While the winter season has brought forth colder days and darker evenings, some glimmers of excitement have emerged as the start of a new year and a changing Vermont draw near. Besides the rapid approach of a new legislative session in January, the political landscape of our state delegation is on the move and discussions and actions on how to deal with Vermont’s housing crisis are on the rise.

At the local level, towns and cities continue to discuss local housing needs, zoning, and the spending of pandemic-relief funding from the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA). One example is in Burlington where re-zoning in the Queen City’s South End is being investigated with a focus on affordable housing. In an area that is currently occupied by art studios, light industrial buildings, and paved parking lots, developers are suggesting working with the city to build affordable apartment units geared towards working Burlingtonians. 

Beyond this, at the state level, advocates have already made strides in housing action by pressuring the Scott Administration to continue and expand the GA Motel Program which typically shelters unhoused Vermonters during inclement weather and has also sheltered Vermonters throughout the pandemic in order to mitigate community-spread of COVID-19 in public areas and in congregant shelters. After sleeping on the steps of the State House in Montpelier for 27 nights, activists successfully saw the Department of Children and Families expand the temporary shelter program by easing restrictions around income and adverse weather conditions. 

So overall, positive and meaningful changes are not just observable, but can even be realized right now through the hard work and dedication of regular Vermonters whether manifested through a simple act like writing your representatives or demonstrating on the steps of the State House. With that in mind, the Vermont Affordable Housing Coalition (VAHC) is eager to expand its reach in order to bring all Vermonters together to renew the fight against the housing crisis come the start of the legislative session. As a part of an ongoing resident engagement pilot program, the Coalition’s #housed802 initiative is continuing to host monthly community meetings with residents of Washington County in order to provide civic training, legislative updates, and an opportunity to connect with other like-minded individuals within the diverse range of Vermont residents who are impacted by the housing crisis. Not only is this program an effort to educate and reach out, but it also serves to invite regular Vermonters to help steer the Coalition’s work and advocate together to find solutions to housing and increase funding and support to existing programs. 

In the end, change is on the horizon and we may see one kind of change or another even if we do not take action. However, the Coalition is committed to driving that change with you in order to build a Vermont where all have access to safe, accessible, quality, and perpetually affordable housing. 

VAHC’s next #housed802 Community Meeting will be held on December 14th at 7:00pm at Montpelier’s Trinity Methodist Church (137 Main Street) and will focus on the topic of “Vermont Government 101” and how you can affect change and influence policy at the State House. To find out more please sign up for our Community Meeting’s email list here or reach out to our Resident Engagement VISTA, Justin Srsic, at justin@vtaffordablehousing.org.

The post Addressing Housing as a Community appeared first on Vermont Affordable Housing Coalition.

“Out of storm and manifold perils rose an enduring state, the home of freedom and unity.”

These words are the epitaph printed on the gravestone of the first Governor of Vermont, Thomas Chittenden. The phrase serves as an acknowledgement of the determination and resolve that motivated the first Vermonters during the formative years of our state. Time and again this commitment to leave no Vermonter behind has been recognized and celebrated as a defining characteristic of our state. It is that same spirit that continues to drive Vermonters today, and inspires our commitment to legislation that addresses rental housing safety. Too many Vermonters are being left behind.

As the keepers of the fifth oldest housing stock in the nation, almost 30 percent of Vermont housing was built before 1939, causing many of our neighbors to live in substandard, unsafe, and unhealthy housing. The lack of housing from which we suffer is self-evident to anyone who has looked for a home, but more than that, we lack safe, affordable housing. Part of the solution to the more basic challenges we face could be found in the Rental Housing Safety Bill (S.79), which passed the House and Senate this year, but was vetoed by the Governor. 

Currently the duty of inspecting rental housing is the responsibility of Town Health Officers in each municipality. Often volunteer positions, and usually under-resourced, these positions have a high turnover rate and often lack the authority needed to adequately respond to problems that are found during inspections. A Rental Housing Safety Bill would transition this responsibility to the Department of Fire Safety, allowing for a consistent and specialized inspection program more adequately empowered to address the threats to safety and habitability that are discovered in too many homes.

