[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 5 (Monday, January 31, 2000)]
[Senate]
[Pages S162-S163]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             ``SAINT'' RITA

 Mr. LEAHY. Madam President, earlier this month, the Burlington 
Free Press chose for its 1999 Vermonter of the Year, a woman who is 
widely recognized as the guardian angel of the homeless in Vermont, 
Rita Markley. For as long as I have known her, Rita has been a 
passionate, articulate, and very vocal advocate for our most needy 
residents. She has raised awareness that even in Vermont, there are 
people without a roof over their heads, and most importantly, that 
these people have names, and faces, and that many of them are children. 
They could not have a better defender. I would like to have printed in 
the Record the text of the Burlington Free Press article announcing the 
selection of Rita as Vermonter of the Year, and offer my 
congratulations and sincere thanks to our very own ``Saint'' Rita 
Markley. I ask that the article be printed in the Record.
  The article reads as follows:

             [From the Burlington Free Press, Jan. 1, 2000]

               COTS Director Is Our Vermonter of the Year

                          (By Stephen Kieman)

       They are the problem the world's richest country pretends 
     it doesn't have. Curled up in doorways, or killing time on 
     street corners, they are the vision more fortunate Vermonters 
     have learned to look past.
       In a booming economy, they are the bust. Amid records on 
     Wall Street, they sleep on Main Street.
       They are the homeless. And Rita Markley does not look past 
     them. She does not pretend they do not exist. Most of all, 
     she does not stop believing in them.
       As director of the Committee on Temporary Shelter, the 
     largest program for helping homeless people in Vermont, 
     Markley provides them with shelter, and then a way up.
       For her exemplary advocacy on behalf of homeless people, 
     for her unstinting attention to an urgent social issue, and 
     for her success in building a more aware and compassionate 
     community, Rita Markley is The Burlington Free Press 
     Editorial Board's choice for Vermonter of the Year.


                             a new problem

       COTS began providing shelter on Christmas Eve, 1982. 
     Homelessness in Vermont is that recent a phenomenon. Last 
     year more than 4,000 Vermonters lacked housing at some point. 
     Most of them turned to COTS.
       In 1999, COTS provided 10,723 bed nights to people who 
     otherwise would have slept in a car or on the street. COTS 
     also gave shelter to nearly 300 families--including 534 
     children.
       Indeed one of Markley's achievements has been educating 
     Vermonters about who homeless people are. Granted, some are 
     the bothersome substance abusers who elicit little sympathy, 
     but that is a shrinking proportion.
       Many homeless people are veterans. Many are victims of the 
     national trend to close mental hospitals and other 
     institutions, who have not subsequently received sufficient 
     community services.
       Mostly, the homeless are people that Vermonters in good 
     homes interact with all the time--at restaurants, at cash 
     registers, in hotels. Though this work formerly paid enough 
     to support people, today a full-time job is no guarantee of a 
     place to live.
       Of the families who needed COTS last year, half had at 
     least one person working. Yet wages at entry level jobs have 
     fallen so far behind the cost of living in Vermont, the 
     number of homeless families has quadrupled in only four 
     years.
       Meanwhile the federal government, which used to build 
     affordable housing units by the tens of thousands, has 
     stopped. Urban renewal programs have demolished low-income 
     housing, worsening the supply shortage.
       Housing development has focused on higher priced homes; the 
     state's median house selling price rose 20 percent this 
     decade, placing a solution farther out of reach.
       The Clinton administration has responded by expanding 
     rental assistance money. But in Vermont, roughly 1,000 people 
     eligible for these funds face a major obstacle: no eligible 
     apartments available. Burlington has it worst, with a vacancy 
     rate near zero.


                           More than shelter

       Markley came to COTS as a part-timer who wanted to write 
     fiction. Now she is a full-time champion of people who 
     otherwise would not have a voice--or a place to go.

[[Page S163]]

       COTS offers much more than a meal and a bed, though. It 
     provides a continuum of services: health care, child care, 
     job training, coaching for interviews, help with school, 
     summer programs for children, mental health counseling, and 
     on and on. For those who strive, these programs are a strong 
     ladder into good housing and greater opportunities.
       Most importantly, COTS offers its clients hope--that they 
     can escape dependency and attain self-sufficiency. ``Rita 
     believes in the resourcefulness of the human spirit,'' said 
     United Way executive director Gretchen Morse. ``She never 
     falters on that.''
       It works. Seventy percent of the people who complete COTS' 
     training programs have a job and stable housing a year later. 
     A new effort to link apartment hunters with landlords who 
     accept federal subsidies has found 40 individuals and 60 
     families a place to live--even in this no-vacancy market.
       COTS has therefore earned the national accolades that have 
     poured in from advocacy groups and the U.S. Department of 
     Housing.


                          compassion, ability

       With so serious a problem affecting so vital a need of a 
     population growing so quickly, you might expect their 
     strongest advocate to be strident or self-righteous. In 
     Markley's case, a better description would be jokester 
     chocaholic.
       Yes, she is capable of speaking with passion at COTS' 
     annual candlelight vigil. Yes, she is articulate in the 
     Statehouse and before community leaders. And yes, sometimes 
     she is angry about Washington's indifference to the people 
     who are not sharing in the nation's prosperity.
       But Markley uses irreverent humor to protect her from the 
     sometimes grimness of her task, and to thwart burnout. She is 
     quick to praise others, and effusive in her thanks.
       As a result she has made homelessness something Vermonters 
     cannot ignore. Some 180 businesses support COTS financially 
     or with in-kind services. Some 1,500 Vermonters walk for COTS 
     each May. That means Markley is helping cultivate compassion 
     across the community, a good deed that extends far beyond the 
     mission of COTS.
       It also means COTS has steadily diminished its reliance on 
     government's help, now receiving two-thirds of it's funding 
     from other sources. Services are not tailored to the 
     eligibility requirements of some grant, but to what a 
     homeless person actually needs.
       Markley draws on a wealth of skills in her work. Sometimes 
     she is the passionate advocate. Sometimes she is the skilled 
     policy wonk. Sometimes she is the light-hearted comic who 
     brings chocolate to a potentially controversial meeting.
       Sister Lucille Bonvouloir, a founder of COTS, tells a story 
     that reveals a seemingly bottomless reservoir of compassion 
     and ability. A woman came into COTS in the 1980's and no one 
     could communicate with her. Everyone wondered why the woman 
     would not speak. Then Markley entered the room, and in a 
     matter of minutes they had struck up a lively conversation.
       In Russian.

                          ____________________