This commentary is by Elisabeth Kulas of Rutland Town, a consultant who works with local entities on community and economic development opportunities in the Rutland Region. For 27 years, she was executive director of the Housing Trust of Rutland County.
Vermont does it right. We know how to site, design, build, and operate housing real estate; and as a state, we know how to fund it.
I spent almost 30 years developing affordable housing in southern Vermont, most of which was as executive director of the Housing Trust of Rutland County. I speak from experience.
For 35 years, Vermont has responsibly invested in the creation and sustainable operation of housing through the Vermont Housing and Conservation Board and its nonprofit network of community land trusts, NeighborWorks organizations and grassroots organizations. Vermont’s tax dollars have been long-term investments — a commitment to generations to come.
Its approach to building and operating housing for its lower-income workers, retirees and people with disabilities is the envy of the rest of the country. Once again, Vermont sets the example.
Today, rural Vermont continues to struggle economically. Southern and northeastern Vermont lack population and infrastructure to rely solely on supply and demand for healthy pricing. This includes maintaining and expanding housing for workers across these regions.
Pricing often doesn’t support healthy incomes for workers, who then struggle to make ends meet. Our workers are stretched so thin, they often rely on debt and compromise to get by. On paper, they look financially healthy. In real life, it’s paycheck to paycheck, and hoping for good health and luck to keep going.
Our businesses need workers! Our workers need safe, decent housing that’s affordable to them. Our state knows how to build and sustain housing through its continued funding of the Vermont Housing and Conservation Board and incredible, untiring efforts of its nonprofit housing organizations.
Don’t fix what isn’t broken. Take the recipe for success and supply it to those who currently can’t qualify, because on paper it looks like they can afford it. Afford what? Safe, decent, well-maintained housing is hard to come by. Our workers often end up living in substandard housing, barely making it; and yes, sometimes they even end up homeless.
Tanner Romano and I were recently interviewed by VTDigger about an effort we pursued to provide 28 units of rental housing in Brandon, Vermont. Tanner, one of the owners of Naylor & Breen Builders, routinely sees the struggles of his employees. These are hard workers who often build or renovate Vermont’s affordable housing under construction. Yet, they struggle to find and maintain housing they themselves can afford.
Tanner wanted to change that. I saw it too on the Housing Trust’s construction sites. Today, as a consultant working in community and economic development in the Rutland region, I wanted to be a part of the solution.
Together, Tanner and I explored a new development of rental housing affordable to people across the income spectrum. The site was within two blocks of downtown Brandon. Unfortunately, as Tanner said, “the numbers didn’t pencil out.” This project was structured to use the available funding for affordable housing, but needed an unreasonable amount of debt to make the numbers work. This debt made the project too speculative, and too unaffordable, even for those of greater means.
Vermont has a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to build on its track record of experience. With the state’s economic health due to Covid relief and the real estate boom, dollars are available to invest in Vermont’s workers.
The solution is easy: Use the mechanisms already in place, and allow more subsidy for units affordable at higher incomes. Vermont needs to invest in housing for workers at a higher income throughout the state. This would be a long-term investment in the economic growth of rural Vermont, which would result in reasonable population growth and healthy, vibrant communities.
When we make these investments to support today’s workforce, let’s not forget tomorrow’s workforce, too. Creating permanently affordable housing is an investment that grows and supports family after family, worker after worker, so we won’t be looking at the same problem 10 years from now.
