Category Archives: Housing Inequality

Our “Housing Language”

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As someone who has attended many housing conversations over the past decade, there are many housing-takes I am well acquainted with. If you’re a housing advocate, this is probably true for you, too.

We are all familiar with the proverbial “three legged stool” of affordable housing (capital investments, financial assistance, and supportive services), the plight of housing being siloed from other social service sectors, Vermont’s aging demographics, and smart-growth practices. If one were to create a housing bingo card, terms like “Frannie Mae and Freddie Mac,” “multi-family housing,” and “Act 250″ would surely make it into squares. Combined with our notorious  habit of referring to the numerous housing nonprofits, agencies, and other entities by their acronyms, the world of housing has developed its own language. If you are anyone outside of our insular bubble, however, all this terminology likely requires some translation.

Last year, we shared this post “Housing Committees & Citizen Housing Advocacy.  Our intent for the guide was to encourage participation in local housing committees by everyday people who can speak to the individual, specific needs of the community members most impacted by our housing shortage. But if we don’t make the “language” of housing more accessible, can we rely on community-driven change by our housing committees and review boards?

Opportunities for community engagement in the policies we implement as towns, cities, and states are in place with the belief that they create avenues for community members to ensure their needs and shared spaces are not steamrolled by national, government policies.

We know that all cities and towns don’t have the same needs, and a single overseeing organization could not possibly know what those needs are. We also know the history of our federal and state governments creating intentionally discriminatory policies with the intent of disinvesting from Black and Brown communities, and segregating their members from white communities. This is to say that existing regulations, like the National Environmental Protection Act, are intended to further our democracy through community participation.

What ends up happening however, as this NYTimes podcast points out, is that the marginalized communities intended to benefit from these policies are not the ones actually using them. It is the people with the privilege of access to these avenues who are most readily able to voice their concerns — people who have the time to do the research and commit to the meetings, the backgrounds to understand the language, access to the meetings space through transportation or technology, familiarity with governance protocols, and the personal interest to “protect” their stakes in their neighborhood. 

In recent years, housing advocates have recognized this pattern. Already, there are creative solutions emerging across Vermont to bring the housing conversation to the people passionate about housing justice, but lacking avenues to make an impact.

Housing for All Summit

The Fair Housing Project joined Vital Communities and Keys to the Valley for the  recent Homes for All Summit, a conversation on how to meet the housing needs of the Upper Valley Region of Vermont. 

Together, we discussed housing solutions, projects, and challenges Upper Valley communities are facing. John Haffner, manager of Vital Communities Housing and Transportation program, emphasized the need to change our vernacular when we talk about housing and communities in Vermont’s more rural spaces. 

Two photos from the Upper Valley region appeared on Haffner’s screen. To the left, an idyllic single-family house with a red barn, surrounded by rolling pastures and foliage-adorned hills. To the right positioned a black and white photo of a bustling city center, complete with front-facing businesses, topped by apartment rentals and connected by walkable roads.

From the Housing for All Summit, Haffner illustrates how historical city centers depict contemporary housing values

 

Haffner argued that not everyone can live in the single family home, abutted by the red barn and rolling pastures that comes up when you google “Vermont Upper Valley,” as he revealed was the case with the Norwich-based photo on the left. However, dense, walkable town-centers are just as much a part of Vermont’s historical “character.” The right-hand photograph Haffner reveals as Lebanon town from the early 1900’s, ironically encompassing our new urban ideals over a hundred years past. The strongest resistance to building the housing we need is often in the name of preserving the character of our communities. But character becomes distilled into a series of images that may not actually represent the true diversity of our Vermont neighborhoods. Housing advocates are charged with shifting our shared perception of what it looks like to live in the Upper Valley region of Vermont. 

In Burlington, the Department of City Planning Brings the Housing Conversation to the Community

Up in the Chittenden County region of our state, housing advocates deal with distinctly different housing needs, but are facing a similar problem: community resistance to building in their neighborhoods. Can you shift the way a community thinks about their current housing landscape, its history, and its future over a series of public forums?

Burlington’s Department of City Planning is responding to Vermont’s most acute housing shortage, where recent vacancy rates have dropped to 0.4% for rental housing overall, and as little as 0% for three bedroom apartments. One of the zoning blocks they are charged with reviewing is the South End, the Pine Street corridor which includes Burlington’s Arts District.

