A sampling of housing news and resources from around Vermont and beyond
New Affordable Housing in Vermont
Windham & Windsor Housing Trust is redeveloping the Snow Block in downtown Brattleboro. The new building will have 23 apartments ranging from studios to two-bedrooms. The $7 million project is funded from numerous sources, including almost $5 million in Housing Tax Credits administered by the Vermont Housing Finance Agency and purchased by People’s United Bank, $1,538,000 from the Vermont Housing & Conservation Board, $490,000 in federal HOME Program funds, and $292,178 in federal National Housing Trust funds. Read more here.
Last month, Windham & Windsor Housing Trust and Housing Vermont also celebrated the opening of 18 new apartments on Neumann Lane and the renovation of seven apartments at the historic Noyes House in Putney. Read more here.
In Montpelier, Winooski River Apartments, consisting of three buildings (11 Bailey Avenue, 15 Baldwin Street, 37 Barre Street) have undergone an extensive rehab to address structural issues, weatherization, energy efficiency, and ADA requirements. The Downstreet Housing & Community Development project will serve mixed-income households. Of the 15 units, 3 units will be affordable to households making 50% or less of median income, 10 units at 60% or less of median income rents and the remaining 2 units at market rate. Read more here.
In Chittenden County, the Building Homes Together campaign has met its target for total new homes, with more than 1,600 homes added in the last two years, but only 191 of those are permanently affordable, which puts the campaign behind in its target of 700 permanently affordable by the end of 2020. While the overall construction goals being met demonstrate a strong housing market, “there’s a tremendous, pent up need for housing that is affordable to low-income individuals and families,” said Brenda Torpy, CEO of Champlain Housing Trust. “We need to increase the affordable production if we want communities that are inclusive to all.”
The BHT campaign also calls for:
- Supporting communities to create and fund local housing trust funds.
- Fully funding state sources like the Vermont Housing and Conservation Board.
- Supporting communities that want to address the shortage of housing by offering assistance with zoning changes and other local tools.
Building Homes Together is a partnership of the Champlain Housing Trust, Housing Vermont, and the Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission, along with more than 100 representatives from the nonprofit sector, business interests, banks and credit unions, housing developers, municipal and state officials and local institutions. Learn more here.
See more news in the latest Vermont Affordable Housing Coalition newsletter.
Leadership Transitions
There are several leadership transitions in the Vermont housing world:
- The Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity has an opening for the Director of Vermont Tenants and Mobile Home programs. Jonathan Bond, who has been the Director of VTT/MHP since 2015 and connected to the Mobile Home Program since 2010 while a graduate researcher at UVM, is leaving to become Executive Director of The Housing Foundation Inc (HFI), a nonprofit corporation created in 1986 to promote and encourage affordable, quality, low-cost housing for low-income families, the elderly and persons with disabilities. CVOEO is also hiring a Mobile Home Program Resident Organizer. Learn more about both opportunities here.
- RuralEdge, a regional housing non-profit organization serving the Northeast Kingdom, announced the appointment of Frances Pheeny as Executive Director. Pheeny comes to RuralEdge from Franklin County Regional Housing & Redevelopment Agency, in rural western Mass., where she most recently served as the Executive Director. As head of RuralEdge, Pheeny will oversee 600 housing units scattered across the 2,000 square miles of Caledonia, Essex, and Orleans counties, a Home Ownership Center providing Homebuyer Education, Financial Empowerment classes and Home Repair and Rehabilitation, and a Support and Services at Home (SASH) program. Read more here.
- The Board of Vermont Housing Finance Agency announced earlier this month that Maura Collins of Essex Junction will be the organization’s next Executive Director. Collins will step into her new role on Jan. 1 when Sarah Carpenter, the agency’s Executive Director for the past 20 years, retires. Since joining VHFA in 2002, Collins has held several positions at the agency, most recently as Deputy Director. Read more here.
Good Ideas
Shared-equity Homeownership as a way to Bridge the Racial Wealth Gap
Government has been involved in increasing the wealth of certain groups of people in this country for centuries. It started with “headrights,” a policy under which European immigrants were given land stolen from indigenous people with the acreage based on the size of their households (including indentured servants and slaves), and continued with Homeowners Loan Corporation redlining maps and today with the ways our separate and unequal financial markets combine with neighborhoods that are still effectively segregated to reinforce racial disparities in credit scores. Here’s a thoughtful look at shared-equity homeownership as an important part of the solution. Read the full Shelterforce article here.
REGISTER NOW FOR VT STATEWIDE HOUSING CONFERENCE
The Vermont Statewide Housing Conference is Vermont’s largest gathering of housing professionals. Held every other year, the event draws upwards of 450 people from all over Vermont and beyond, from many sectors of the housing industry: development, construction, financing, legislation, advocacy, policy and more. This year’s conference theme is the impact Vermont communities have on housing affordability. An inspiring line up of interactive, cutting-edge sessions will focus on specific municipal policy tools and community case studies. The conference is Nov. 13 and 14 at the Hilton Burlington on Battery Street. The agenda, workshop descriptions, speaker bios, and registration info are at https://www.vhfa.org/conference/
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