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Vermont housing authority warns federal cuts could leave about 760 vouchers unfunded; urges state contingency
Summary
Kathleen Burke, executive director of the Vermont State Housing Authority, told a legislative committee that federal underfunding could reduce VSHA’s leased vouchers from 4,495 awarded to roughly 3,700 in 2026 — an unfunded gap of about 764 vouchers — and urged the General Assembly to fund contingency and bridge assistance programs.
Kathleen Burke, executive director of the Vermont State Housing Authority, told the General & Housing committee on Jan. 13 that the agency faces a potential federal funding shortfall that could leave roughly 764 housing choice vouchers unfunded in 2026.
Burke said the authority has 4,495 vouchers that have been awarded to the agency over time, and that current projections for calendar year 2026 could see leased vouchers drop to about 3,700. "We have a housing crisis. We have a homelessness crisis. We have unfunded vouchers," Burke said, arguing the shortfall risks destabilizing households and projects that depend on subsidy commitments.
Burke summarized how the voucher program is vulnerable: HUD provides a fixed allocation while market rents rise, so when fewer vouchers are leased one year HUD may appropriate less the next, a dynamic she described as the "death spiral of the housing choice voucher program." The authority is already pausing issuance of new vouchers to waiting lists and pausing some project‑based voucher commitments because funds are not available in the Public Housing Authority account, she said.
The testimony included specifics about VSHA operations: the agency provides rental assistance to more than 8,500 Vermont households statewide, manages about 1,000 units of multifamily housing and 18 manufactured‑home communities, and has placed 74 homes through a mobile home infill program in just over a year (about 50 of those are sold or under agreement).
Committee members raised immediate worries about the cascading effects: developers underwriting projects that rely on project‑based vouchers may not be able to meet operating requirements without subsidy, and nonprofit partners such as Champlain Housing Trust could see planned projects fail. A committee member said he has drafted a placeholder bill that would provide a one‑time state appropriation intended to slow the drop in vouchers so the state’s base for future HUD appropriations does not decline rapidly.
Burke asked the committee to support three legislative priorities for 2026: creation of a voucher contingency fund, reappropriation of the rental arrears assistance (Eviction Prevention) fund originally created under Act 47, and development of a statewide bridge rental assistance program to stabilize affordable housing communities if federal voucher funding declines.
The committee ended the hearing by agreeing to follow up; Burke said she would return with additional data comparing what other housing authorities are doing and provided a printed resource with questions and answers she asked members to review. The committee has not scheduled final action on any of the requests.
Sources: testimony of Kathleen Burke, executive director, Vermont State Housing Authority.