St. Johnsbury’s acting fire chief also serves as the THO in addition to his roles of fire warden and EMT director. “The state says we have to have a Town Health Officer, but doesn’t provide funding for it so it gets added to the Fire Chief’s job,” explained Chief Christopher Olsen. “I’m coming out of some of the buildings in tears – I don’t understand how people can live in conditions like this,” Olsen said recently while describing rodent and pest infestations, sewage leaks, and dilapidated and poorly-cared for rental properties. “S. 79 would have made a big difference – it would give us the teeth that we need for enforcement.”

If the town’s Fire Chief needs more “teeth” a volunteer is certainly going to be equally under supported. One such example is a volunteer Town Health Officer who is a nurse by profession. When she recently responded to a tenant’s call she found mold in the person’s home. The situation was so bad that she wanted to issue a health order, but town officials said she was overstepping her bounds. 

There is also currently no way to efficiently and effectively communicate information to property owners about the millions of dollars available for housing supports, a problem that has been most demonstrable during times of crisis such as Tropical Storm Irene, or the COVID 19 pandemic. We don’t need a major disaster to find the value in a resource like the registry, we can simply look to the woman who lives in Orleans County with her teenage daughters. Her out of state landlord with multiple properties in town is difficult to communicate with. Habitability problems like out of code wiring, faulty smoke detectors, pests, holes in the ceiling, and several instances of heat and hot water being terminated without warning led to calls to the local Town Health Office. The Officer was unable to respond because he can’t get access to the building, or reach the landlord in a timely fashion. The weight of a State Official, and access to a database of property owner information would be a game changer for situations like this.  

We are all thankful for the relief that was provided through the Vermont Housing Investment Program (VHIP) funding which will invest $5 Million to upgrade substandard housing in the state. This will be an important resource to begin to address the needs posed by an estimated 11,000 substandard and/or vacant units across Vermont, but we remain with a looming and obvious problem: we need rental housing safety legislation. 

Governor Scott has been a true champion for the cause of increasing access to safe affordable housing for all Vermonters, and it is precisely that support that drives us to be so hopeful that something can be done to advance such legislation into law. Without legislation that addresses these issues in rental housing safety, many Vermonters are being left behind and the “storm and manifold perils” that drown them rise right within the walls in which they live. 

The post Out of Storm and Peril: Rental Housing Safety in Vermont appeared first on Vermont Affordable Housing Coalition.

HUD has opened the Continuum of Care (CoC) competition for the 2021 Fiscal Year!

A Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) has been published by the US Department of Housing & Urban Development (HUD).

In response to the NOFO, the Vermont Coalition to End Homelessness, as the Vermont Balance of State Continuum of Care (VT BoS CoC – VT-500), has issued a Request for Proposals for projects to be submitted for funding to HUD for the FY21 Competition. Application deadlines are in the RFP, which can be found here.

Applications will be submitted to the Vermont State Housing Authority (VSHA), who serves as the “Collaborative Applicant” for the Vermont Balance of State Continuum of Care geographic area.  The VT BoS CoC geographic area encompasses all counties in Vermont, except Chittenden.

Eligible project applicants for the CoC Program Competition include nonprofit organizations; state governments; local governments; instrumentalities of state and local governments; Indian Tribes and tribally designated housing entities; and public housing agencies are eligible without limitation or exclusion.

We are seeking proposals to provide housing and service priorities with a priority to serve vulnerable populations including individuals & families experiencing chronic homelessness, persons fleeing domestic violence and families with children under 18.

Links related to NOFO on CoC funding:

• The HUD Continuum of Care NOFO posting
• A summary of the NOFO highlighting priority content and key changes
• Request for Proposals (RFP) from VCEH for projects to address housing and service priorities for households experiencing homelessness including deadlines for project submission
• VCEH policies related to HUD CoC funding

The full VCEH posting can be found here.

The post VCEH seeks RFPs: HUD Continuum of Care Notice of Funding Opportunity appeared first on Vermont Affordable Housing Coalition.

Stepping into my service year with the Vermont Affordable Housing Coalition as the new Resident Engagement VISTA, I knew that my orientation would be filled with vital information on housing policy, organizational supports, and current events in the affordable housing world. However, I never expected how my own experience of moving to Vermont from out-of-state would supplement my first few weeks of on-the-job learning. With my immediate exposure to the narrow housing market, my understanding of what so many Vermonters are facing significantly broadened and I was able to take away a few key points about the state of housing today that would have been harder to grasp through just presentations and literature alone.

