Housing advocates urge full VHCB funding and expanded supports including SASH mental health clinicians

MONTPELIER, Vt. — Nonprofit housing developers and service partners urged the House Human Services Committee on Feb. 14 to fund the Vermont Housing and Conservation Board at its full statutory level and to expand supports that are embedded in affordable housing.

Molly Dugan, co-chair of the Vermont Housing and Conservation Coalition and a representative of Cathedral Square, told the committee the coalition "is asking you all to support the full statutory funding for the Vermont Housing and Conservation Board, which is currently in the governor's budget." Dugan said that statutory amount is $36,900,000 and added that members are also seeking "at least $40,000,000 above the full statutory share on the housing side" to match the project pipeline she described.

The request came during a multi-witness presentation that combined housing production priorities with details about supportive services delivered from housing, most notably the SASH (Support and Services at Home) model. "We have to have the housing first, and then we can layer in the services," Kim Fitzgerald, CEO of Cathedral Square, told the committee as she described SASH's origins, current scale and some program results.

Fitzgerald described SASH as a two-person core team for a panel of roughly 70 to 100 participants: a full-time SASH coordinator and a part-time wellness nurse. She told the committee that SASH began in 2009 at a Cathedral Square site and later received demonstration…