E1: First Responder, Left Behind

Jessica works long hours serving customers more than full-time every week and volunteers as an EMT in her rural Addison County community. Yet for nearly two years, she and her three children lived in a single motel room—trapped in Vermont's broken housing system that created an impossible catch-22: she earned too much to qualify for assistance but too little to afford rent anywhere. Every day, Jessica served customers who had homes to return to while she faced the reality of raising three children in a space barely big enough for one person. Her story reveals the fundamental contradictions of systems that depend on workers like Jessica while abandoning them to housing insecurity. With remarkable strength and resilience, Jessica fought a two-year battle for stable housing because, as she says, giving up is not an option when you have kids counting on you. Her journey exposes how Vermont's crisis isn't just about lack of housing—it's about a structure that fails the very people who serve our communities every day. Jessica's story shows what it means to keep going when the systems meant to support working families leave you invisible and on your own.