BURLINGTON, Vt. (WCAX) – The state of the housing market in Vermont is discouraging, to put it lightly. Late-night browsing of home prices on Zillow can make Ohio look enticing. Many Vermonters can rattle off a list of friends who have left the state in search of more affordable rent. Nearly 3,500 Vermonters were unhoused in January 2024.
Vermont would have to add 41,000 new homes by 2030 — about 8,200 housing units a year — to address the state’s immense housing need, according to an assessment by the Agency of Commerce and Community Development. In 2024, communities issued building permits for only 2,654 new homes.
The Headwaters Trust is just one example of some Vermonters taking matters into their own hands. Equipped with nothing more than creative ideas, everyday people — truck drivers, nannies, retirees and nonprofit workers — are meeting in living rooms and town halls to dream up solutions for themselves and their communities. Their widely varying ideas include such approaches as municipally funded neighborhoods, affordably built tiny homes, cooperatively owned housing, and community land trusts.
Darren Perron spoke with Seven Days’ Rachel Hellman, who wrote about some of those creative housing solutions in this week’s issue.
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