Efforts to add desperately-needed housing in the Conway area could get a shot in the arm from a nonprofit that works across Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine.
Burlington, Vermont-based Evernorth announced that it’s closed an $8.95 million loan fund capitalized with investments from Bar Harbor Bank, Citizens Bank, Dartmouth College, Dartmouth Health, Hanover Co-op Food Stores, Hypertherm, King Arthur Baking and Mascoma Bank.
The fund was born out of a regional initiative led by a coalition of Upper Valley employers concerned about their workers’ inability to find housing in the area.
“The bottom line is that the workforce cannot find an affordable place to live in the Upper Valley,” Deb Flannery, vice president of lending at Evernorth, said in a statement. “The Loan Fund will build or preserve apartments for people who can afford rents of $1,200 to $1,600 per month. By comparison, the current market rate for apartments in Grafton and Windsor counties is between $1,500 to $2,200 per month. So, you can see that by leveraging these employer dollars we will be able to create considerable savings for the workforce as compared to what the market is producing,”
Evernorth will manage the fund, which will offer “low-cost, flexible financing” for affordable housing projects. The fund is hoping to spur the creation of 260, most of which will be affordable to people making less than 80 percent of the area median income. The area has only 420 units of affordable housing reserved for households making that much, Evernorth said.
The loan fund will also leverage around $67 million in public and private financing and will be deployed over two to three years, funding between two and four transactions each year, the nonprofit announced.
“The ability to attract and retain employees is directly related to the housing shortage here in the Upper Valley,” Mascoma Bank President and CEO Clayton Adams said in a statement. “Without workers who have a place to live, the economy as we know it will cease to function effectively. I’m very grateful to Evernorth for being such a strong partner in this effort. Their expertise will help employer capital make a difference in addressing our region’s housing crisis.”
