Leahy Secures $750,000 In Budget Bill To Help Ease Affordable Housing Crisis In Chittenden County

November 03, 1999

(November 3) -- Chittenden County's increasingly tight and expensive housing market received a measure of relief with a $750,000 federal earmark secured by Sen. Patrick Leahy in a budget bill recently signed into law by President Clinton.

A number of recent surveys have documented the scarcity of affordable housing in Vermont and particularly in Chittenden County. As a way to help alleviate this dramatic housing shortage, Leahy secured $750,000 in a recently passed appropriations bill.

In late October, the Senate and House both passed a funding bill for the Departments of Veterans Affairs and Housing and Urban Development (known as "VA-HUD"). President Clinton has signed the bill into law. Senator Leahy is a senior member of the Appropriations Committee and of the subcommittee that wrote the HUD spending bill. In addition to pushing for adequate funding of HUD programs important to Vermont like HOME, the Community Development Block Grant Program, homeless assistance, and incremental housing vouchers, Leahy specifically earmarked $750,000 to help Chittenden County address the increasingly serious shortage of affordable housing units.

The Burlington Community Land Trust, the Lake Champlain Housing Development Corporation and Housing Vermont have joined forces to develop a significant number of new units of affordable housing in the county. This grant will provide a flexible source of funding to help bridge the financing gaps and ensure that these projects are able to move forward. An example of some of the projects that may benefit from the funds include Lime Rock Village, a proposed 40-unit development on the bank of the Winooski River between South Burlington and the Winooski/Colchester Line, and Marketplace, a 160-unit project on Farrell Street in South Burlington. Together, these two projects will create 200 units of affordable housing serving low or moderate income renters.

In September, the National Low Income Housing Coalition released a report which identified Vermont as the fourth-least affordable state in the nation for rental housing. A recent Allen & Cable Report Apartment Survey found that the vacancy rate in the Burlington area has dropped from .7 percent to .6 percent, far below what most housing professionals consider as the a healthy vacancy rate: 5 percent. Out of roughly 7,300 market rate units in the Burlington area, there are only 3 - 4 apartments available at any given time for an area with more than 30,000 renters.

An additional housing survey by the same group released this past Friday also shows that average rent costs in Chittenden County are 28 to 40 percent higher than the rest of the state.

COMMENT BY SENATOR LEAHY: "We see daily evidence that the housing crisis in Chittenden County has reached nearly epidemic proportions. Solving it will require a full-scale effort and these federal funds will play a crucial role. These funds, together with other local, state and federal resources, should give a sizable boost to our efforts to help low-income families in Chittenden County find affordable housing."

Chittenden County Affordable Housing Contacts:

Kenn Sassorossi or J. Ladd – Lake Champlain Housing Development Corporation: 863-5248

Brenda Torpy – Burlington Community Land Trust: 862-6244

Peter Richardson – Housing Vermont: 863-8424

Rita Markley – Committee On Temporary Shelter: 864-2611 ext. 106