VHFA and the Vermont Housing & Conservation Board (VHCB) have offered suggestions for owners and managers of affordable rental housing to help their residents apply for fuel assistance this winter.

The suggestions, the result of a June meeting with a variety of stakeholders, are detailed in a recent memo from VHFA's Sam Falzone and VHCB's Rick DeAngelis.

Familiarize yourself with the Fuel Assistance Program by attending a Oct. 1 training to be held at 133 State Street, Montpelier, from 9:30 a.m. to noon. (R.S.V.P. to Rick at [802] 828-3526 or [email protected].)

We're pleased to welcome Michelle Packard as the newest member of VHFA's Finance Department. Michelle was recently named our new Financial Analyst.

She's been working in the Agency's Homeownership Department on a temporary basis for two months. Before that she spent nearly two decades as Treasurer for Summit Financial Center, a Burlington mortgage company.

Four of the workshops at our upcoming Vermont Statewide Housing Conference have been approved for American Institute of Certified Planners (AICP) credit.

Planning/Zoning: Regulations, Planning/Zoning: Moving from Density to Design, Cottage Development, and Federal Housing Policy will each earn planners 1.25 hours of AICP credit.

We've placed an updated "red-line" draft of the Qualified Allocation Plan (QAP) online for your review. The draft contains a number of revisions proposed by VHFA that were not included in the recently-passed Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008, but based on other policy changes, feedback, and program experience. This new version will be presented to the VHFA Board of Commissioners on Sept. 22.Read our Sept. 4 post about the proposed changes to the QAP.