City Planning staff members Meagan Tuttle and Charles Dillard are tiptoeing in delicate territory, however. With the area only recently formally recognized by the city in 2010 as the Arts District, artists have been organizing in the remains of Burlington’s manufacturing companies for over 30 years. Artists are credited with revitalizing a part of town zoned only for manufacturing, and bringing some of the “funky personality” that we associate with Burlington today. But in 2015 when Burlington proposed housing in that area, the businesses and artists organized against it with some success. Today, under the guidance of Tuttle and Dillard, the rezoning proposal looks a little different. They have identified what is termed the “Innovation District,” a small parcel of land near the Arts District that would benefit the community with more housing. 

The Planning Department of Burlington was cautious and strategic in how they engaged the community around this potential change to regional zoning. A series of interactive Q&A’s allowed residents to ask questions about the proposed change, and to voice their needs for the community, including an interactive map which people could add notes to. The team was a frequent visitor at the Farmers Market, a well-attended community event that takes place in the Arts District. 

Is it possible to talk about zoning, but make it fun?

At the start of last month, the Burlington Department of Planning hosted a trivia night at Burlington Beer company. The audience was an even split of housing advocates, curious for “fun” ways to consider housing policies, and patrons, entertained by the prospect of trivia while enjoying a drink. Surely, there has never been a moment in Vermont’s history where the conversation of zoning was accompanied by so much laughter. Hosts asked questions like, “how many units are in each building?” showing an array of “charming” homes that had been subdivided into multi-family housing. Between questions that invited audiences to reflect on the history of Burlington’s housing policies, moderators encouraged the audience to reflect on how different neighborhoods in Burlington were more or less inclusive. “As we play this game, think about how Vermont has both one of the oldest housing stocks in the country, and continues to be one of the whitest states in the country.”


Noteworthy in the outreach methods of Burlington’s Office of City Planning is their visual iconography. If one is asked to draw a picture representing “home” (as we often prompt Fair Housing Month participants to do at CVOEO’s Fair Housing Project), most of the time, it is depicted as the iconic square topped by a triangle. This is true even if the artist themselves does not live in a place represented as such, with the exception being when participants are invited to consider home from a deeper, more personal lens, as with this Bent Northrop Fair Housing Month submission. Burlington’s City Planners know that the iconic “single-family” two bedroom house is not what most Burlington community members live in, and so they hired local artist Jodi Whalen to depict the specific, unique architecture of buildings in Burlington. Whalen’s drawings include some of the quirky apartments featured in the trivia slides- which appear as a single home, but pack extra apartments in the back – as well as the newer, high-density builds that are cropping up in the city today. We reached out to Whalen to hear more about the process of creating the illustrations.

Office of City Planning hires local illustrator to depict a wide variety of Burlington homes
Office of City Planning hires local illustrator to depict a wide variety of Burlington homes

I moved to Burlington from Pennsylvania in 1991, and have lived in the Old North End, Downtown, the New North End, and the South End. I love not just the unique architecture of the city, but also the way people make their houses their homes. I love to ride my bike around town to catch glimpses of porch gardens, little free libraries, sunflowers in green belts, and other touches that bring these old homes new life. In my illustrations, I like to add whimsical colors and patterns to add even more of the fun Burlington spirit to the homes.

-Jodi Whalen, on her illustrations for the City of Burlington Department of Planning

This is just a taste of some of the creative approaches to shift our housing “vernacular” as towns, cities, and a state. Tune into our Vermont Housing Conference post for highlights on other creative takes to inviting more community members into the housing conversation!

 

 

 

 

Vermont Racial Justice Housing Jam: Speaker Series Starts Nov. 3

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Register now for Increasing Racial Justice in Vermont Housing speaker series

A group of Vermont housing organizations is hosting a free four-part series examining how racial inequities impact access to housing in Vermont.

The public speaker series has been developed by Abundant Sun, together with the Vermont Racial Justice Housing Jam, a committee of community members with lived experience and representatives from nonprofit housing organizations. Local, national, and international speakers will address selected topics focused on increasing racial justice and equity in Vermont housing.  The goal of the initiative is to identify actions on policy, programmatic and cultural levels to expand access to affordable housing for all Vermonters.

