For the past few years, Vermont has had the second highest per-capita rate of homelessness in the country. During the Covid-19 pandemic, the number of people counted as homeless more than doubled, and the numbers keep going up.

Lots of people are trying to grasp: Why is this happening? Why have we seen this huge, dramatic spike in the number of people experiencing homelessness here?

Carly Berlin was brought on by Vermont Public and VTDigger last year to report on Vermont’s housing crisis. She’s spent hundreds of hours talking to researchers, politicians, government officials and housing advocates to understand the situation here. And she’s spent a lot of time with people who don’t have a permanent home right now.

Her inbox is full of messages asking some version of this question: How many homeless people in Vermont are really from here?

And sometimes, the question is really more of an implied explanation — that Vermont’s recent rise in homelessness is driven by people crossing state lines.

Berlin worked with the Brave Little State team at Vermont Public to produce this podcast investigating that question, and its implications.

Updated: Sept. , 2024— We removed a caveat about data presented in this story to avoid repetition and the potential for misinterpretation.

For decades, Vermont Yankee, a nuclear power plant in Vernon, was the largest producer of electricity for the state.

The plant has been shut down since 2014, and the company that now owns it is in the process of deconstructing it. That company, NorthStar, has recently submitted a plan that describes in detail the final steps of decommissioning, which is projected to be completed ahead of schedule, by 2026.

However, national developments mean that radioactive spent fuel on the site is likely to stay where it is for the foreseeable future.

Host Sam Gale Rosen spoke to VTDigger environmental reporter Emma Cotton, who has been covering the decommissioning process.

Edi Abeneto is food shelf supervisor at Feeding Chittenden, a Burlington-based nonprofit that focuses on hunger relief and serves more than 12,000 people every year. 

Abeneto has worked at the organization for more than 17 years. He speaks six languages, and among other duties, he facilitates communication and provides interpretation for visitors from a wide range of backgrounds.

Over time, he said he’s built up trust with visitors that help him connect them to whatever help they need. 

“I was able to break down the barriers to food access, you know, and while building trust and communication with the new Americans,” Abeneto said. “So every time they see me here, I can say, be more comfortable because I speak the languages, you know, I give them more information about what we're doing.

Host Sam Gale Rosen talked to Abeneto about some of what his work involves.