we can't fix vermont's most urgent issues without fixing housing

Vermont’s challenges are often talked about in separate lanes — struggling schools, municipal staffing shortages, rising health care costs — but the reality is much simpler and more interconnected: they all trace back, in large part, to housing.

Two recent Addison Independent articles underscore this clearly.

Rep. Peter Conlon, in announcing his decision to step down, pointed to the compounding pressures facing public education: declining enrollment, rising insurance costs, and aging infrastructure. But embedded in that diagnosis is a root cause that’s harder to ignore — the lack of workforce housing. Without places that young families can afford, Vermont isn’t just losing students; it’s losing the very people who sustain its schools and communities.

That same story is playing out at the municipal level. In Middlebury, officials report that positions across local government — from planners to public works staff — are going unfilled, not for lack of interest, but because candidates simply can’t find housing they can afford. With median home prices nearing $500,000 and rents for modest apartments exceeding $1,600, even well-qualified applicants are forced to look elsewhere
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These aren’t isolated problems. They are symptoms of a structural imbalance: Vermont has jobs, strong communities, and people who want to live here — but not enough homes that match what people can pay.

Housing, then, isn’t just one issue among many. It is the foundation beneath all the others. When we don’t build enough homes, schools lose enrollment, towns lose workers, and economic growth stalls. When we do, we create the conditions for stability — for families to settle, for services to function, and for communities to thrive.

If we want to make meaningful progress on education, workforce, and affordability, we can’t treat housing as a side conversation. It has to be at the center.

​And while a recent Seven Days piece points to a study suggesting that building more housing may not lower costs, the on-the-ground reality across Vermont tells a different story. As the Addison Independent reporting shows, communities aren’t struggling because of too much housing — they’re struggling because there isn’t enough. When towns can’t hire and families can’t find homes, the consequences of scarcity are already clear.