All sessions are free and open to the public, and will be held via Zoom from 4:30-6pm with presentations followed by discussions (click on each title to register):

The Vermont Racial Justice Housing Jam is coordinated by the Vermont Housing & Conservation Board, working in partnership with Abundant Sun, Champlain Housing Trust, Downstreet Housing & Community Development, RuralEdge, Windham & Windsor Housing Trust, NeighborWorks of Western Vermont, NeighborWorks America, and Vermont Housing Finance Agency, with additional support from the Federal Home Loan Bank of Boston.

In (or Out of) “The Zone”

Chittenden County, Chittenden County VT, fair housing, housing crisis, housing discrimination, Housing Inequality, inclusionary zoning, Inclusive Communities, zoning,

This guest blog post features Mark Demers, Landlord Liaison at the Champlain Valley of Economic Opportunity (CVOEO). Mark helps build relationships with landlords across Chittenden County so that we at CVOEO can strengthen our practices of assisting people with their housing needs. Mark reflects on the way zoning laws can be restrictive to inclusive housing, and the impact that might have on the overall community.  Zoning laws have been used to restrict affordable housing and perpetuate the racial wealth gap. Historically, this has been intentional, with the “protection” that he refers to in his letter being for white people. If you are interested in digging deeper into the topic of zoning and equity, this webinar hosted by the Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University is a good place to start.

In (or Out of) “The Zone”

I walked into the bedroom and saw my three-year-old sitting on the floor with his back up against his bed, his knees pulled up tight to his chest. His ten-year-old brother with whom he shared the room, was seated at a desk working on a model airplane.

“Why don’t you play with your toys?” I asked the little one.

“I can’t play with my toys,” he said.

“Why not?”

“Because I can’t go past the line to get them.”

I learned that a policy had recently been put in force in the bedroom. The three-year-old was allowed to be in the room as long as he stayed on his “side”, which consisted of the real estate bordered by the wall his bed rested against and a line that ran parallel, about two feet away from the edge of the bed where he currently was sitting. The line was invisible; but it was rigorously enforced by the older brother. The youngest had access to about 15% of the space in the room. He was granted a right-of-way from the door of the bedroom to his “side”.

My youngest was experiencing the inequity of an unjust zoning ordinance – a policy over which he had little control and less say.

In her book “Fixer Upper”, Jenny Schuetz lays significant blame for the current housing crunch across the nation on zoning laws that are as restrictive as they are complicated. Communities are diverse in both their demography and their geography, thus the plethora of zoning not just from one town to another, but from one neighborhood to the next. Burlington is no exception.

Who can be expected to remember the difference between the NMU and the NAC; or the NAC-RC and the NAC-CR? We have RH’s, RM’s, RM-Ws, RL’s and RL-W’s. Each of these designate specific sections of the city and are accompanied by regulations for what can or cannot be built within their boundaries.

Zoning laws are designed to protect something – like wetlands or waterfronts or fabulous views or recreation areas. They protect the character of neighborhoods, keeping them “low density” (“RL”) or “historic” in appearance. Unfortunately, as my youngest son experienced, these laws can do more than protect resources or appearances. They become barriers – as impermeable as they are invisible – that prevent the construction of needed housing or prohibit certain people from living there.

We don’t want to throw the baby out with the bathwater. We don’t have to look far to see what happens when polluting activities are allowed to go unrestrained on fragile lands. The clean-up takes years and costs millions. We also have to ask ourselves the question: Do we want our children to be able to afford to live here? Burlington doesn’t have room to “build out” and if I read our current zoning laws right, there are not many places where we can “build up”. Something is going to have to give.

I don’t envy those in power faced with the task of mitigating the current housing crisis. My three-year-old son had the benefit of a dad whose authority was enough to adjust oppressive lines that had been arbitrarily set by the bedroom zoning ordinance. The lines drawn in and between our neighborhoods present more of a challenge. They have the power of decades of inertia behind them. But if we are going to have housing that is affordable, sustainable, and environmentally responsible, some of those lines are going to have to move. That’s not just a job for civic leaders; it’s a project that will demand careful thought, compromise – and dare I say it – sacrifice from us all.

