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From the Executive Director & Board Chair
From the perspective of the Vermont State Housing Authority, the public discussion about housing issues that has surfaced in recent months is an encouraging sign.
We have been pursuing our mission – to provide housing opportunities to Vermonters of limited means and expand the supply of affordable housing in our state – in an increasingly difficult environment. A study commissioned by the Vermont Department of Housing and Community Affairs and the Vermont Housing Council found an estimated 47,381 renter households currently at or below 80 percent of the state's median income, the federal standard for housing assistance. Yet there were only 17,441 units of assisted housing statewide, leaving 29,940 low-income households paying more than they can afford for housing, or, in the worst cases, going homeless.
Fortunately, Vermonters have begun to understand the implications of this dilemma. An example is "workforce housing"; if people cannot obtain or afford housing near their place of employment they are forced to commute farther, creating real and potential logistical problems. A state competing to attract new industry can ill-afford housing shortages and costs that could impact the employer's payroll and capacity to do business.
Housing issues arise in many contexts. The Vermont Department of Corrections retains approximately 150 release-qualified offenders behind bars at any given time, at great cost to taxpayers, solely because there is no housing available to them.
For VSHA, making inroads is always a challenge. Open-market rent increases and low vacancy rates throughout the state have made HUD Fair Market Rents less competitive. In 2004, HUD adopted "budget based" funding for the Housing Choice Voucher program, which limited funding for public housing authorities by pegging allotments to their past performances. VSHA weathered that change, but we had already closed our Section 8 waiting list for the first time in our history because people were waiting up to three years to receive a voucher. With budget based funding, and a one-percent across-the-board reduction in federal domestic programs announced in fall 2005, the outlook is not bright for more federal money being invested in low-income housing anytime soon. In fact, Vermont may lose 100 vouchers.
That's why the public discussion in Vermont about housing issues that began in 2005 is encouraging. Vermonters seem ready to make affordable housing the priority it should be. Governor Douglas' October report, "Homes for Vermonters," helped to elevate and focus the discussion. It met with opposition on some particulars, as any proposal would, but it promoted dialogue about affordable housing, and that's a great place to start.
To achieve our goals, VSHA increasingly focuses on "preservation" as a way to maintain existing housing options and to try to build upon them. The idea is, first, not to lose housing options, and, second, to add to those options while preserving them. At the Shelburnewood Mobile Home Park, discussed in this report, VSHA and several state and local partners are helping tenants to save their current housing and plan to expand upon the project by adding more elderly and single-family housing on a property that is large enough to absorb that development without compromising its charm.
Preservation was also the goal in a much smaller project in 2005, when The Housing Foundation, Inc. and VSHA reclaimed 10 units of elderly housing in Greensboro, which was in need of substantial renovation. The importance of preserving these 10 units is another barometer of the critical need not to lose affordable housing in Vermont.
The past year did provide some wonderful examples of Vermonters coming together around housing issues. When the Bemis Block in Hardwick burned, VSHA was able to open its waiting list specifically to find housing for many residents displaced by the fire. Other housing providers also stepped up to help fire victims relocate to suitable replacement housing.
It was a reminder that, for all our difficulties, this is Vermont, a place where people can turn to each other for help. That may be the way we work ourselves out of the current crisis in affordable housing, and achieve housing opportunities for all.
