1. The Affordable Housing Trust Fund was created by our community for our community.
2. Grants and programs from the Trust can only be used to support housing in Great Barrington.
3. The Trust’s mission is to support the creation and preservation of affordable housing in Great Barrington for the benefit of low and moderate income households.
4. The need is great. Every day we hear stories of people losing their housing that they have lived in, sometimes for years, and their desperate search to find comparable housing. It is not unusual for people to pay 50% of their income on housing.
5. Construct has a long waiting list of those seeking housing. Habitat had seventy qualified families inquiring about the one house available in Great Barrington. Many more have expressed interest in the twenty homes to be built in Housatonic.
6. The Trust runs programs to provide a down payment loan to help with first time home purchase, emergency rental assistance to help keep people in their homes, and assistance to non-profit partners for the purchase of existing affordable rentals.
7. The Trust develops new housing such as the twenty new homes in Housatonic that Habitat is building. The Trust purchased the land and obtained a $3.3 M state grant for development with Habitat spending an additional $7 M.
8. The Trust has had success across the board by leveraging its limited funds with money from other sources thus making each dollar go further.
9. The Trust receives an annual stipend from the CPA fund but it could do much more with a dedicated fund. Every year the Trust must pass on viable projects due to the lack of funding.
10. The Trust is working on new programs to create housing and to help existing homeowners stay in their homes.