While it's never good news to be opening an emergency shelter, the community has come together to help the Committee on Temporary Shelter (COTS) furnish and move into a new shelter on Burlington's Saint Paul Street.

WPTZ NewsChannel 5 covered the story.

COTS was also one of an estimated 140 organizations caught short when its Web site host pulled up stakes without notice.

South Burlington's Eternity Web Development has offered free Web recovery or re-designs for area non-profit organizations affected by the shutdown of Silicon Dairy.

Vermont housing and aging professionals have formed the Vermont Aging Collaborative (VAC), a local chapter of the American Association of Homes and Services for the Aging (AAHSA), comprised of non-profit housing and service providers.

VAC strives to create a network of long-term care services and to support seniors and persons with disabilities to remain in their community of choice, by working on many of the issues AAHSA advocates for nationally, such as:

This morning's Wall Street Journal explores the challenges facing housing finance agencies such as VHFA in an article titled "State housing agencies get caught in credit crunch."

In the article, which appears on the front page of Section C, Nick Timiraos writes, "The agencies aren't in trouble because of bad lending. ... (They) are getting slammed by a host of market forces."

VHFA Public Affairs Manager John Fairbanks is quoted in the piece.

You might notice the front page of VHFA.org is sporting a fresh new look today.

Though it's not a radical change from our previous design, the page represents a shift to a more modern and accessible method of Web design.

The current incarnation of our Web site went live on Sept. 20, 2005. While that's less than four years ago, in "Internet years," similar to "dog years," that's quite a long spell.

Our existing site conforms to the HTML 4.01 specification, and meets or exceeds federal guidelines for accessibility, the so-called "Section 508" rules.