 

If you are a landlord or property manager or want to comment on this article, please feel free to give me a call – 863-6248  x 755 or send me an email – mdemers@cvoeo.org.

Burlington City Hall Fair Housing Exhibit – Celebrate Inclusive Communities and the Importance of Home

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Housing is a basic human right and everyone deserves equitable access to safe, accessible, and stable homes, free from discrimination. Having enough quality, affordable, and inclusive homes helps build vibrant communities, and promotes economic growth and opportunity for all. In the face of the ongoing housing crisis in Vermont, where there simply aren’t enough homes for people of all income levels – especially those of lower income and the most vulnerable in our communities – and as we emerge from the covid-19 pandemic, housing justice is of paramount importance.

This week’s Fair Housing Month event- overview:

  • Thursday April 14th 12pm-1pm – Landlord Management Series: Fair Housing :Join Angela Zaikowski of Vermont Landlords Association, Cole Elwood of Strong Will Real Estate /Keller Williams Vermont, and Jess Hyman of the CVOEO Fair Housing Project as they cover fair housing in Vermont
  • Thursday April 14th 6-8pm – SEABA Virtual ‘Affordable Housing Roundtable’ : A roundtable for Burlington’s South End artists and businesses to better understand recent housing policy reforms and engage on innovative solutions to help tackle the affordable housing challenge in Burlington’s South End.
  • Friday April 15th 12:30pm Fair Housing Friday Why Aren’t We Building the Housing We Need?  Featuring Katherine “Deac” Decarreau, ED Winooski Housing Authority, Nate Besio, Peer Advocate Counselor Coordinator VCIL, Carol Jaramillo. Community Builder Northgate Resident Owned Corp, in this webinar we will hear about the barriers to housing development, what kind of housing we are building, and why (or why not) the housing we are developing meets the needs of our most vulnerable community members.

Visit the City Hall Gallery at 149 Church Street in Burlington to  check out CVOEO’s Fair Housing Project Fair Housing Month exhibit!  

April marks the anniversary of the 1968 passage of the Fair Housing Act, which was intended to put an end to inequities in our housing system, eliminate racial segregation, and guarantee that everyone has the right to obtain a home of their choice, free from discrimination. Visit the City Hall Gallery at 149 Church Street in Burlington to learn more about the history of the Fair Housing Act, your rights and responsibilities under Federal and Vermont law, and how Fair Housing is connected to the challenges and opportunities of Vermont’s current housing landscape. These newly designed panels  feature our updated protected classes iconography, ways to become an advocate, and a brief history of Fair Housing

For those of you who cannot make it, you can view our PDFs below!

This exhibit was created by the Fair Housing Project of CVOEO with illustrations by Corrine Yonce.

Special thanks to Burlington City Arts & Vantage Press.

NLIHC’s Out of Reach Report tells us what we already know: Vermont has a growing affordability problem – Here’s what we can do about it.

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The recent release of the National Low Income Housing Coalition’s Out of Reach report shows that Vermont has the sixth largest shortfall between the average renter wage and the two-bedroom housing wage. In the Burlington/ South Burlington region, where the 2-bedroom housing wage jumps from the state’s average of $23.68 to $31.31, the housing wage gap is particularly acute. This means that full-time employees living in Burlington and South Burlington have to make $31.31per hour in order not to spend more than 30% of their income on rent. Meanwhile, the average hourly wage for Vermont renters is $13.83.

Source: Housing wages based on HUD fair market rents. NLIHC The Gap 2021 pg 5

“We’ve been in the midst of a chronic affordable housing crisis for many, many years,” Kerrie Lohr of Lamoille Housing Partnership, asserted to VTDigger earlier this week, “This report pretty much shows what we already know to be true, is that housing is out of reach for many of Vermont’s renters.” What housing advocates have been seeking to address over the course of Vermont’s long housing affordability history crisis has become especially acute during this past year. While Vermont’s housing sales spiked 38% this past year, many of these new residents purchased with cash-on-hand, often significantly over the asking price, with sales of million dollar homes almost tripling.

