Accessibility

The Vermont Agency of Human Services (AHS) is currently designing the Medicaid Permanent Supportive Housing (PSH) Assistance Program. This new program is for adults who have Medicaid and who meet certain health and risk criteria. The Program will provide people with access to help getting and keeping housing as well as the support services and connection to resources that provide rental assistance. 

National Fair Housing Month is held every April to celebrate the anniversary of the passage of the 1968 Federal Fair Housing Act. At the same time, it is an opportunity to increase our efforts to end housing discrimination and raises awareness of housing rights.

Need an affordable apartment or know someone who does?  There are vacancies in 24 different apartment complexes across the state, according to the Vermont Directory of Affordable Rental Housing.

Accessibility Matters is offering an online training program called  “Home Sweet Accessible Home:  Mitigating Liability in Accessible / Adaptable Multifamily Housing” on October 10th, 12th or 19th, 2016.

Learn more and register.

Thanks to VHFA housing credits and other funding sources, the historic Darling Inn, a perpetually affordable apartment building in Lyndonville, reopened its doors this weekend with much celebration.  Executive Director, Sarah Carpenter, joined Senator Patrick Leahy and other partners at Saturday’s ribbon cutting.

Executive Director Sarah Carpenter joined partners from Cathedral Square and other agencies to launch construction of Elm Place, a 30-unit building for seniors in Milton. Elm Place will be Vermont’s first multi-family building certified to Passive House standards. Better windows and doors, added insulation and improved air sealing are expected to enable the building to use roughly 65 percent less energy. 

The project has an anticipated opening date of March 2017. Residents will benefit from Support and Services at Home (SASH) care coordination which supports aging in place through an on-site SASH coordinator and part-time wellness nurse. Two apartments are fully ADA accessible and all apartments are adaptable.

The toolbox for enabling seniors who want to grow older in their current homes is becoming increasingly effective, according to experts consulted in a recent How Housing Matters article.

A quarter of Vermont households are headed by someone who is 65 or older. The vast majority of these seniors will not move as their physical mobility becomes more limited with age.  However, only one in three older Americans lives in a homes with safety features, such as grab bars. Public financial support can put home modifications in reach of lower income seniors.  

Few housing units in the U.S. are accessible for people with disabilities and even fewer are both affordable and accessible, according to a recent comprehensive study from HUD.   About a third of housing in the U.S. is potentially modifiable for a person with a mobility disability, currently less than five percent is accessible for individuals with moderate mobility difficulties and less than one percent of housing is accessible for wheelchair users.

The average aging baby boomer plans to “age in place” which will create new levels of demand for remodeling of the currently inaccessible homes they live in, confirms a recent report from Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies. 

On Monday, April 20, the VHFA Board of Commissioners committed $2.55 million in federal low-income housing tax credits and $432,500 in state housing tax credits to expand Vermont’s stock of affordable, energy-efficient housing.  The tax credits will generate approximately $23.5 million in upfront equity for the construction and rehabilitation of 452 primarily rental homes across the state, guaranteed to remain affordable for at least 30 years.