One of the first things I was able to comprehend was that COVID-19 has only exacerbated Vermont’s long standing housing crisis. Following a steady downward pattern, the development of Vermont’s housing stock has reached a virtual stagnation as fewer new homes are being built every year. A lot of housing stock that is available is not meeting the needs of most Vermont residents. Along with this, as the pandemic propagated the practice of remote work, it seems that more out-of-state buyers are coming to Vermont to live and work. In 2020 alone, home sales to out-of-state buyers jumped by a drastic 38%. So overall, the growing demand for housing and increasingly short supply of it has only been augmented over these past two years of the pandemic.

Next, I found that Vermont’s longstanding housing crisis has been stretched by the pandemic beyond just those Vermonters with the lowest incomes. First and foremost, the tight housing market has also folded middle-income Vermonters into the housing crisis as well. As the pandemic has helped to exacerbate the housing shortage, even folks with stable jobs and moderate incomes face a fast-moving market and long waiting lists if they can even find potential housing. Additionally, the housing stock challenge has been amplified by the pandemic as students return to college campuses across the state. With Vermont colleges like the University of Vermont and Middlebury accepting record numbers of students for in-person learning, the demand for housing has increased further as on-campus housing becomes more limited. With all of this, even more Vermonters are struggling to buy or rent due to both issues of affordability and availability.

Lastly, through my own experience securing housing in Vermont, I observed how extremely tight housing markets can lead to increased incidents of housing discrimination and fair housing violations. Besides just the emboldened economic barriers that are occurring due to limited supply of homes and rental units, I became more aware of the discrimination that prospective renters face as I scrolled through housing chat forums and Facebook groups and observed various shared stories. Most surprising among these were accounts of folks being turned away because they had children or even just because they received Section 8 vouchers in order to secure the very housing that is already so scarce. Accounts of health and safety violations were just as disturbing, as the limited availability of housing has in many cases effectively turned people away or forced them into unsafe living conditions as opposed to not being housed whatsoever.

Even as my “practical orientation” of securing housing and moving to Vermont has been able to inform my formal orientation about the many affordable housing issues facing the state, it has also highlighted why the mission of the Coalition and all of its member organizations are more important than ever. Like with most areas of systemic injustice that have made the news over the past two years, these housing issues existed long before the pandemic and will continue long after. So this is where we, the Coalition, come in. It will be up to us to continue to educate, advocate, and maintain that even outside the pandemic, all have a right to safe and healthy homes so they can work, study, and most importantly: live!

The post Vermont’s Housing Crisis: Observations From a New Vermont Renter appeared first on Vermont Affordable Housing Coalition.

Moving to a new state is much more than a one weekend long event. It takes some time before the process of moving truly feels “done” and you are officially “in” your new place. It’s more than just new coworkers or a new work space: it’s the DMV, new car inspection requirements, new doctors, new neighborhoods, new politicians, a new gym, and a new daily routine that from beginning to end is completely foreign. Throughout this process you find yourself in frequent conversations with total strangers, and in my case, having come to Vermont because of a new job, these conversations always include the question: “what do you do for work?” This dynamic has given me a wonderful opportunity to promote the mission of VAHC whether it’s “work time” or not!

Like so many other causes, if you work in affordable housing, in a way it’s always “work time” because it’s an issue that impacts everyone, all the time. It has been interesting to hear the reaction from folks when I tell them about my new role at VAHC. Typically their responses are more or less the same: “that’s important work!” What people mean by that response are often different.

Some folks assume that my role, and the role of the organization, is to find housing for folks who are experiencing homelessness. While a part of our work includes advocating for housing that is affordable to people with very low incomes and ending homelessness, our scope is broader than that. Some are thinking (in part like most people), “I pay too much for my living situation, it would be nice if someone could find a way to change things so I could save some money.” I think that many people don’t realize that the scope of the issue of affordable housing truly does impact everyone.

In moving to Vermont, I discovered a remarkable challenge myself in finding any housing at all – never mind affordable housing. Like the many potential Vermonters referenced by Anne Wallace Allen in her recent piece in Seven Days, I was concerned that I may have to pass up on my new employment opportunity if I couldn’t find a place. I was extremely fortunate to find a vacancy at all. The incredibly low vacancy rate (4.3%) is a statewide issue, but is particularly low in Chittenden County (1.9%). We are however, not alone. In her book Brave New Home, Diana Lind speaks about this issue at the national level. She writes in the introduction:

“Not surprisingly, the lack of housing choices and the prevalence of exclusionary housing regulations-such as minimum lot sizes and required off-street parking for each household- have made housing grow more expensive, decade after decade. Wages have not kept up with housing costs. In 1988, the typical sale price of a single-family home was 3.2 times the median household income. By 2017, the ratio was 4.2. That same year, nearly thirty-eight million American households were “cost burdened”, paying more than 30 percent of their income on rents and mortgages.”

