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AHW's October Board Meeting will be held on the regularly scheduled 4th Thursday of the month at 4:30 pm at ONECU in Vergennes (48 Green St) and via Zoom. Please register below to receive the link and meeting materials.
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Thanks to AHW’s Family Support Program, she was able to meet with our support staff and complete a Mobile Home Repair (MHIR) application. Not only did our team help her access $6,203 in emergency repair funding, we were also able to help her connect with a contractor to complete the work.
Since her home was repaired, all the mold is gone and her roof is no longer leaking. Nancy has also noticed a positive change in heating her home. About Lazy Brook, she says, “the people are the best thing about living here.” Check out the October 3 special Home Improvement edition of the Addison Independent for a peak behind the scenes of what it takes to maintain affordable housing (pp. 6C-7C). You can also view the unabridged version below!
Built in the 60s and expanded in the late 80s, Lindale is home to 67 families in Middlebury. About three miles from downtown, the park is an important contributor of workforce housing to the community, but too far to connect to the municipal wastewater system.
Most of the homes in the old part of the park were connected to their original individual wastewater systems, which had not been upgraded in the 60 years since they had been installed. Many were failing and well past the end of their useful lifespan, and some residents even reported sewage backing up into their washing machines and bathtubs. The park is largely built on Addison County clay soils, limiting the potential to repair the systems on site and causing stress to the park's finances as systems needed to be pumped in some cases weekly. The new system is a 20,000 gallon-per-day system that is fully compliant with the state Agency of Natural Resources' Indirect Discharge Program permitting requirements and will safely serve the park for decades to come, ensuring adequate wastewater treatment before it reaches Addison County waterways and our beloved Lake Champlain. The new system also improves and protects clean water within the Middlebury public water system's source protection area. The Lindale Community Septic project began in 2017 with a planning grant application to the Vermont Community Development Program (VCDP). The planning grant led to negotiations with a neighboring landowner to acquire a parcel with capacity to support a new system. In 2021, AHW refinanced the park with tax-exempt financing from VHFA, allowing AHW to close on the parcel and begin design development work with pre-development loans from the Clean Water State Revolving Fund. Local firm Otter Creek Engineering provided the engineering services for the project. Construction funding was secured from many partners in 2022, including Rural Development's Water and Environmental Programs, the ANR Healthy Homes Program, the Vermont Housing & Conservation Board, VCDP via the Town of Middlebury, and the EPA via Congressionally Designated Spending thanks to Senator Sanders. Belden Construction was selected via a competitive bid process and the project broke ground in 2023 with homes being hooked up to the new system by Thanksgiving of that year. The second replacement leach field as well as park repaving, final connections, and punch list work was completed in September 2024. Construction costs totaled $3.3 million, with soft costs including refinancing debt to allow for new infrastructure loans adding up to a grand total of over $5 million to complete the project. Having a fall can be a major concern for an older adult because it can lead to potentially serious and long-term health impacts, like broken bones, reduced mobility, hospitalizations, and surgery, which can jeopardize a person's ability to age safely in their own home. That is why falls prevention is an important focus of the SASH program. This year, our Vergennes program sponsored a falls prevention class on-site at Armory Lane through a partnership with AgeWell. A Matter of Balance: Managing Concerns about Falls is led by Elizabeth Arms, a volunteer class leader. She worked in collaboration with AgeWell and AHW's SASH staff to gather together 12 seniors that would benefit from and be interested in the classes. So far, four classes have been held at Armory Lane, and SASH Coordinator Diana Rule-Senzel reports, "People are telling me that the class is great and they are really glad to be taking it." 
If AHW is able to procure construction funding for the designs produced by this phase of engineering, the improvements to the park may be completed as soon as 2028. We have currently been selected for an earmark by Senator Sanders for up to $1.2 million of a projected $9MM in construction costs.
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Main Office: 272 Main St | PO Box 311 | Vergennes, VT 05491 | (802)877-2626 | TTY: 7-1-1
Apartment Management Division: 272 Main St | PO Box 156 | Vergennes, VT 05491 | (802)877-2626
Apartment Management Division: 272 Main St | PO Box 156 | Vergennes, VT 05491 | (802)877-2626