Housing and Community Development

Success Stories

This presentation will describe three successful community projects that involved housing and community development. It will describe how housing entities can get involved with the larger community to develop more encompassing projects.

We will describe a project in the Town of St. Johnsbury, Vermont where a fire decimated the commercial center of town. The local housing Non-profit, Gilman Housing Trust (GHT) working with the leadership of the community and a number of funding agencies to build a new muti-million dollar building, which includes senior housing and retail development. We will also describe the Town of Lyndonville which also had a fire in its commercial center. GHT, working with the community leadership and the private owner was able to secure the building and find funding to rehabilitate the building into low income housing and retail/commercial space.

The third project involves a town wide redevelopment in which GHT working with local leaders developed a major town-wide project which includes housing, retail space and a town library. This project started when the library trustees utilized the successful Extension "Take Charge" program.

This presentation will include both before and after photos as well as a discussion on successful strategies that were utilized in these communities.