Members of the Maine, Vermont and New Hampshire housing managers associations will come together for their triennial "Crossing the Line" conference this fall.

The event will be held at the Lake Morey Resort in Fairlee, Vt., Oct. 27-29, under the theme, "Housing: Are the Odds in Your Favor?"

Watch for our 2008 Vermont Statewide Housing Conference brochure, hitting the mail later this week.

The conference is coming to South Burlington on Tuesday, November 18.

Registrations are open now. You can register online, or complete the form contained in the brochure and mail it in.

We thought Champlain Housing Trust's winning an international award from the United Nations's UN HABITAT earlier this week was pretty big news. (Read our previous post about the award.) Apparently, we weren't the only ones.

The Burlington Free Press writes in an editorial published this morning, the award "is a timely recognition of a worthy effort when affordable housing is such a critical issue in Vermont."

Today President Bush signed into law the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008 (HR 3221). The measure provides housing organizations with a number of new tools to help slow home foreclosures and finance affordable houses and apartments.

The new legislation is a major step forward for Vermonters and the nation, according to our Executive Director Sarah Carpenter, but the work isn't finished yet.