Vermont housing projects shortchanged by shutdown

The federal fiscal crisis is affecting Wall Street — Wall Street in downtown Springfield, that is.
http://rutlandherald.com/article/20131015/NEWS02/710159890

Published October 15, 2013 in the Rutland Herald Vermont housing projects shortchanged by shutdown By SUSAN SMALLHEER Staff Writer SPRINGFIELD — The federal fiscal crisis is affecting Wall Street — Wall Street in downtown Springfield, that is. Housing Vermont, the owner of the 13-unit Wall Street apartment building, the former Brookline Apartments on Wall Street, won’t be getting a month’s worth of rental subsidy because of cutbacks at USDA Rural Development. A month’s subsidy is $10,000, said Kenn Sassorossi, vice president of partner relations for Housing Vermont. The 13 tenants of the 1907, three-story building, currently contribute about $3,000 a month in rents, while Housing Vermont’s expenses including mortgage are $13,000 a month, he said. “We’re not kicking anyone out and we’re not increasing anyone’s rent,” Sassorossi said Monday. “But there are real-life repercussions to the budget crisis.” Housing Vermont is going to make up the projected one-time $10,000 shortfall by taking the money from its reserve account, which had been set aside for repairs and improvements to the building. He said the Wall Street apartment complex, which Housing Vermont purchased and rehabilitated nine years ago, is the only housing complex it owns that was affected by the cutbacks from U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Rural Development. Sassorossi said Housing Vermont was notified in August about the cutback, but since then USDA Rural Development had “cobbled together” money to cover the shortfalls, which affects not just Housing Vermont but two other Vermont housing nonprofit agencies. He said the two other housing projects in Vermont are the School Street housing project in Rutland, owned by the Housing Trust of Rutland County, and the Prospect Place housing project in Montpelier, operated by the Montpelier Housing Authority. All three projects get monthly rental subsidies, Sassorossi said. Officials at neither the Rutland or Montpelier projects could be reached Monday, a federal holiday, for comment. And no one could be reached at the Rural Development office in Montpelier because of furloughs, Sassorossi said. But with the shutdown of the federal government, those “cobbled together” payments are frozen, Sassorossi said. The project only affects those subsidized housing projects that get direct rental subsidy payments that come via USDA Rural Development, he said. For instance, another Housing Vermont project in downtown Springfield, the nine-unit Ellis Block operated by the Springfield Housing Authority, does not have the direct monthly rental subsidies and thus isn’t affected, he said. The problem facing Housing Vermont’s Springfield project was written about in blogs in both U.S. News and World Report and The New Yorker, he said. A Dartmouth College professor, who teaches at Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business, wrote about the problem on his blog on U.S. News and World Report. Professor John Vogel is also a member of the Housing Vermont Board of Directors, Sassorossi said. Then another Dartmouth writer saw Vogel’s blog, and used it in his own blog post at The New Yorker, he said. “Small world,” Sassorossi said.