This story by Tim Calabro was first published in The Herald on Jan. 15, 2026.
After more than 30 years of developing and managing affordable housing and community initiatives in the Randolph area, the Randolph Area Community Development Corporation has announced that it will dissolve over the course of 2026. Executive Director Peter Reed confirmed the transition, citing dwindling funding sources, project pipeline issues, and organizational sustainability as key factors in the decision.
Founded in the aftermath of a series of devastating downtown fires in 1991 and 1992, RACDC has been a driving force in affordable housing in Randolph, developing properties including Randolph House, Joslyn House, Branchwood Apartments, the Red Lion Inn and the Jacobs and Armstrong mobile home parks, among others. The organization’s departure marks the end of a local era, but its leadership is working to ensure a smooth transition of its housing stock and community programs.
“We’ve had the writing on the wall for the last year and have been kind of trying to position ourselves to deal with it as effectively as we could,” Reed said.
The majority of RACDC’s properties — including Randolph House, Branchwood Apartments, Red Lion Inn, and the two mobile home parks — are slated to be transferred to Downstreet Housing & Community Development, a larger, Barre-based organization that manages hundreds of affordable units across central Vermont.
“Downstreet … they manage something in the range of 450 apartments and mobile home lots. So they’re probably three times bigger than RACDC is today,” Reed said. “They do similar activities. We’ve worked with them in the past on a number of projects. It’s a good organization.”
One exception is Joslyn House, an independent senior housing facility, which will be transferred to a new nonprofit being formed by the Wright family. The family has long been involved with the property — Becky Wright currently serves as the resident manager, following in the footsteps of her mother, Arlene.
“It’s a great little community,” Reed said. “There was a [Vermont Public] Rumble Strip story about it recently. … Yhe tagline on the story was, ‘Every town should have a Joslyn House.’”
Changing federal landscape
At the core of RACDC’s decision is a shift in federal housing policy and funding, Reed said.
“In the current federal environment with cutting back on many different supports for people in need, including housing … HUD has been significantly cut back,” said Reed. “Funding for low-income housing has definitely dropped. It starts at the federal level, then they send blocks of funds to the state, and the state allocates them around. So there’s just less of a pool,” he said.
The dearth of funding for affordable housing projects has had ripple effects for RACDC. “Financially if we don’t do projects every year or two, we can’t fund the organization.”
Reed noted that while the funding challenges have been mounting for some time, the final blow came last year in the middle of work on the Salisbury Square project, a novel affordable housing development integrating smartgrid technology.
“We had a second phase of that for single-family homes that we don’t have funding for now,” Reed said. “We had some funding from the state that got pulled in the spring just because they were concerned that we wouldn’t be able to finish on time.”
Although the multi-unit apartment portion and infrastructure were completed, the organization now plans to hand off the remaining development of single-family homes to private developers.
Compounding RACDC’s challenges was a phishing attack that cost the organization — and its funders — hundreds of thousands of dollars. Scammers infiltrated the organization’s email system and redirected payments intended for RACDC.
“It was actually a couple of our funders that paid money to scammers,” said Reed. “One of them they caught in time. The other one they didn’t. That was kind of the total loss of confidence at that point.”
The breach, which exploited vulnerabilities in Microsoft’s cloud infrastructure, undermined already-fragile relationships with funding agencies.
“That moment I realized that there was no way we were going to be able to survive,” he said. The scam amounted to a $450,000 loss.
Winding down
At its peak, RACDC employed a full-time staff of eight. Today, all employees are working part-time as the organization wraps up operations. Reed, who stepped in as executive director from the board amid a leadership transition, has been working to ensure that the shutdown proceeds in an orderly fashion.
“My whole goal in this … has been an orderly transition and not a financial crisis,” Reed said. “Some of the other housing groups in the state that have had to merge have been under more dire circumstances, and it’s just not a good way to go”.
In addition to housing, RACDC has administered Randolph’s downtown designation program with financial support from the town and the state’s downtown vibrancy fund. Reed and the RACDC board hope the program can be handed off to a new organization, though the structure and leadership are still being worked out.
“The town gives us $20,000 a year,” Reed said. “We get another $25,000 from the state… but that doesn’t cover the cost of an administrator. It’s probably a $50,000–$60,000 a year expense base that you have to cover.”
Reed has also confirmed that RACDC will liquidate its remaining physical assets — including lots on Maple Street and a few mobile homes — to fund remaining operational expenses. The organization currently has around $1 million in annual revenue, most of which has been tied to project-based funding. Payroll makes up an estimated 75% of day-to-day expenses, Reed said.
Housing remains essential
Despite its closure, Reed emphasized that RACDC’s work will continue in new forms.
“We don’t want to lose the ability to generate affordable housing in Randolph,” Reed said. “The mission is going to continue in some form. It’ll be different people doing it.”
Downstreet Housing is expected to take on some future housing development in the area, though its leadership has acknowledged they won’t be able to match RACDC’s level of activity in Randolph. “They’ve said, no, we are not going to drive housing in Randolph the way you guys have in the last 30 years. We just can’t. But we’ll do what we can,” Reed said.
RACDC’s annual meeting, scheduled for January 28, will serve as a venue for community members and residents to ask questions and learn more about the transition.
“We’re going to lay out to everybody again sort of what’s happening and be available for questions that might come up,” Reed said.
