We Can No Longer Afford to Only Call It “Affordable Housing”

A Satellite neighborhood: walkable, livable, and rooted in shared structure—with the diversity of its residents reflected in every path, porch, and module.

“Vermont would have to add 41,000 new homes by 2030 — about 8,200 housing units a year — to address the state’s immense housing need, according to an assessment by the Agency of Commerce and Community Development. In 2024, communities issued building permits for only 2,654 new homes.” - Rachel Hellman, Seven Days, June 2025

The math isn’t just bad. It’s unsustainable.

And the language we’re using to describe the problem—“affordable housing”—isn’t helping.

This phrase reduces one of the most pressing, layered challenges of our time to a price point. It implies that the only thing preventing people from having a safe, stable place to live is dollars and cents. And while affordability matters, it’s just one facet of a much deeper and more complex reality.

We don’t need to retire the term entirely. But we need to enrich it. Challenge it. And most importantly, we need to build housing systems that actually reflect the values and conditions of the people who live here.

So today I’m offering four alternative framings. They’re not slogans. They’re not solutions.

They’re invitations—starting points for a conversation I hope you’ll help me carry forward.

Core Housing

Housing is at the core of Vermont’s economic survival.

When people leave our towns because they can’t afford to live near where they work—when small businesses can’t retain staff because housing has become unlivable—that’s not a housing issue.

That’s a full system breakdown.

But the damage goes deeper than job stats.

We lose neighbors. We lose volunteers. We lose the parent who coaches Little League, the elder who opens the food shelf early, the person who picks up trash on their morning walk.

We lose the single mother who feeds the neighbor’s cats, organizes the meal train, and helps load an elder’s storage space because there just isn’t room—without ever being paid for it.

We also lose migrant workers, whose labor sustains our farms, restaurants, and construction crews—yet whose housing is often overcrowded, invisible, or deeply unsafe.

When we speak of “affordable housing,” and then reject it in our own neighborhoods, this is who we’re turning away.

Let’s name that clearly:

Affordable housing carries a stigma. In many places, the words alone trigger resistance. The term has become a lightning rod for fear, classism, misinformation, and Not In My Backyard politics.

But core housing reframes the issue. Because core housing isn’t about creating something extra for someone else—it’s about protecting the structure of our communities. It holds the workers, the caretakers, the elders, the new parents, the people returning home, and yes—even the people we may struggle to welcome. Because if your definition of community excludes the very people who make it run, then you don’t have a community—you have a gated memory.

And yes—core housing is the starting point and the return point.

It’s where we rest, recharge, raise kids, care for elders, and participate in civic life. It’s also where we root the next generation. When a pregnant woman with a steady job says she can’t find a home in the town she grew up in—that’s not unfortunate. That’s avoidable failure.

Because without core housing, schools shrink. Services strain. Local economies collapse under their own imbalance. To ignore that is to miss the heartbeat of rural survival. And to keep calling it “affordable housing” is to continue letting that stigma carry the story.

Core housing is what happens when we finally decide that every neighbor, every worker, every caregiver, and every future Vermonter deserves to stay rooted in the place they call home.

Essential Housing

We called workers essential during COVID.

And they were. They are.Nurses. Grocery clerks. Delivery drivers.They kept the lights on, the shelves stocked, the wheels turning.They weren’t just helpers.They were the scaffolding holding up a world in collapse.

So when we talk about essential housing, we’re not just talking about access. We’re talking about reciprocity. If someone is essential to our survival, their shelter shouldn’t be an afterthought. It should be protective. Nourishing. Essential to their well-being, just as they are essential to ours.

But here’s the truth:

Essential housing isn’t just for essential workers. It’s for the single mother. The migrant farmhand. The elder aging in place. The returning citizen trying to rebuild. The kid who grew up here and wants to stay.

Essential doesn’t describe the job. It describes the need. Because health, stability, and shelter are not luxuries. They’re baseline human requirements—for everyone.

To show you what I mean, picture this:

A 30-something traveling nurse. Kind. Exhausted. She’s come off a 14-hour shift. The hospital is understaffed. She’s not from here—she’s here to help. She crosses the street and steps into a 400-square-foot home. It’s not grand. But it’s perfect. Fresh air moves through a recovery system. There’s a real kitchen, even if she doesn’t have time to cook. A quiet shower. A place to sit, to exhale, to reset. A moment of rest before she does it all again.