The issue of affordable housing is in fact a societal problem, and when we begin to consider the corollary issues that accompany these struggles we begin to see the enormity of its impact. Consider the mental health consequences of living each day “cost burdened.” Perhaps you don’t need to imagine it, because it’s all together too real already. Consider the ripple effect that comes next. How the anxiety does related to these struggles impact an individual’s productivity at work, attentiveness to relationships, or other decision making that may have far reaching consequence? How does a person who is facing housing instability successfully conquer addictions? How do these anxieties exacerbate other problems that we already fight so hard to conquer, like domestic violence, and other forms of abuse and neglect? The issue of affordable housing impacts us not only directly, but also via the world around us.

Just as this issue impacts all of us, we can all – in different ways – be a part of the solution.

In her Introduction, Lind goes on to point out how the notion of owning your own home, on your own land, has become the hallmark of living the “American Dream,” and along with that, a sign of success and status. She references a highly problematic quote from Walt Whitman, who plainly said, “A man is not a whole and complete man unless he owns a house and the ground it stands on.” In many ways this sentiment has become a subconscious belief that underlines the financial planning and financial anxiety of countless Americans.

From the earliest days in our nation’s history, various forms of what we could now call communal or rental living were the norm. Over time, the notion of “home” shifted from simply being about shelter to something more existential: it meant something about finding a sense of being settled, fulfilled, content, and secure. Surely then, we concluded, an increase in the status of my shelter must mean that I have achieved those deeper existential pursuits: as Whitman put it – I become a “complete” person.  It seems so obvious how flawed this line of thinking is: and yet at some level, so many have unknowingly embraced it; while many of us can attest to the truth that fulfillment, contentment, satisfaction, and security can be found just as easily in a rental apartment, a shared living environment or any other housing if it is freely chosen, affordable, and safe.

If each and every one of us made an effort to intentionally be a part of changing the “Walt-Whitman dynamic” in our understanding of the American Dream, we would have taken a wonderful step together toward understanding and working to change the problem of affordable housing in our nation. Is changing a stigma going to be the solution to the affordable housing problems in America, and in Vermont specifically? No, of course not: but it’s a step. It’s a step we can all take today.

When people ask me what I do for work, I tell them I am the director of the Vermont Affordable Housing Coalition. When they ask what my organization does, I tell them my summary of our mission: we try to build awareness about affordable housing, and to unite Vermonters in the effort through advocacy, education, and awareness. Won’t you help me in my work?

The post Home & Housing: From the New VAHC Director appeared first on Vermont Affordable Housing Coalition.

It’s not a secret—Vermont is experiencing a housing crisis.

There’s so much going on (high rents, escalating home prices, motel vouchers, eviction moratoriums, mobile home park affordability, housing discrimination) it can be hard to know what’s happening and what we can do about it.

Four housing advocates join VAHC in this video series to highlight some of issues Vermont residents face accessing safe, quality, accessible and affordable housing—and how we must keep these multiple issues in mind as we increase investment in housing. We cover mobile home infrastructure with CVOEO’s Mobile Home Program Resident Organizer Laura Mistretta; evictions in the aftermath of COVID19 with CVOEO’s Vermont Tenants Advocate Madeline Roberts; fair housing and discrimination with CVOEO Fair Housing Project Education and Outreach Coordinator Corrine Yonce, and broadband access with Evernorth Director of Asset Management Rewa Worthington.

Check it out here!

The post Vermont Housing Statistics Video appeared first on Vermont Affordable Housing Coalition.

David Martins to lead dynamic statewide membership organization

The Vermont Affordable Housing Coalition is pleased to announce that it has selected David Martins as the Coalition’s new Director. David brings to VAHC over a decade of nonprofit and ecclesial leadership, with a background in counseling for those in addiction recovery and a commitment to working for social and economic justice. His work has been built around education, advocacy and peer support. Throughout his professional and life experiences, he has always had a passion for advocacy, giving voice to the voiceless, and empowering the underserved and the marginalized.

