Vermont housing board warns of $16M shortfall; urges preservation, service coordinators and net‑metering extension

Gus Sewick, director for the Vermont Housing and Conservation Board, told the House Committee on General & Housing on Feb. 19 that the board expects at least $16,000,000 in unmet housing requests to carry into next year even if the Budget Adjustment Act (BAA) passes.

Sewick said the board expects about $37,000,000 in applications for the remainder of the fiscal year and anticipates being able to fund roughly $21,000,000, leaving approximately $16,000,000 unfunded. "If the BAA passes...we'll have about $21,000,000 for the balances here for housing," he said. He told the committee that the broader multi‑year need to meet the board’s pipeline is in the $60 million to $70 million range for the coming fiscal year.

The shortfall matters because the board reported a mix of projects in active pipelines that will be sensitive to available state dollars, including preservation of existing subsidized rental stock, new rental construction, manufactured‑home community infrastructure and tenant purchases, elder housing and housing for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. "There are currently about 200 apartments up for sale all over the state that have Section 8 contracts," Sewick said, and preserving those units is a statutory priority for the board.

Sewick described how funding uncertainty affects developer behavior: when applicants expect limited resources, they often defer engineering, permitting or land purchases. He said the VHCB surveys regular development partners twice a year and currently sees fewer projects entering the pipeline than in prior years as developers anticipate less federal support and changes in tax credit markets.

Sewick also described other programs and priorities the board supports. He said the board has funded three pilot projects for adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities and estimated a broader need of roughly 600 units for that population. He highlighted recurring work on manufactured‑home parks — "we generally have at least 1 or 2 manufactured home communities every year coming to us, for big infrastructure investments" — and work to recycle permanently affordable single‑family homes through shared‑equity resale rules.

On supportive services, Sewick told the committee VHCB recently secured philanthropic support to expand resident service coordination. "We just received a philanthropic grant...that will support 10 resident service coordinators around the state that will increase resident service coordination functions among our partners by more than a third," he said. Committee members asked for more detail on distribution; Sewick said nine partner organizations will share the positions and confirmed the philanthropic grant total as $3,000,000 distributed over three years.

Sewick asked the committee to extend a statutory net‑metering sunset affecting multifamily housing. He described a provision in Act 179 that currently sunsets multifamily eligibility at the end of the year and proposed changing the date from 2025 to 2029 so the state's Solar for All grant program can be used more effectively for multifamily projects. He said the legislative counsel should receive proposed language to amend the date in Act 179.

Sewick offered to provide a follow‑up memo with ranges by category (for example, farmworker housing, recovery residences, preservation of Section 8 properties) and emphasized the board’s statutory priorities in weighing limited dollars. No formal committee action or vote was recorded during his testimony.

Looking ahead, VHCB will supply the committee with the requested follow‑up memo and the proposed net‑metering language for legislative counsel; the funding gap Sewick described will shape what the board can fund in upcoming application cycles.