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Greetings!
After serving as the State of Vermont’s Covid-19 isolation motel during the pandemic, the next logical step was to convert the former Ho Hum Motel to permanent housing for people experiencing homelessness. Now Braeburn Apartments, CHT created 20 new one-bedroom apartments without lengthy and costly permitting fees or construction costs by combining adjoining rooms, adding kitchens and re-wiring electric panels. The price tag was less than half of what newly-built apartments cost these days.
Recently CHT received two grants that will enable us to better support people with disabilities and people who are in recovery. One is a planning grant from the Vermont Department of Disabilities, Aging and Independent Living to help CHT create good permanent supportive housing for adults with intellectual or developmental disabilities. The second grant allows us to work with the University of Vermont Medical Center to build a new program with Turning Point for a supportive housing option for people in recovery. More to come on these initiatives in future months.
Finally, we're grateful to be working with Champlain Valley of Economic Opportunity (CVOEO), ANEW Place, and the City of Burlington to keep the low-barrier shelter on Shelburne Road in operation. Even as we work to find permanent solutions, we need stopgaps and supportive programs like this in order to make progress. And in a measure of how much this matters, in the last 12 months alone CHT has permanently housed more than 200 households exiting homelessness.
Fall returns…though sometimes September is the best month of summer!
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