Need an affordable apartment or know someone who does? There are vacancies in 24 different apartment complexes across the state, according to the Vermont Directory of Affordable Rental Housing. Find out more about particular units by visiting the vacancy profiles online.
First-time home buyer testifies about importance of Vermont Down Payment Assistance Program
Yesterday, Ryan Rush-Booth, a Vermont Housing Finance Agency (VHFA) borrower who lives in Stamford, VT, testified at the State House in support of doubling VHFA’s Down Payment Assistance program funding. Rush-Booth works in IT at Southwestern VT Medical Center. When they first moved to Vermont six years ago, Ryan, his wife, and their two young children moved in with family because they could not find affordable housing.
While living with parents, Ryan and his wife saved up enough money to try to buy a home, but could only afford a recent foreclosure that needed a tremendous amount of work. Because the family needed to dedicate much of their savings toward improving the home, the down payment assistance funding provided by VHFA was a critical factor.
National research shows widespread discrimination against minority mortgage applicants
A new report from the Center for Investigative Reporting reveals that lenders across the United States are denying conventional mortgage loan applications for African American and Latino applicants at higher rates than comparable White applicants.
Chittenden County leads state in jobs to homes imbalance
Chittenden County has the biggest imbalance between its share of VT jobs and homes, according to recent VHFA analysis. Although 33% of the state's jobs are in Chittenden County, the state is home to only 28% of the state’s workers and only 25% of the state’s homes. This is likely caused in part by workers living in Franklin County, where the share of homes outnumbers the share of jobs, who commute to Chittenden County for work.
Washington County also has an imbalance similar to Chittenden’s, but on a much smaller scale.