VHFA LAUNCHES WEB SITE FOR VERMONT COALITION TO END HOMELESSNESS

BURLINGTON—Vermont Housing Finance Agency launched a Web site for the Vermont Coalition to End Homelessness (www.helpingtohouse.org). The site went live May 16. The site is home to two parallel efforts in Vermont to curb homelessness — Vermont's Continuums of Care and the Vermont Interagency Council on Homelessness — and offers: meeting minutes and agendas for both groups; searchable databases of the 13 regional Continuums of Care in the state and Vermont homeless shelters and providers; an events calendar; publications, reports and Web links; and Legislative priorities for the two groups. VHFA Policy and Planning Coordinator Maura Collins oversaw development of the site. VHFA Communications Coordinator Craig Bailey designed the graphical user interface and coded the backend database applications that drive the site. "If we're going to end the growing homeless crisis in the next 10 years, coordination among homeless providers, housing advocates and local communities is crucial," Collins says. "This site provides the public link between organizations and citizens all helping to house homeless Vermonters." The site includes a custom-built content management system that allows any coalition administrator to maintain the site without the assistance of a Web developer. With extensive use of Cascading Style Sheets, the site passes conformance level Triple-A of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, the W3C's highest level of disability accessibility standards. With the launch of helpingtohouse.org, the number of sites VHFA has developed for outside nonprofit housing organizations comes to four: Vermont Coalition to End Homelessness, Vermont Housing Awareness Campaign (www.housingawareness.org), Vermont Housing Data (www.housingdata.org), and Vermont Resident Service Coordinators (www.vrsc.org).