These numbers are particularly concerning when we turn an eye to Vermont’s pattern of racial inequity. This year saw rates of COVID doubling in communities of color, highlighting the disparities in health and economic opportunities for People of Color in Vermont. Nationally, the home ownership rate of White households is 70% to the 41% of Back homeowners, a gap caused and reinforced by a pervasive history of racist housing policies, inequal lending, and lack of meaningful policy change to address this systemic problem. Vermont’s homeownership gap is much larger with only 21% of Black households owning their home compared to 72% of white households. Local student activist (and current Fair Housing Project intern) Minelle Sarfo-Adu spoke to VPR about experiencing this stark disparity in her South Burlington community, “I think I only have two African American friends in the whole — like in all Vermont, that actually own homes,” she said. “Other than that, every other one of my friends actually rents, unless they’re white. All my white friends actually own their homes.”

The severe affordability crisis in Vermont creates an environment where landlords can be more discriminative in who they rent to. For renters who belong to the Fair Housing protected classes and face the greatest barriers to housing access in our state, this means longer and more desperate housing searches. While housing advocates are certain that most discrimination goes unreported, testing performed by the Housing Discrimination Law Project of Vermont Legal Aid indicates that housing providers generally disfavor African American renters, renters of foreign origin, renters with children and renters with disabilities. Reports from the CVOEO Vermont Tenants hotline and housing community forums are riddled with stories of people being turned away from housing because of a housing voucher or for having children (both violations of the Fair Housing Act in Vermont), and of desperate housing decisions such as signing leases before viewing the property or even offering to pay more than the listed monthly rent.

So what do we do about it? 

“Treat the housing emergency like an emergency,” retorts the collective voice of Anne N. Sosin, Mairead O’Reilly, and Maryellen Griffin in their recent VTDigger commentary, “Housing is a Public Health Crisis in Vermont.” Sosin is a policy fellow at the Nelson A. Rockefeller Center at Dartmouth College; O’Reilly is a medical legal partnership attorney at Vermont Legal Aid; and Griffin is a housing attorney at Vermont Legal Aid. Housing activists, policy makers, and the broader population of Vermont need to act now to address this growing problem, they wrote as they shared the major lessons housing advocates have gleaned from this past year of COVID response. Their voice has urgency, as some key opportunities to enhance renter protections have already passed. These key missed advocacy moments include the veto of the Rental Housing Safety Bill and a failure to delay the ending of the State of Emergency – which had expanded shelter space for houseless folks through federal CARES funding – until more rental housing was made available. Some economists and sustainable communities experts caution this trend is only at its early fruition as climate change pushes folks from more geographically vulnerable locations.

Much of what Sosin, O’Reilly, and Griffin called for is still possible. “Mobilize a statewide response,” they stated, noting that these solutions will be unique to the region and therefore require regional solutions. Our Fair Housing Friday panelists this spring noted that creative solutions require broad civic engagement, especially from those most impacted by the growing inequity of available resources. Housing Committees are a critical tool to mobilizing regional solutions to a statewide problem and can jumpstart conversations at the community level. The common thread  running through all these solutions is that they must center the needs of the communities consistently facing the highest barriers to housing.

Just cause increases household health and stability

Eviction, fair housing, Housing Inequality, Inclusive Communities, Uncategorized, , ,

This is part of a series of commentaries by CVOEO and Vermont Legal Aid in support of Just Cause Eviction policy. The series includes:

By Housing Navigator Ryan Murphy and Director Sandrine Kibuey, Housing Advocacy Programs, CVOEO

Thousands of Vermont renters live day-to-day, in precarious housing, uncertain of how they will be able to make ends meet and afford the rent, buy food, or put gas in their car to get to work. It is a constant struggle and COVID-19 has deepened the impact of these daily struggles. The state and federal eviction moratoriums have provided temporary relief to many tenants, but the fear of being evicted is nonetheless real. And on top of it all, the question about why and when is also a great source of stress as a “no cause” eviction is a possibility for all tenants living in Vermont.

Vermont housing law allows landlords to evict any tenant for any reason with as little as 90 days’ notice and no-cause eviction is particularly worrisome for families, older Vermonters, as well as people of color. For many, this experience has been one of extreme consequences; here are a few examples.

Maintenance complaints and retaliation

Jeffrey and his partner, Abigail, received a no-cause lease termination notice this winter after almost a decade in the same home. He was not totally happy with the apartment as the heat had been cutting out, the wooden floors splintered his kids’ feet, and the driveway iced over so badly that he had once fallen and broken his leg.

