Dear Vermont, I’m staying

VTDigger · Jasper Brown · September 8, 2026

This commentary is by Jasper Brown , a writer who lives in Montpelier.

As someone who was driven out of Vermont due to its lack of affordability and was brought back via a life crisis, parts of what Jim Suriano recently wrote in VTDigger resonated: the struggle of getting paychecks from people who live outside Vermont; scrambling every month to figure out how to make ends meet; watching life crumble while people are pointing fingers at the federal government.

What I often hear is that we need to “elect the right people.” A lot of pressure is put on elected officials to fix everything. The reality is that voting under our current system allows us to renege on collective accountability and foist it onto someone we delude ourselves into thinking represents our values.

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I’ll be frank: I’m neither patriotic nor a supporter of a nation founded on the genocide of Indigenous communities. We’re also at the point in the climate crisis where no matter what we do, the outcome will be catastrophic — it already is. What’s happening in front of our eyes, should we choose to look, is beyond anything that politics as we know it can fix.

However, there’s a difference between standing up to this crisis as a community rather than a group of angry individuals not listening to one another and then pinning the blame on someone in office. Even in our hyperindividualistic modern society, I hold out hope there are people who make decisions rooted in care and collectivism and see the larger picture.

The affordability crisis in Vermont is one test of our resilience. If we can’t address it, then we will not be ready for the next wave of challenges headed our way. It starts by acknowledging who this land actually belongs to. It means reconciling with our history of racism and eugenics . It also means everyone who lives here deserves a voice, not just those who have plenty of cash. I won’t even get into the ethics of owning multiple residences while many of us can’t afford one roof over our heads.

Any lasting change needs to happen first with our neighbors, including those who are unhoused and unfairly blamed for making the streets unsafe. Any of us could end up on the streets too if we don’t figure out how to support one another in times of need. We will never get this support from any form of government, because it’s not designed to handle this level of global calamity.

Talking with our neighbors means asking real questions. What do you actually have to offer a collective — are you someone who can garden, who can cook, who’s good with kids? If a neighbor is up against a financial hurdle, how much could you and others around you put toward meeting their needs, and what do you need at minimum to meet your own? And when conflict comes — in relationships, the aftermath of a disaster, even something as small as broken plates at a cookout — how do you nurture yourself enough to show up and help repair what’s been ruptured?

In this country, we have all been taught to operate from a scarcity mindset and to believe that there’s never enough to go around. Ultimately, this is what’s driving people who truly have little to work with to leave Vermont. It’s also what drives people to acts of desperation, like asking for change from strangers. Asking questions of ourselves and each other will reveal that we actually have quite a bit to go around, and we don’t need politicians to give us permission to distribute it, nor do we need people with badges to enforce it. In fact, arguably, it’s the laws and badges that are barriers to such acts of reciprocity.

We’re capable of supporting and sustaining ourselves, and it’s time we start tapping into that power.

Read the story on VTDigger here: Dear Vermont, I’m staying .

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