“I’m so excited about beginning this journey with VAHC,” David says. “Upholding and celebrating the human dignity intrinsic to every person necessarily includes affordable and safe housing. That’s exactly why it’s altogether appropriate that the Coalition brings together organizations and individuals from so many different backgrounds to work together towards this common mission. In all my work in advocacy, strengthening communities, and connecting folks to the supports they need, stable housing has always been where the work begins. I’m truly honored to take over this role, and to work with a team of such dedicated advocates.”

David hails from Providence, R.I. He holds a B.A. in Philosophy from Providence College and a Masters Degree in Pastoral Theology from Saint Joseph College in Maine. He served as the Pastor of an inclusive faith community in Rhode Island for nine years, while concurrently working in the nonprofit sector. During these years he was heavily involved in advocacy work, primarily with the LGBTQ+ community, the recovery community, and individuals experiencing homelessness and housing insecurity. He was a founding member of “Partners in Service,” an interfaith coalition which partnered with community agencies to provide material and emotional support to at-risk youth and their families. He was also involved with the Religious Coalition for Marriage Equality, and was an active advocate in the passing of the Good Samaritan Law in Rhode Island. Most recently, David served as the Executive Director of Recovery Ministries and Spiritual Enrichment on Enders Island, in Mystic, Conn. 

The VAHC Steering Committee selected David on the basis of his demonstrated leadership and program management history, previous coalition-building and community service work, and his integrity and dedication. He brings to the housing field a fresh, intersectional, and person-based perspective. 

David will serve as the Coalition’s first-ever full-time Director, after the departure in March of  longtime Coordinator Erhard Mahnke, who served as VAHC’s Consultant and Lobbyist for more than two decades before moving on to join Senator Bernie Sanders’ staff. The new Director position is a result of the support of VAHC’s members and partners, and the Steering Committee’s dedication to maintaining and strengthening the Coalition’s future as a voice of advocacy for affordable housing in Vermont. 

“The success of the Coalition is a testimony to Erhard Mahnke’s 24 years of dedication and vision. We look forward to continuing the legacy of change, empowerment, and advocacy that Erhard energized,” Steering Committee Chair Cindy Reid said. “We are thrilled to bring David on to build on these accomplishments, and to continue to address the critical need for affordable housing.”

David begins in his role as VAHC Director Monday, July 26.

The post VAHC Announces New Director appeared first on Vermont Affordable Housing Coalition.

On July 14th, the National Low Income Housing Coalition (NLIHC) released its 2021 Out of Reach report. Each year, the Out of Reach report compares the wages that people earn with the average cost of housing both nationally and for every state, county and metropolitan statistical area (MSA) across the country. 

Findings from the 2021 Out of Reach report paint a clear picture of the insurmountable housing costs that low and moderate-income renters face. In the United States today, there is not a single state, MSA, or county where a 40 hour-per-week worker earning the federal or state/local minimum wage can comfortably afford a two-bedroom apartment at Fair Market Rent (FMR).

To capture the gap between wages and housing costs, researchers at the NLIHC have created a metric known as the housing wage. The housing wage describes the “hourly wage a full-time worker must earn to afford a modest and safe rental home without spending more than 30% of their income on housing costs,” based on a region’s FMR. When compared to an area’s minimum wage and the wage an average renter earns, the housing wage sheds light upon the state of housing affordability in a given area: the larger the gap between the housing wage and the minimum wage, the less affordable the respective area’s housing market for low-wage workers.

Nationally, the housing wage for a modest two-bedroom apartment is $24.90. This is nearly three times the $7.25 federal minimum wage, meaning that the average minimum wage earner must work 97 hours per week (2.5 full-time jobs) to afford a 2-bedroom apartment or 79 hours per week (2 full-time jobs) to afford a one-bedroom apartment at FMR. Although some renters earn above the minimum wage, the NLIHC found that the average renter’s hourly wage of $18.78 is still $6.12 short of the national housing wage. Individuals who rely on Supplemental Security Insurance (SSI) face even greater challenges in accessing affordable housing. The maximum affordable rent for an individual living on SSI is only $238, which is shockingly low given that the average monthly rent for a 1-bedroom apartment at FMR in the United States is $1,061. 

