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PROJECT PROFILE:
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Culver Meadows, Dorset
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Martha Jean Stearns with her daughters, Sarah, left, and
Abigail, right, enjoy their new home in Dorset. Bob Eddy photos.
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A citizens’ committee was active in bringing affordable housing to Dorset, a town where more than half the homes up for sale were priced at over a million dollars. Now there’s Culver Meadows, an affordable housing neighborhood developed by Housing Vermont with funding from VHCB and other public grants. The project features 20 affordable apartments as well as several affordable home ownership units.
“I was trying to find something to rent in the $700 range,” testified one local resident who had been living in a one-bedroom apartment in someone’s basement. “I called a guy in Dorset, and he just laughed at me.” Now she and her infant child, and her partner, a local locksmith, are living in one of the new affordable apartments at Culver Meadows. “It’s very much needed—in this area especially,” she said.
The homeownership units at Culver Meadows are also appreciated. They are modest-sized, three bedroom homes that the developers offered for sale in 2005 for $137,500. Prospective buyers of one of these homes may qualify for home ownership assistance from the VHCB-supported HOMELAND Program. Purchase subsidy grants of up to $40,000 are awarded to applicants who fall within income limits and complete a VHCB-approved course at a NeighborWorks HomeOwnership Center.
- adapted by Ethan Parke from an article written by Doug Wilhelm
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