Hours before Governor Shumlin delivered his second inaugural address last week, Vermonters combating homelessness gathered on the Statehouse steps in Montpelier. One participant held up a sign that read “Housing:  Take the ‘less’ out of ‘homeless’".

For home buyers shopping for affordable homes in Vermont, the search just became a little easier. 

An estimated 1,000 households living in South Burlington pay more than half of their incomes for housing, according to VHFA’s recently completed housing needs assessment for the City of South Burlington. Nearly 600 of these households are renter households, while the other 400 households own their homes.

Andy Gurley, VHFA’s underwriter and loyal partner from its creation through his retirement in 2008, died suddenly of a heart attack on Monday.  A prominent banker in the municipal bond industry, Gurley played a role in the creation of the VHFA in 1974, providing guidance to the state and explaining how it would benefit from a housing finance agency.