Partner organizations

Champlain Housing Trust (CHT) and King Street Housing celebrate their grand opening this Saturday starting at 10 a.m.

The newly completed building at 88 King Street in Burlington is the new headquarters of CHT. The green building was developed by CHT and Housing Vermont and is also home to 20 apartments.

VHFA allocated $410,000 in Tax Credits to 17 of those units.

U.S. Sen. Pat Leahy, City of Burlington officials, private investors, and state and national funding organizations will be on-hand for the event.

Kate Stephenson has become Executive Director of Yestermorrow Design/Build School in Warren.

Yestermorrow is one of the only design/build schools in the country, teaching design and construction skills that embrace sustainability, craftsmanship, and experiential learning.

Kate came to the school in 2002 as a design/build intern and has held a variety of positions within the organization.

She served as an Associate Director and then Director of Operations, and has been serving as Interim Executive Director since October 2008.

The Champlain Housing Trust (CHT) presented awards and selected Board members at its annual meeting this past Saturday.

The event was attended by 150 CHT members.

CHT presented U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders with the Tim McKenzie Award for his commitment to the community land trust model for nearly 30 years in public office.

CHT's predecessors, the Burlington Community Land Trust and Lake Champlain Housing, were created under the Sanders Administration while mayor of Burlington in 1984. Since then, Bernie has advocated for investment in permanently affordable housing programs and organizations.

Heads up: Our friends at the Champlain Housing Trust (CHT) in Burlington are moving to new headquarters next week.

CHT will be relocating from its 179 South Winooski Avenue address in Burlington to the new building at 88 King Street, a stone's throw from VHFA's headquarters at the corner of King and Saint Paul streets.

Their main phone and fax numbers will remain the same, but direct lines to staff numbers will change as of Jan. 20.

There's also the chance the organization will have limited access to phones and email for the week of the move, so please be patient.

The Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity (CVOEO) Fair Housing Project and VHFA have published a short report titled "Sub-Prime Lending in Vermont."

"Though sub-prime lending in Vermont has not reached the historic highs that have brought many communities across the nation to their knees," the report states, "our small, rural state is experiencing a rise in foreclosures and was not immune to sub-prime lending during the mortgage bubble of the past few years."

The Rutland Herald reports today that the Rockingham Area Community Land Trust and NeighborWorks of Western Vermont received grants to expand their foreclosure prevention counseling programs.

The money comes from the Federal Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008.

The article quotes Bruce Whitney, Director of the NeighborWorks HomeOwnership Center of Southeastern Vermont; and Tom Candon, Deputy Commissioner of the state's Banking Division and a VHFA Commissioner.

Read the full story online.

President-elect Barack Obama named New York City Commissioner of Housing Preservation and Development Shaun Donovan next Secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).

Read Donovan's bio at the NYC Department of Housing and Preservation Development site.

Our friends at the Vermont Affordable Housing Coalition (VAHC) have put up a photo gallery of affordable housing projects.

Right now, the gallery features Bianchi Block Apartments in Montpelier and the Proctorsville Green Housing Project. Other examples of housing projects created by VAHC members will join the gallery.

VAHC's Web site is developed by VHFA.

Liz Curry of NeighborWorks Alliance of Vermont had a letter published in this week's Seven Days newspaper.

You can read her response to the paper's housing issue published last week at the Seven Days Web site.

VHFA honored Andy Gurley, recently-retired from UBS, for his decades of work with the Agency.

VHFA Executive Director Sarah Carpenter spoke about Andy's long history with the Agency at the 2008 Vermont Statewide Housing Conference, held last Tuesday.

A resident of Irvington, N.Y., Andy was instrumental in VHFA's creation in 1974, and has been a wise and loyal partner ever since, through his affiliation with an impressive list of financial institutions such as First Boston Corp., Morgan Stanley, Drexel Burnam Lambert, Paine Weber and UBS.