Three Vermont non-profit housing organizations – Champlain Housing Trust, Downstreet Housing & Community Development (Downstreet), and Twin Pines Housing (Twin Pines) – have been awarded $325,000 in Housing for Everyone grants from the TD Charitable Foundation, the charitable giving arm of TD Bank, America’s Most Convenient Bank®. The organizations are three of 33 organizations selected from more than 357 applicants to receive a Housing for Everyone grant as part of the TD Charitable Foundation’s annual grant program helping to provide affordable housing since 2005.
Downstreet and Twin Pines will collaborate to use their $175,000 grant to grow Twin Pines’ existing resident services program and pilot a resident services program at Downstreet. Funds will be used to support one new staff position at each organization, and Twin Pines will support Downstreet as they develop their program over the next 18 months.
Champlain Housing Trust will use their $150,000 award for similar activities, as the organization has tripled its resident services staffing during the pandemic. CHT has housed over 120 formerly homeless Vermonters in the last year in addition to providing support to hundreds of existing tenants.
The housing affordability crisis has worsened over the past two years impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic and housing organizations have worked tirelessly to meet the increasing need for assistance from individuals and families. The growing need for assistance has strained affordable housing organizations and made it difficult to continue delivering critical resources and services.
“The housing crisis in Vermont and New Hampshire is the worst I’ve ever seen it,” says Twin Pines Housing’s Executive Director Andrew Winter. “Our community’s well-being and our quality of life depend on all of us rising to the challenge of addressing this critical situation.”
Without resident services from affordable housing providers, like eviction assistance, housing search assistance, and direct support to help manage day-to-day challenges, many individuals and families will struggle to find or risk losing a safe, affordable place to call home.
“We always say ‘home is more than four walls and a roof,’” said Connie Snow, Interim CEO at Downstreet. “This grant gets to the root of housing insecurity, and will help people stay in their homes long-term.”
“CHT’s growing resident services staff support our residents every day, and often step up to intervene in more serious life and death situations,” said Michael Monte, CEO of the Champlain Housing Trust. “On behalf of all of us, thank you to TD Charitable Foundation for recognizing this work and supporting it.”
“Without the critical resident services provided by organizations like Downstreet, Twin Pines, and Champlain Housing Trust, many individuals and families would struggle to find – or risk losing – a safe, affordable place to call home. The support from the TD Charitable Foundation’s Housing for Everyone grant program will help these organizations continue to provide services like eviction assistance, housing search assistance, and direct support to help manage day-to-day challenges to even more individuals and families across Vermont,” said Sheryl McQuade, Regional President for Northern New England at TD Bank.
The TD Charitable Foundation awarded $5.8 million through the 16th annual Housing for Everyone grant competition to a total of 33 organizations across TD Bank’s Maine-to-Florida footprint and Michigan to help support affordable housing organizations provide critical resident services. Since 2005, the TD Charitable Foundation has given more than $42 million dollars to non-profit and charitable organizations through the Housing for Everyone grant competition and helped support over 500 affordable housing projects and initiatives.
The Housing for Everyone grant competition supports TD’s longstanding commitment to community enrichment through TD’s corporate citizenship platform, The Ready Commitment, which actively promotes inclusivity, economic vitality and environmental wellbeing, enabling people of all backgrounds to succeed in a rapidly changing world.
To learn more about Housing for Everyone and for a full list of this year’s grant recipients, please visit https://www.td.com/us/en/about-us/communities/ready-commitment/funding-opportunities/housing-for-everyone/.