Commerce agency seeks $4 million for housing repairs, repurposes flood funds for manufactured-home repairs

Lindseay Curley, Secretary of the Agency of Commerce and Community Development, told the Senate Appropriations Committee that housing and economic-growth investments in the House budget are critical to addressing affordability and workforce needs.

Curley asked the committee to carry forward three targeted investments included in the House version of the budget: $4 million in base funding for the Vermont Housing Improvement Program (VHIP), $800,000 in one-time funding for the manufactured housing repair program (MYR) sourced from a prior emergency-board appropriation, and $150,000 in one-time funding for an international office contract to support Vermont exporters.

Dan Dickerson, ACCD director of administrative services, said the VHIP $4 million request is planned as roughly $3.75 million in grants and about $250,000 to cover administration and two permanent positions to manage the program once the appropriation is signed. ACCD officials described VHIP as a grants program routed through regional home-ownership centers and said it would operate on a rolling application basis.

ACCD also reported a recent Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery (CDBG-DR) award of about $67 million and requested roughly $19 million in FY27 spending authority to obligate the next tranche of recovery projects. The agency said it expects the majority of the award to be obligated before the end of the current fiscal year and that two dedicated staff will administer CDBG-DR work in the years ahead.

Committee members asked for details on program design, contracting and regional distribution. ACCD staff said the $150,000 international-contract request is intended as a two-year renewal for in-market representation (the current Montreal contract is about $75,000 per year) and that other markets may be serviced from the agency’s regular international budget as needed.

Officials described the Competitive Housing Incentive Program (CHIP) as a large, competitive infrastructure program with $200 million available per year over a 10-year period and said webinars and pre-applications show robust interest; no CHIP funds have been disbursed yet as municipalities complete readiness steps.

ACCD also discussed brownfields funding and said while no new appropriation is included this session, staff continue to work projects from past appropriations and have submitted a congressionally directed spending request in hopes of securing additional federal funding through Senator Welch’s office.

The committee closed the session after asking ACCD to provide follow-up details and implementation plans for several programs.