Governor Peter Shumlin announced on Wednesday $1 million in federal grants will be heading to the town of Brattleboro and the Windham & Windsor Housing Trust, which will be used throughout the two counties to improve housing for low income home owners. The Brattleboro Reformer has the details:
Gov. Peter Shumlin delivered $1 million in federal grants on Wednesday… Shumlin also awarded $271,000 to the town of Wilmington to help the housing trust rehabilitate a seven-unit Main Street apartment the trust owns. “Our goal is to ensure that we have affordable housing in Vermont,” Shumlin said before he announced the funding at a ceremony held at Brattleboro’s Municipal Center Wednesday. “One of the things that helps to prime the pump, and helps Vermont immensely is the fact that we are getting affordable housing right.” Shumlin said the federal money goes a long way toward leveraging additional public and private investments in the housing stock of southeastern Vermont. And he said the investments, in the long run, help reduce homelessness by helping keep low income home owners in their properties. “It’s much cheaper and a much better investment and a much more humane approach to ensure we are doing the financial counseling and the intervention to keep people in their homes, than the dire alternative of having them removed from their home because they can’t make ends meet,” Shumlin said. Windham & Windsor Housing Trust Executive Director Connie Snow said the $1 million grant will help the housing trust fund its Rehabilitation Loan Fund Program, which provides counseling and construction advice to low-income home owners, as well as low-interest loans and energy efficiency upgrades. “All of these improvements help home owners remain in their homes,” Snow said. “They keep the homes in our community safe and well maintained.” She said the housing trust has run the program for seven years and more than 200 home owners have taken advantage of the services which are funded by the U.S Housing and Urban Development Community Development Block Grant program.
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