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Addison County Community Trust Enriching Lives For 25 Years

photo by Photo Provided Annie Dennis in front of her shared equity home.

photo by Photo Provided Smallest City Housing in Vergennes.

photo by Photo Provided Armory Ln Senior Housing Vergennes.

Tuesday December 8, 2015

By Cookie Steponaitis

It was 1990 when a group of committed community members identified a mission of enriching the lives of low and moderate income people in Addison County by ensuring the development, management and maintenance of quality, affordable housing for families, seniors and individuals. Twenty-five years into the mission, not only has Addison County Community Trust held fast to its mission, but has conserved 6,000 acres of land and currently own, manage and steward more than 600 permanently affordable units, as well as offering “ Support and Services at Home (SASH)” to approximately 150 area seniors.
    Addison County Community Trust serves low and moderate income residents of Addison County and based on the current data from their rentals, 80% of ACCT renters earn less than half of the median income, which varies with family size but hovers around $36,000 for a family of four. Typically single family owners in the ACCT shared equity program are working Vermonters who earn around median income. There are many kinds of units in the ACCT program that have varying eligibility requirements, and typically ACCT brings together many different federal and state funding sources when developing new properties. For rental properties, ACCT uses the Vermont Common Rental Application, which can be found at their website. For the Mobile Home Parks and single-family homes there is a different application process, which is also available at www.addisontrust.org.
    “Many of our apartments include Project-Based Rental Assistance, which is a monthly subsidy that reduces rent down to 30% of the tenant's income,” explained Elise Shanbacker, Executive Director of ACCT.  “For these units, we follow the wait list administered by the Vermont State Housing Authority (VSHA). To apply and find out more information, including wait times, interested parties should contact VSHA.  Some of our units have similar subsidies through USDA's Rural Development program.  ACCT keeps a wait list for these properties (including Smallest City and some but not all units at Creekview in Vergennes).  Wait times vary by unit type and interested applicants should contact our office more information.  We do not keep a wait list for units that do not have a monthly rental subsidy, and accept applications for those units on a rolling basis when openings become available.  We advertise openings in local papers and on Craigslist.  Typically, rents are set at a level that is affordable to a family earning 60% of area median income.  For example, a two-bedroom apartment at the newly renovated Peter Coe Village Apartments in Middlebury rents for $785 per month including all utilities except electric, compared with a median rent of around $1,000.”     
    ‘It all starts with a home’ states ACCT’s website and indeed in the last five years alone ACCT has housed over a thousand families. Since beginning to develop new rental apartments in 2005, ACCT has added 138 high quality, energy-efficient units of permanently affordable housing to Addison County’s housing stock and are planning to add fourteen more units in 2016. ACCT remains committed to making investments in both quality and quantity of affordable housing in the county.  ACCT has been honored with both awards and accolades, in particular for its environmentally friendly designs. “We received a Smart Growth award for a single-family community in the heart of Hancock, and Middlebury South Village apartments received a 5+ rating from Efficiency Vermont,” explained Shanbacker. “We strive to include energy efficient design elements into all of our housing.”
    Like many groups in Vermont striving to help targeted parts of the community, ACCT must deal with stagnating wages for Vermonters. ACCT derives nearly two-thirds of their operating budgets from rents, which are generally pegged to median income. While the costs increase each year, the revenues do not tend to. “Median income in Addison County actually declined 11% from 2010 to 2015, according to the most recent Housing Needs Assessment, and nearly half of renter households in the county are cost-burdened, meaning that they pay more than 30% of their incomes in rent,” clarified ACCT Executive Director Shanbacker.
    As Addison County Community Trust celebrates its 25th year of helping Addison County residents find affordable housing, the staggering reality still remains that over 4,000 Addison County residents-or about one in ten-live in poverty. Combating those realities is a daunting task, but ACCT is committed to getting people into affordable housing. It might also surprise the Valley Voice readers to know that ACCT is the owner and manager of many familiar properties that we pass on the way to work each day. Some include Middlebury South Village, Stone Hill Apartments (468 Court St), Otter Creek Mobile Home Park (on the Panton Road in Vergennes), Lauritsen Mobile Home Park (Maple St in Bristol), just to name a few.  All in all, the ACCT portfolio includes nine mobile home parks (340 units), 13 multifamily properties with 37 different buildings (258 units), and 65 single-family homes!

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