The 2021 Out of Reach report ranks Vermont as the state with the 16th most expensive housing wage and the state with the 6th largest gap between average rental wage and 2-bedroom housing wage. With a statewide housing wage of $23.68–almost double the state minimum wage of $11.75–a Vermont worker earning minimum wage must work 81 hours per week (equal to 2 full-time jobs) to afford a 2-bedroom apartment at FMR, or 64 hours per week (equal to 1.6 full-time jobs) to afford a 1-bedroom apartment at FMR. In Burlington/South Burlington, the state’s only MSA, the 2021 housing wage is a staggering $31.31. It is also important to note that the NLIHC’s report uses data from the 2015-2019 American Community Survey (ACS), so it does not take into account the economic downturn of 2020. After a year of job losses, furloughs, and limited hours, many of these households will be struggling to an even greater extent than is shown in this report. 

Indeed, of the 10 most common occupations in Vermont, only two have median wages high enough to afford a two-bedroom apartment, and only four are high enough for a one-bedroom apartment. Many of the other common low-wage jobs in Vermont analyzed by the NLIHC were in sectors hard-hit by the pandemic, such as food service and retail; these workers were already struggling to afford housing and may have lost hours or lost jobs entirely over the past year.

Astronomical housing wages disproportionately impact low-wage workers and people of color. For one, people of color are more likely to be renters as opposed to homeowners, due in large part to the continuing impact of decades of redlining, discriminatory housing policy and limited ability to build up wealth. In Vermont, there is a shocking racial homeownership gap: 76 percent of Black households rent compared to only 28 percent of white households. Other people of color also have significantly lower rates of homeownership, according to 2019 American Community Survey data compiled by Vermont Housing Finance Agency. Furthermore, people of color are more likely to work in low-wage occupations, a systemic inequality resulting from the long history that limited economic opportunity and concentrated workers of color in chronically undervalued occupations. According to an analysis of the Bureau of Labor Statistics by the Center for American Progress, nationally, people of color are overrepresented in many of the low-wage jobs that were most vulnerable to potential layoffs during the coronavirus pandemic. And according to the Public Assets Institute’s State of Working Vermont 2020 report, there is a significant racial disparity in the poverty rate in Vermont, with Black Vermonters over twice as likely as the state average to be living in poverty.

Throughout the country and here in Vermont, these numbers carry real, dire consequences for low and moderate-income households. Tess Milner lives in Lamoille County and is the Secretary of the Lamoille Housing Partnership’s Board. Like many Vermonters, she regularly observes the effects of Vermont’s housing crisis: “Some Vermonters are forced to have to work multiple jobs just to pay the bills, which takes away from personal time, and time with their family. This one factor alone can cause a multi- faceted domino effect: Not only affecting a person’s well-being and family, but leading to overworked employees, quality of work performance, and increased healthcare costs to both the employee and employer.” Indeed, a 2011 study conducted by the National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion found that respondents who identified as housing insecure were 6 times as likely as housing secure respondents to delay doctors visits, and nearly twice as likely to report extended periods of poor physical and mental health. As the dust of the COVID-19 pandemic begins to settle, it is more clear than ever that secure housing has a critical effect on health. 

While findings in the Out of Reach report are startling, their root causes are no secret. Data from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities shows that from 2001-2018, the median cost of rent in all but five states increased faster than that of median household incomes. One driver of this trend is the nearly 40-year nationwide stagnation in wage growth, due in part to the failure of the federal government to raise the federal minimum wage in proportion with inflation and productivity (two different but related indicators of economic growth) since the early 1970s. An estimate cited in the Out of Reach report finds that if the federal minimum wage were to accurately reflect increases in productivity rates, it would today be around $21 per hour; another estimate is as high as $24 per hour. While economists debate the exact number, all estimates come far closer to the NLIHC’s national housing wage of $24.90 than our current $7.25 federal minimum wage.

But raising the minimum wage is not enough; we need a historic investment in affordable housing development as well as humane housing policies designed to keep all people safely housed, regardless of occupation or ability to work. Over the last 40 years, as wages remained continually stagnant nationwide, low and moderate-income households faced continually rising rents, large-scale government disinvestment from public housing and other federal housing assistance programs, and the loss of thousands of formerly affordable housing units. Between 1980 and 1983, federal spending on housing assistance programs fell a shocking 70%, from $60 billion to $18 billion, and proceeded to fall a total of 49% by 2003. More recent data from 2018 shows that three out of four income-eligible households are still excluded from access to federal rental assistance programs due to spending restrictions. At the same time, a surge in the national renter population following the 2008 foreclosure crisis has caused rents to steadily increase across the board. 

