This story, by Report for America corps member Carly Berlin, was produced through a partnership between VTDigger and 开云体育.
COLCHESTER 鈥� Sixty-five new permanently-affordable apartments are opening up at Fort Ethan Allen in Colchester, with 15 set aside for people exiting homelessness.
The Champlain Housing Trust project is among the wave of affordable housing developments buoyed by the COVID-era influx of federal funds into Vermont. Now, affordable housing providers are looking at a much more austere funding landscape: one where they fear deep federal cuts to housing programs are soon in store.
鈥淔ederal resources will likely no longer be available in the future, and low-income people who rely on a very shaky safety net will soon see that net cut into pieces,鈥� said Michael Monte, the CEO of the housing trust, at a ribbon-cutting event on Monday.
Vermont鈥檚 housing sphere has seen the initial impacts of the Trump administration鈥檚 sweeping staffing and spending cuts, from and the sudden terminations of voluntary corps workers building homes. Neighborworks, a congressionally-chartered nonprofit that helped fund the Colchester apartments, .
But to affordable housing funding and rental assistance programs could be coming 鈥� and they fear the state wouldn鈥檛 have enough capacity to backfill potential cuts.
Nearly a third of the Colchester project鈥檚 $31.6 million price tag came from pandemic-era federal funds, said Nancy Owens, president of Evernorth, a co-developer of the project. Amid Vermont鈥檚 worsening levels of homelessness, she implored state leaders to find new funding sources for subsidized housing.
鈥淲e need to secure more substantial permanent resources to fund housing 鈥� for the production of new homes in Vermont. If we don鈥檛, really, the pace of this development will come to a standstill,鈥� Owens said.
The three buildings that house the 65 apartments have a long history. During the early 20th century, they served as barracks to one of the first Black U.S. Army regiments in peacetime after the Civil War 鈥� who were deployed to clear western lands of indigenous people. The entryways of the buildings have signs documenting that past. More recently, the buildings served as dorms and offices for nearby St. Michael鈥檚 College.
, and one-bedrooms list for $1,250. Eighteen of the apartments have deeper subsidies from the Burlington Housing Authority, meaning rents will be capped at one third of the tenant鈥檚 income. (Median rent plus utilities in Chittenden County in 2023 ).
The first tenants moved into the buildings earlier this year, and the last will move in next month.
A recent statewide housing needs assessment found that before the end of the decade in order to normalize the housing market and eliminate homelessness. Only 125 of the 720 homes built in Vermont鈥檚 most populous county in 2023 were considered affordable, falling short of housing leaders鈥� goals.