Jeffrey had verbally complained to the landlord about these issues many times and he even had a few records of his complaints in his email outbox and ‘sent’ text messages. His landlord lived down the block, and Jeffrey felt that hand-delivering a letter, or sending one via certified delivery, might come off as petty and antagonizing but finally decided to send one.

It was hard not to feel like the eviction notice had come as retaliation for frequent repair requests. In Vermont, landlords are prohibited from practicing this kind of retaliation, but there is no mechanism to stop them from delivering no-cause termination notices. If the landlord’s case against Jeffrey went to court, Jeffrey might stand a chance of winning. Because of COVID, though, eviction cases are “stayed.” Technically, Jeffrey and his family could stay in the apartment until the end of the moratorium, but then they could risk getting an eviction for cause as holdover tenants and ruin their housing history for a long time. 

It was clear to Jeffrey and Abigail that they needed to line up a new place to live. After weeks of scouring the internet for available, affordable apartments around Burlington, they made the difficult decision to put down a deposit on a place in a neighboring state. They did not see the benefit of engaging in a big fight to stay in a home that would still need many repairs and a landlord resenting them, refusing to address these habitability issues.

From stability to eviction

On the last day of 2020, John’s family received a no-cause lease termination notice. It was yet another difficulty in a challenging year. John imagined trying to explain his current situation to the person he’d been only 12 months ago.

In March, John had been furloughed from his lucrative job as a contractor, and then he had been let go entirely. His job had been the family’s sole source of income. John had always made enough money to take care of himself, his wife, and his kids. Despite his job loss, he was grateful that he had enough in his financial safety net to keep current on rent for a couple of months until the pandemic ended.

A couple of months turned into a few, so John and Michaela applied for the Rental Housing Stabilization Program. They’d never had to apply for any kind of assistance before, but the deal was too good to pass up. The money would cover four months’ rent in full as long as their landlord agreed to sign their application. The landlord did agree to sign it, but in doing so, saw that the couple was in dire financial straits.

John finally found work again, though at a lower salary.  His paychecks went towards paying off past-due medical bills and the credit cards that had been maxed out buying groceries and gas. Interest kept accruing and so many creditors called that he and Michaela couldn’t tell which were legitimate and which were scammers.

Then then the car got repossessed. John’s credit score took a 100-point nosedive. He still needed to get to work and couldn’t deal with another monthly debt payment, so he found a car on Craigslist and bought it outright. Registration, titling, and inspection would cost the equivalent of 16 hours’ pay assuming that nothing needed repair.

Then, in December, he was holding a piece of paper that ordered his family to pack up and leave in 90 days. In agreeing to the Rental Housing Stabilization Program, John’s landlord had agreed not to evict him for nonpayment, but there were no protections against no-cause eviction. There was also a statewide eviction moratorium, but it was slated to end two weeks before the day the needed to be out. Although John’s family could only be forced to leave their home through a court order, staying in their home past the date on the eviction notice could cause them to be evicted for cause as holdover tenants.

With a low credit score, low income, and an eviction proceeding hanging over their heads, John was not hopeful about their prospects. It was completely defeating. He had never worked so hard in his life, but the more he tried to keep his family afloat, the more they only seemed to get further underwater.

Eviction is a traumatic event with lasting effects on a person and family’s emotional, social, and physical well-being. These conditions affect a person’s ability to lead a healthy life and deepen health disparities. Voting “yes” for just cause eviction would offer renters a modicum of security by requiring landlords to provide a good reason for evicting their tenants. Just cause would increase overall housing stability, which leads to stronger and more vibrant communities.

To learn more about this issue, view the Feb. 26 Fair Housing Friday webinar. 

Housing Equity & Preservation of Open Space

affordable housing, Burlington, Chittenden County, Chittenden County VT, density, economic growth, Economic Inequality, housing, housing committee, housing crisis, housing development, housing inequality, Housing Inequality, Inclusive Communities, NIMBYism, Place matters, public opinion, zoning, ,
updated, 12/29/20

At the Fair Housing Project, we generally applaud community members who organize to get their needs better met. But this featured article in the Other Paper as part of the Vermont Community News Network begs a counter response.  Continue reading Housing Equity & Preservation of Open Space →