VAHC has long referred to the proverbial “three-legged stool” of policy reforms to describe the multi-pronged nature of solutions to the affordable housing crisis: capital investment into “bricks and mortar” to create new permanently affordable housing; housing-related financial assistance; and supportive services to help those who have faced housing insecurity, homelessness and other challenges. Thankfully, we are now seeing much-needed and long overdue investment into these three areas of housing. The 2021 State Legislative Session resulted in a historic $144 million investment into the Vermont Housing and Conservation Board (VHCB) for housing initiatives, primarily to increase permanent housing options for those experiencing homelessness and those impacted by the coronavirus pandemic. Already we are seeing these investments come to fruition—VHCB announced on July 14 that it has awarded $53.8 million in state and federal funds to create and rehabilitate 389 homes across Vermont. 221 of these units will be reserved for previously homeless households and those at risk of homelessness, who are some of the people most impacted by the high cost of housing. This unprecedented level of investment in affordable housing development and rehabilitation will create more options for low-income Vermonters to find housing they can afford and has the potential to alter the Vermont housing landscape for years to come.

See media coverage of Out of Reach 2021 Below:

Seven Days: Vermont Wages Lag Well Behind What Renters Need

Local 22 & 44: New Report Details Vermont’s Housing Affordability Gap 

VTDigger: Vermont Wages Well Behind Cost of Rent, National Study Details 

NBC5: Rent prices out of reach for many Vermonters, study shows

VAHC Press Release and Press Packet

The post Housing Costs Remain “Out of Reach” for Low-Wage Workers Nationally and in Vermont appeared first on Vermont Affordable Housing Coalition.

The Fair Housing Project at Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity (CVOEO) wants to hear from you! Please spare few minutes to answer this confidential survey. It is available in English, Nepali, Arabic, Spanish and French online and you can download a printable English version at https://www.cvoeo.org/fhp-survey. The survey deadline is July 12, 2021.

Many people experience illegal housing discrimination, exclusion, and harassment but only a small percentage of these instances are reported. The Fair Housing Project of CVOEO and the Vermont Human Rights Commission are collecting data on the prevalence of housing discrimination in Vermont. The results will be used to design better strategies to ensure fair and equitable housing choice for everyone.

Thank you in advance for your feedback and taking the time to complete the survey!

Survey link:  https://forms.office.com/r/jDJG5zu1J9

Spread the word! Share the survey link or print out and share this poster!

The post Have you experienced housing discrimination in Vermont? appeared first on Vermont Affordable Housing Coalition.

The 2021 Legislative session in Vermont was a historic one for housing advocates across the board. While VAHC cheers the unprecedented levels of investment in affordable housing, this year was not without its bumps, challenges, and losses. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the session was conducted entirely remotely. A new biennium brought new leaders in both chambers (including House Speaker Jill Krowinski and Senate Pro Tem Becca Balint) and new members in key committees. Live-streamed committee hearings and sessions expanded participation and made it possible for people to testify or follow along remotely, but the technological challenges of “zoom democracy” were evident. Lawmakers’ inability to meet in person impeded the collaboration and negotiations necessary for the monumental tasks in front of them. The Coalition owes enormous gratitude to the lawmakers and advocates who helped accomplish big investments and push the envelope of possibility during the session. 

Each year, the Coalition advocates for Vermont to adequately fund all three “legs” of the housing “stool”:

1. Capital investments to create more permanent affordable housing
2. Housing-related financial assistance that fills the affordability gap for low‐wage working families or those living on fixed incomes, and 
3. Supportive services for those with the greatest challenges to finding and maintaining housing. 

Due to the Coalition’s leadership transition in 2021, we narrowed the scope of our focus during this legislative session to five areas that were emerging as key legislative opportunities and challenges:

1. Funding for the Vermont Housing and Conservation Board (VHCB) for affordable housing development;
2. Maintaining wide eligibility and service providers’ ability to continue to provide support to unhoused people through the transition of the General Assistance (GA) Emergency Housing Program; 
3. Funding of weatherization programs;
4. The manufactured housing tax credit; and 
5. The Rental Housing Safety Bill. 

With the help of our many partners, we kept members informed on the progress of these important goals as well as other issues that came up during the legislative session. Our 2021 State Legislative Wrap-Up concentrates on those priorities. 

Read the full wrap-up here!

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