TOWN OF ROCKINGHAM, Vt. — NBC 5, John Hawks
Vermont Rep. Becca Balint (D- VT) took a tour of Bellows Falls on Monday along with local leaders as she announced a new affordable housing bill.
While in Bellows Falls, Balint introduced new legislation to address some of the root causes of the national housing crisis. She’s calling it the Community Housing Act, or CHA.
Local housing authorities have been working to help ensure housing is available for those who want to call Rockingham home. Since a little before 2000, Windham and the Windsor Housing Trust have worked with local partners to invest in high-quality affordable housing in the downtown area. The Exner block and the Howard block are examples along with the Bellows Falls Garage, which includes 27 units of affordable housing.
“Affordable housing is built with both state resources and federal resources, and the creation of new housing is the very foundation of the well-being of every Vermont community,” said Elizabeth Bridgewater, executive director of Windham & Windsor Housing Trust.
Now, Balint said she wants to highlight the way housing could be done, and hopes her new legislation will address some of the root causes of the national housing crisis.
“Because it has been many, many decades of not investing in housing at the levels that we should, that what we need right now is a big, bold investment of federal funds,” Balint said. “And I’m not talking a couple of million dollars. I’m talking $500 billion invested to really, really address this crisis.”
It’s a bill aimed to help create affordable, community-based housing through creative solutions. CHA is Balint’s vision for tackling the urgent crisis facing Vermonters and families across the country.
“It has huge investments in making sure those homes are perpetually affordable so people can stay in their homes,” she said. “And it also gives pathways into homeownership. It is funding so many federal programs above and beyond where they’ve been funded in the past.”
The bill hopes to encourage more affordable housing construction, programs to ensure housing stays affordable in the long run and that people can stay housed in their community.
The bill has a long way to go before becoming law, but the congresswoman said she knows that Vermont is not the only state suffering from a housing crisis.
