The White House announced today that it intends to nominate Pamela Patenaude to serve as Deputy Secretary for Housing and Urban Development (HUD). Patenaude is currently president of the J. Ronald Terwilliger Foundation for America's Families, an organization that seeks to elevate housing's place on the political agenda.

Patenaude has held a variety of housing policy positions in both the public and private sectors. She served as Director of the Bipartisan Policy Center's Housing Commission and had the opportunity to hear about Vermont’s housing issues at a national hearing in Maine in 2012. She also spoke at the Vermont Statewide Housing Conference in 2012.

The At-Risk Children grant is open to social service providers, community centers, afterschool programs, refugee services organizations, shelters, low income housing programs, Head Start programs, early childhood education programs, and a wide range other groups throughout Vermont and New Hampshire that serve low-income or at-risk infants and children up to age 12 (or a portion of that age range).

The application deadline is May 15, 2017 for programming that will take place in the Fall of 2017.

On Monday, April 17, the Vermont Housing Finance Agency (VHFA) Board of Commissioners committed federal Low-Income Housing Tax Credits (LIHTC) and Vermont Affordable Housing Credits that will provide almost $37 million in upfront equity to construct and renovate housing for low-income Vermonters over the next several years.  The $2.5 million in ten-year federal capped credits, $610,000 in ten-year federal uncapped “bond” credits and $485,000 in five-year state credits will support the development of 272 affordable apartments in 11 communities across the state. 

Housing developers, business leaders, smart growth policy experts and poverty advocates joined together to support the passage of a $35 million housing bond this afternoon at a press conference at Vermont’s State House in Montpelier. 

Recommended in Governor Scott's budget proposal, the housing bond would address a significant need for affordable housing in Vermont, help to alleviate homelessness, house the workforce, and provide expanded homeownership opportunities for Vermonters.