Housing Crisis

There are working Vermonters who presently live in their cars. The state sponsored emergency shelter program, which uses local motels as shelter, is at capacity. As of July 2022, in Calais, Plainfield and Marshfield the only housing available seems to be two rooms for rent within the same shared house. The price is $800 a month per room. In Calais the most inexpensive home available is nearly a quarter of a million dollars for a 620 sq foot structure on 1.25 acres. In Marshfield the 5 houses available were all in contract with the most inexpensive being a $175,000 property on Route 2. This house was the only property under $230,000. Plainfield had one house, which was on Route 2 and under contract. Why are there no starter homes and rental apartments?

The shortage of affordable housing, a perennial problem in Vermont, has been greatly exacerbated by the after-effects of the Covid moratorium on evictions combined with an influx of out-of-state buyers due to climate issues. Many small landlords, after months of losses, are selling their properties leading to a flood of rental applicants in an already tight market. A great number of these families and individuals have been successfully renting for years and suddenly find themselves homeless. Add to this a nationwide surge of interest in places safe from rising sea levels, wild fires, extreme heat and general weather related upheaval. It’s worth nothing that a report by PBS rated Lamoille the statistically safest refuge in all the 3,000 counties across the US.

What do we do? There is no short term fix but one thing is definitely true:  most obstacles to affordable housing construction are local! Current tax and land use regulation do not support the building of affordable housing. All options must be on the table: raising revenue from second home owners, amending Act 250 while balancing vital environmental regulation, protecting our open landscapes, prioritizing density in village and town centers and revisiting zoning rules. 

What we cannot do is nothing.  And we cannot allow the perfect to be the enemy of the good.