There were smiles a plenty in Putney Thursday as the community celebrated the renovation of the historic Plantz house at 27 Old Depot Road. The apartments will be managed by Windham and Windsor Housing Trust who oversaw the renovation process.

According to VHFA’s Sarah Carpenter who attended the celebration, “we were delighted to provide Low-Income Housing Tax Credits to help create the equity for such a worthwhile project.”  Many other funders were involved in the project including Housing Vermont and Historic Tax Credits.   

A new campaign called Thriving Communities: Building a Vibrant, Inclusive Vermont has just been launched. The Fair Housing Project of the Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity serves as a central organizer of the campaign. This effort is a comprehensive and multi-organizational statewide campaign to promote affordability and inclusiveness as a mainstay of flourishing communities across Vermont and beyond. This campaign will reach out to public officials, ordinary citizens, planners, developers, business owners, entrepreneurs and others.

The latest Vermont Department of Health survey indicated that nearly 60% of Vermonters would be more likely to choose living in a smoke-free building over a similar building in which smoking was permitted.

There was even greater support for limiting smoking in building entryways; roughly 80% of survey respondents supported limiting or outright prohibiting smoking in entryways. 

Although Census surveys show a clear decline in the national homeownership rate, they don’t show a similar decline for Vermont.   At least not yet.  Second quarter 2015 estimates show Vermont’s rate at 72 percent, nearly eight and a half percentage points higher than the national 64 percent rate. 

Economists expect the national homeownership rate to reach a turning point soon, as the economic recovery and gradual credit standard loosening bring first-time buyers back to the market.