Court Denies Preliminary Injunction to Keep All Vermonters Sheltered
For Immediate Release, March 22, 2024
Court Denies Preliminary Injunction to Keep All Vermonters Sheltered
Groundworks Collaborative, Inc., et al. v. Vermont Agency of Human Services, et al.; Vermont Superior Court, Chittenden Unit, Case No. 24-CV-00999.
Today, the Chittenden Superior Court denied Vermont Legal Aid’s request for a preliminary injunction in the GA Emergency Housing lawsuit that Vermont Legal Aid filed last Friday. A hearing on these matters was held on Thursday, March 21st.
On March 15th, the Court denied Plaintiffs’ request for a Temporary Restraining Order on behalf of Plaintiffs, who were homeless service provider organizations. After these organizations talked to numerous people over the weekend who were not assessed for eligibility before they were kicked out of motels on Friday, Vermont Legal Aid asked the Court to add three individual named plaintiffs and to consider a new Temporary Restraining Order for those people. Vermont Legal Aid also asked the Court to certify a class so that everyone who had not been properly assessed could be protected. The Court granted the Temporary Restraining Order for those individuals on March 20, 2024. Those individuals were able to be assessed for safe housing. But the court did not rule on class certification.
On Thursday, the Court held a hearing on Plaintiffs’ original requests for a Preliminary Injunction to pause the ejectment of people from the motels in the winter, and for class certification. Unfortunately, today the Court denied those requests. VLA had asked for the pause to give organizational Plaintiffs and the Department time to properly screen everyone for temporary housing eligibility before they were kicked out of the motels. But the Court found that the organizational Plaintiffs could not show enough harm to their mission and operations to justify a preliminary injunction against the Department.
VLA filed this lawsuit because the State had failed to reach people who were covered by the Legislature in the Budget Adjustment Act and refused to extend the wintertime shelter program to give time for this to happen.
“We are devastated by this ruling,” says VLA Attorney Leah Burdick, one of the attorneys for the plaintiffs. “The Department has completely failed our most vulnerable people, and hundreds are still out in the cold. It’s unacceptable, and we will continue to fight this grave injustice.”
For more information, visit the Vermont Legal Aid website.
For press inquiries, please contact Sandra Paritz, sparitz@vtlegalaid.org.