University of Vermont (UVM) graduate student Magali Stowell Alèman (she/her) has been named the Spring 2023 Vermont Housing Fellow. The Vermont Housing Fellowship program is intended to provide the Fellow with valuable experience aiding her professional development. Stowell Alèman will receive a financial stipend to conduct housing research and help update information on VHFA’s Housing Data website (www.housingdata.org).

To meet expected demand and normalize extremely low vacancy rates, Vermont will need 30,000-40,000 more year-round homes by 2030.  This means adding 5,000 to 6,700 more homes to Vermont's primary home market each year, well above the 2,100 homes that the state has been generating.

According to the 2020 Census count, the number of primary Vermont households was 9,000 more than in the prior year—an unprecedented increase. Although tempered somewhat in 2021, Vermont continued to show signs of heightened demand.  

The two sets of projections reflect different strategies for planning Vermont’s future: planning for lower (pre-pandemic) or higher (pandemic-era) rates of household growth.

The Vermont Homeowner Assistance Program (VHAP) has paid over $22.5 million in grants to assist homeowners impacted by the pandemic. This represents nearly 55% of total program funding available to homeowners.

Administered by the Vermont Housing Finance Agency, VHAP launched in January, 2022 to assist homeowners who have faced economic hardship brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic. The program, funded by the federal American Rescue Plan Act, provides grants of up to $30,000 per household towards overdue mortgage payments, utility bills, property taxes, and property association charges. Application assistance and counseling is available through local nonprofit partners.

On June 7th 2022, Governor Scott signed legislation that provides $15 million in funding for the Missing Middle-Income Homeownership Development Pilot Program. The program will be initially funded from a portion of the state’s American Rescue Plan Act funding. The program will provide subsidies and incentives for home builders to construct or rehabilitate modest homes affordable to Vermont homebuyers at 120% of Area Median Income or lower. VHFA launched the program in December 2022.