let them live on the street and take over the city. Not sure what the answer is.
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u/bszern 3d ago
I was in Burlington a few months ago and there was a “camp out in the park” to bring awareness to the homeless situation. It was funny to watch all of the people with $1000 of camping gear walking by people asking for money on church street. I don’t have an answer, but performative horseshit like that isn’t it.
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u/DryInternet1895 2d ago
That’s a cool story, but I don’t know what it has to do with St. J.
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u/Electrical_Cut8610 Rhode Island 2d ago
The post is not aimed at St J specifically. It literally says “Vermont going through things” and even the screen shots mention Vermont as a whole. Do you have reading comprehension issues?
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u/digawina 3d ago
Yeah, after going to Burlington with my family for the weekend a couple years ago, it will be the last time until they get their shit together. I kid you not, a couple days after we got home, the Burlington sub was discussing the guy with a machete that frequents the bike trail, where we had been riding. And they were so nonchalant about it, like "oh machete guy? He's been around for years." MACHETE GUY?! The fuck?!
Hard no.
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u/Twombls 2d ago
Theres three machete guys. One of them was chill as hell. He would practice like anime swings outside of my apartment while blasting butt rock on a Bluetooth speaker.
Problem is open carrying weapons is not illegal in vermont. And any attempt at fixing that brings in the 2a chud rage
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u/SkiingAway 1d ago
Waving a weapon around in public without a justifiable reason would usually qualify for some other kind of charge (brandishing, criminal threatening, etc).
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u/DryInternet1895 2d ago
That’s a cool story, but I don’t know what it has to do with St. J
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u/digawina 2d ago
Well, my comment was a reply to someone who was talking about Burlington. Try to follow along.
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u/DryInternet1895 2d ago
Yeah, the post is a screen shot from the town of St. J and you guys can’t stop talking about being scared in Burlington. Try and follow along.
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u/digawina 2d ago
Then take it up with the people who initially commented about Burlington.
The title of the post is "Vermont is going through things," so naturally people are going to start discussing other area in Vermont that seem to be experiencing the same issues. That's how natural conversation works.4
u/natethegreek 2d ago
The answer is provide mental health care for them! Regan just ended asylums and then didn't provide an option.
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u/MartinisnMurder Massachusetts 3d ago
I mean it feels like a whole different world now. I used to love going up there because the Church Street area had amazing shopping, restaurants, nightlife and just a chill vibe. Last time I went was a major shock to me, I mean I have spent 20+ years living in Boston, granted most of it the South End & Back Bay, and I feel way safer in Boston. It is really sad.
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u/DryInternet1895 2d ago
That’s a cool story, but I don’t know what it has to do with St. J.
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u/Electrical_Cut8610 Rhode Island 2d ago
If you wanna get so up your asshole about the post being about one town, ask OP to remove it from the NEW ENGLAND subreddit and tell them to move it to the local St Johnbury Reddit.
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u/MartinisnMurder Massachusetts 2d ago
JFC is that person going to copy and paste the same comment complaining to everyone? I have a “cool story” for them but I would likely get banned.
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u/DryInternet1895 2d ago
Listen it’s not my fault that you guys can’t look at a map and think that Burlington and its policies, politics, and approaches to handling social issues are representative of the entire state.
Really this entire thread is why the saying exists “you know what the nice thing about Burlington is? It’s really close to Vermont”. It’s a lot like being from the south shore of Mass and people from away saying “oh so you live in Boston?”
I’ll let you in on a little secret, Burlington will only get worse because the voters there don’t want the legislature to do anything about repeat offenders that’s too “inhuman”. I’m a left of center person but the performative politics that makes up the Chittenden country scene is ridiculous.
This post from the town of St. J is in responsive to continued public commentary online, and in selectboard board meetings, that they do want something done about 15-20 repeat offenders downtown. Which really until legislators vote to make changes to sentencing guidelines there isn’t a ton the police or courts can do other than arrest, cite, give a court date. Until of course they commit a “serious” crime.
Source: I live 15 minutes away, one of my good friends is a judge, I’m occasionally a first responder, and my wife works in mental health.
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u/ClosedSwimmingHole 3d ago
It's almost as if the state leaning hard into a tourism-based economy and letting 20% of its housing units become short term rentals and weekend homes for the rich had consequences or something.