As a young staffer to Mayor Bernie Sanders in the 80’s, Brenda Torpy recommended a unique model for permanent affordable housing in Burlington. Now Torpy leads the Champlain Housing Trust, the largest community housing trust in the world, holding 24 hundred homes in northwest Vermont.
Widely called “the Burlington Model”, it has spread to 23 states and 8 countries, and is grounded in affordability and Vermont ’s tradition of valuing the land.
(Torpy) Land was very precious in Vermont when we went to the State - at the time it was Governor Kunin - to talk about the gentrification of land, the rising property values that were forcing people out of their homes and making it impossible for people to become home owners.
(Stoddard) Notably, Torpy and others saw the opportunity to link affordable housing with conservation. In the 80’s she founded a land trust and helped with the creation the Vermont Housing and Conservation Board. The mission has remained the same.
(Torpy) Champlain Housing Trust seeks to assure that everybody in our three county area would have a home that they can afford.
(Stoddard) At a young age Torpy saw her grandparents build a home that changed their lives and brought them into the middle class. Creating a pathway to homeownership has been a passion for Torpy ever since. From rentals to homes for purchase, the Trust keeps a variety of housing options affordable and also helps with the hurdle of a down payment for potential buyers. Education about finance, debt and home ownership are part of the package.
(Torpy) We find that by helping people take those steps we’re not just helping them get a more secure home, but really helping them along in the way of giving them opportunity all the way around.
(Stoddard) The United Nation’s World Habitat Award Program recognized Champlain Housing Trust in 2008 as a model that is sustainable, durable and replicable throughout the world. The following year, 25 people from every continent and 14 countries came for a week-long visit. Now they’re setting up community housing trusts for their own people. England has particularly strong advocates for the “ Burlington model” with community land trusts now in numerous villages and in London .
(Torpy) ...the goal was really that poor people are being pushed out of London and how are we ever going to make it affordable. And that group has worked very, very hard like us to work to scale... and they’ve had great success. They bought an old property, a poor house…. and got rights from the City to redevelop it and so that’s going to be community land trust housing and that’s the first in the city. It’s important to all of us what happens in London because ...if they can do it in London they can do it in any city.
(Stoddard) For Brenda Torpy, a safe and secure home is the way out of poverty and into work and contribution to a community. Through the Champlain Housing Trust she’s a leader in making that dream come true here in Vermont, around the United States, and in programs the Trust has inspired on 5 continents.