That’s what essential housing can look like. Not massive. Not opulent. Just right.

And if it works for her—it can work for the young couple waiting tables, the farm crew working double shifts, the grandparent raising grandkids. Because essential housing isn’t about status. It’s about support.

It’s architecture with an immune system. Dry. Tight. Mold-free. Built with materials that care for your lungs and your skin—not just your wallet.

And it’s not about stripping down.

It’s about building smarter—without needing to strip money from schools or services just to make it pencil out.

True affordability isn’t found by slashing public budgets to fund tax breaks.

It’s found by designing systems that reduce waste, shorten timelines, and respect the worker as much as the wall assembly.

This is the work I’ve committed to:

Designing not for the top 2%, but for the full 100. Building with the belief that no one should be excluded from care. Because essential housing isn’t a category.

It’s a human right.

Rooted Housing

Vermont is not a place of sprawl. It’s a place of roots.

Rooted housing grows from place. It reflects the realities of our climate, our economy, and our community structure. It isn’t just designed somewhere and shipped here—it’s born from the ground we stand on.

That means designing to meet—not sidestep—Vermont’s robust energy code, which was updated in 2023 to reflect our region’s specific climate challenges. Too often, these standards are treated as suggestions. But they’re not optional—not if we’re serious about sustainability, health, and long-term resilience. Rooted housing recognizes that what works in Vermont isn’t what works in Florida, or Arizona, or Massachusetts. We need homes that are designed for our winters, our wind, our sun angles, and our values.

It also means financing that stays in-state, so dollars invested in homes continue to circulate through our local economy. When housing is financed through regional credit unions, community loan funds, or mission-aligned capital networks, the result isn’t just shelter—it’s economic continuity.

And rooted housing looks at who’s building, not just what’s built. It asks: how do we engage local labor, train the next generation, and bring people into meaningful work with livable wages and future-facing skills?

Rooted housing isn’t imported. It isn’t speculative. It doesn’t just appear—it emerges, shaped by people who live here, stay here, and want to keep this place strong.

It’s not charity. It’s continuity.

Livable Housing

A livable wage should support a livable home.

That shouldn’t be a radical statement. It should be the baseline. But too often, what’s labeled “affordable” comes stripped to the bone—cheap materials, poor ventilation, no light, no comfort.

A unit, not a home.

Livable housing shifts the frame. It asks:

What does it mean to come home after a full day’s work and still have something left to give your family, your body, your self?

Picture a mother working full time—not pulling a second shift just to make rent. She opens the door to a space that breathes. Her children are inside, warm, in fresh indoor air—even in January—thanks to energy recovery systems that exchange heat but never compromise air quality. She isn’t stuck choosing between heating the home and buying groceries. Her electric bill doesn’t spike with every cold snap. There’s a kitchen big enough for cooking together, a place to sit and eat, a floor they can play on. She folds laundry in a space that doesn’t feel like a utility closet. She takes a breath. Not just because the air is clean, but because the layout makes sense. Because the light hits the table. Because the noise isn’t bouncing off drywall. Because there is, finally, a rhythm. 

Livable housing means she doesn’t have to trade time with her kids for a second job just to cover poor insulation and cheap construction. It means the building supports her health—physical, mental, financial—and reflects the dignity of her effort. Because if we’re only building for code, we’re not building for people.

We’re building for checklists or someone else’s checkbook.

Conclusion: Not Just What We Build, But Why

If you’ve read this far, you already know—this isn’t just a policy issue. It’s a human one. And we’re running out of time to pretend that the word “affordable” can carry the full weight of what housing means to our communities.

What we need now is housing that holds people. Homes that honor labor. Structures that reflect place, values, and the real, daily lives of Vermonters—whether they’ve been here five generations or just arrived to care for someone they love.

That means shifting the language, yes. But more than that, it means shifting the lens.

From margins to center.
From scarcity to dignity.
From surviving to living.

This is not about marketing spin. It’s about meaning. We can’t afford to reduce people’s futures to a line item—or to build shelter like it’s a burden to bear. Housing is not a favor. It’s not an accessory. It’s not someone else’s problem.

It is the structure that holds everything else.
It is infrastructure.
It is health.
It is continuity.
It is care.

And if we believe that care should be universal—not just for the wealthy, not just for the lucky, not just for those born at the right time in the right zip code—then we must build like it.

We don’t just need more units.

We need a new ethic.