A Brattleboro-based housing group is shutting down its supportive housing project, which has been providing on-site social services to low-income tenants in 22 apartments.
The Windham & Windsor Housing Trust announced recently that it would be cutting off intense support services at its Great River Terrace project and transforming the former motel into a general occupancy property.
“Some of the assumptions that are tied to this model didn’t turn out the way we had expected,” said Windham & Windsor Housing Trust Executive Director Elizabeth Bridgewater. “The needs of this population are much more complex, I think, than we fully understood before we opened the community.”
It’s been almost 10 years since the housing trust announced that they wanted to purchase the then-dilapidated Lamplighter Inn Motel, on the north end of Brattleboro, with the help of federal and state grants.
After spending more than $4 million on purchasing and renovating the property, they opened Great River Terrace in 2018, with 22 efficiency apartments, each a tidy 350 square feet.
Windham & Windsor Housing Trust partnered with a local social service agency, Groundworks Collaborative, which provided support services to the residents.
The project was based on a nationally recognized model known as permanent supportive housing, where people experiencing homelessness are provided a place to live while being offered full-time social and support services.
The idea, according to Bridgewater, is that without housing, it is harder for people to work on their barriers to stable employment and health, so the Brattleboro project provided housing and support services at one location.
"We can’t have a property that can’t sustain itself."Elizabeth Bridgewater, Windham & Windsor Housing Trust
In other parts of the country, the program has shown some success in helping people with their substance abuse and mental health challenges that possibly prevented them from securing and retaining stable housing in the first place.
But Bridgewater said the Brattleboro program was not able to experience as widespread a success.
“Our services were voluntary, and not every resident wanted, or would accept support, even when their housing was clearly in jeopardy,” Bridgewater said.
There was a drug-related murder on the property in the summer of 2022, along with frequent responses by the Brattleboro Police Department to overdoses and drug dealing.
Bridgewater said the residents are not going to be kicked out. But the supportive services are going to be scaled back, and as residents move out, for whatever reason, the housing trust is going to admit tenants without the same intense needs.
Bridgewater said the decision was mostly due to the finances.
She said the turnover and volatility of housing tenants with extreme needs put pressure on the housing group’s overall financial picture.
And for the past year or so, because of damage to apartments, the cost of legal fees in evicting tenants, and the loss of income when an apartment has to be refurbished, Bridgewater said the project has been losing money every month.
But Groundworks Collaborative Executive Director Libby Bennett said the housing trust’s decision to terminate the program will only make it harder to support the people in Windham County who are most in need of assistance.
"We’re really concerned about how this decision means fewer opportunities for people to exit homelessness."Libby Bennett, Groundworks Collaborative
“Sadly this decision takes us further in the wrong direction from moving the dial on homelessness in our community,” Bennett said. “We’re really concerned about how this decision means fewer opportunities for people to exit homelessness.”
Bennett said she understands that Windham & Windsor Housing Trust can’t lose money on a project, and the project at Great River Terrace was an ambitious undertaking.
“We realize we were doing this new, radically different approach to housing, and all of the parties have to be willing,” Bennett said. “It’s a model that recognizes that people have complex needs. Housing is human right and people have a right to be housed even if they have complex needs.”
Bridgewater, the housing director, said her board had many long conversations about the project. It was a decision she said the organization was forced to make, as difficult as it has been for everyone, especially the tenants.
“It was a really hard decision to make, but we just can’t jeopardize our entire organization, or the other people we’re responsible to provide safe and decent housing for. We can’t have a property that can’t sustain itself,” Bridgewater said. “It’s heartbreaking to feel like we can’t support some of the most vulnerable people in our community.”
Bridgewater said all of the tenants have been contacted about the change, and the Groundworks collaboration is officially ending at the end of March.
She said the housing group will have their own part-time counselors and support staff on site to help with the transition.
