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NEW REPORT SAYS HOUSING SHORTAGE, SLUGGISH WAGES PUT VERMONTERS
'BETWEEN A ROCK AND A HARD PLACE'

MONTPELIER -- Vermont must build more housing to ease the current shortage that is driving up rents and home prices and making it tough for thousands of Vermonters to find housing they can afford, according to a new report released today by the Housing Council and the Vermont Housing Awareness Campaign.

"There are two main reasons for Vermont's current housing shortage," said Roberta Harold, of the consulting firm Harold and Associates, and principal writer of the new report. "New housing development, particularly for rentals, has not kept pace with the growing need, and despite a period of generally healthy economic growth, many Vermonters have seen their wages fall behind the cost of housing.

"It's a classic matter of supply and demand," Harold said. "And demand isn't going to go away, so we must increase the supply."

The new report, "Between a Rock and a Hard Place: Housing and Wages in Vermont," describes a serious housing shortage that affects nearly every part of the state. The report states the effects of this problem are not confined to lower-income Vermonters, although they are particularly hard-hit, but also reach up into the middle class.

"All of us who work on housing, in both the public and private sectors, have had a growing concern that working Vermont families are having a lot of trouble finding a place to live they can afford," said Kathy Beyer, Deputy Commissioner of Housing and Community Affairs and chair of the Housing Council.

"We run across this problem all the time in our daily work," Beyer said. "We decided to look to see how bad the situation is. It's pretty bad. We want to work with Vermont communities to help them decide where and how these much-needed housing units will be built, so a daycare worker or police officer or a store clerk can afford to live in any Vermont town."

Among the report's findings:

• Since the housing boom of the mid-1980s, Vermont's housing production has dropped off sharply, while the state's population has grown. The drop in construction of multi-family housing was particularly steep.
• As a result, vacancy rates for both owner-occupied and rental housing are very low; making Vermont one of the tightest housing markets in the country.
• The median price of a single-family home in Vermont jumped by about 30 percent between 1996 and 2001.
• The average "fair market rent" for a 2-bedroom apartment in Vermont rose almost 20 percent in the last five years.
• Approximately two-thirds of Vermont's jobs pay less than the $13.21 an hour it takes, state-wide, to afford a modest, 2-bedroom apartment.

Cynthia Gubb, Director of Community Development for the Chittenden Bank, a member of the Vermont Housing Awareness Campaign, said the state's housing shortage has a ripple effect through the economy.

"The rising costs of housing puts one of life's necessities farther out of reach for many people, and it makes it hard for employers to attract and retain workers who find it difficult or impossible to get housing they can afford in the same communities where they work," Gubb said.

David Adams, Director of Operations for Vermont Housing Finance Agency, added that, while there is no single answer to the housing shortage, the work of solving the problem must begin at the local level.

"We need the leadership of people in our towns to create more opportunities to build more affordable housing," Adams said. "We need to do this for ourselves, our communities, and our children, who deserve to have a chance to build their families and futures here in Vermont."

The Housing Council was established by Executive Order in 1995 to coordinate and oversee the implementation of the state's housing policy.

The Awareness Campaign is a coalition of 23 public and private-sector interests working to create more housing opportunities for all Vermonters.

© 2002-2008 Vermont Housing Awareness Campaign. All rights reserved.
Contact: info@housingawareness.org