www.champlainhousingtrust.org NEWS RELEASE NEWS RELEASE NEWS RELEASE NEWS RELEASE NEWS RELEASE www.getahome.org FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Monday, July 28, 2008 CENTRAL OFFICE Contact: Chris Donnelly, Director of Community Relations PO Box 523 179 South Winooski Avenue 802.864.2644 direct Burlington, Vermont 05402 802.310.0623 cell Phone 802.862.6244 Fax 802.862.5054 [email protected] TDD 802.864.2526 • Champlain Housing Trust Wins World Habitat Award PROPERTY MANAGEMENT Innovative, sustainable community land trust promoted as a global model 220 Riverside Avenue, Suite 1 Burlington, Vermont 05401 Phone 802.863.5248 BURLINGTON, VT – The Champlain Housing Trust announced today that UN Fax 802.864.0734 HABITAT will present the organization with a World Habitat Award at their global celebration of World Habitat Day. This year the celebration will take • place in Luanda, Angola on October 6th. FRANKLIN-GRAND ISLE 48 Lower Newton Street, Suite 2 Champlain Housing Trust Board and staff, flanked by Senator Bernie Sanders St. Albans, Vermont 05478 Phone 802.527.2361 (I-VT), Representative Peter Welch (D-VT), current and former Burlington Fax 802.527.2373 Mayors Bob Kiss and Peter Clavelle, Sarah Carpenter of VHFA and Gus Seelig of the Vermont Housing and Conservation Board, made the announcement today in front of a crowd on North Winooski Avenue in Burlington. The Champlain Housing Trust, then known as the Burlington Community Land Trust, was initiated by the City of Burlington in 1984 as an experiment in slowing gentrification of urban neighborhoods and providing housing opportunity for low and moderate income households. The innovative shared- equity program of homeownership developed at this time, where owners share the market appreciation of their homes with the next buyers when they sell, has been replicated through the country and in other parts of the world. “When I was mayor I thought the concept of a community land trust made a whole lot of sense and could be very effective,” remembered Senator Sanders. “I never thought it would be as enormously successful as it has been and a model emulated throughout the world.” From those early days and to the present, Sanders has been a leader in pushing public policy to ensure everyone has access to housing. A National Housing Trust Fund, a priority for the Senator for the better part of a decade, is inching closer and closer to a reality. UN HABITAT (www.unhabitat.org), the United Nations agency whose goal is promoting socially and environmentally shelter for all, endowed the Building and Social Housing Foundation (www.bshf.org) in 1985 to identify, recognize, study and share effective models of providing shelter worldwide. One award is given annually to a project from the global North, and one to the South, that provides practical and innovative solutions to current housing needs and problems. As part of the review, two adjudicators visited Vermont in April to meet staff, Board, residents and partners of the organization. Brenda Torpy, CEO of the Housing Trust, added, "The Champlain Housing Trust is honored to be recognized among the best of the best, and we are thrilled to have this award to share with all of our partners that are so committed to permanently affordable housing. In this time where newspaper headlines scream about the housing slump, sub-prime mortgages, foreclosures, and now Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the Housing Trust is a true success story.” Torpy was a founder of the Housing Trust and joined the staff in 1991. “This award is a terrific honor for the Champlain Housing Trust, which has long been known around Vermont and across the country as a model of how affordable housing should work,” said Representative Welch. “I look forward to working with the Champlain Housing Trust to increase housing affordability and availability for Vermonters.” U.S. Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT), who had a scheduling conflict Monday morning, sent along his congratulations. “During the past two decades, the Champlain Housing Trust has been looked to by more and more communities as a model in creating affordable and safe homes for a community's residents," he said. Leahy has served on the U.S. delegation to the UN and sponsors the U.S. contribution to the UN HABITAT budget each year as the chairman of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on State Department and Foreign Appropriations. “The UN HABITAT award is a great recognition for Brenda Torpy and the Champlain Housing Trust. And more importantly, it will highlight this innovative model as an option for thousands of communities across the globe,” he added. The group gathered at the former Vermont Transit Bus Barns, a site of a significant urban redevelopment project the organization completed in 2001. The effort combined reclaiming brownfields, rehabilitation and preservation of existing historic structures, new construction and ultimately the creation of 25 permanently affordable apartments and several commercial spaces, including the Good News Garage. The Champlain Housing Trust is a community land trust that supports strong, vital communities in northwest Vermont through the development and stewardship of permanently affordable homes and community assets. Over 2,100 families and individuals live in Housing Trust homes. In 2007, the organization’s efforts resulted in 117 new homebuyers, amounting to almost $20,000,000 in mortgage commitments. In addition to mortgages, the Housing Trust is leveraging a $59.4 million investment in real estate development, with a pipeline that will create or preserve 320 permanently affordable apartments and owner-occupied homes in the next eighteen months. ### .