by Guy Page
MacKenzie Scott, mega-philanthropist ex-wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, has donated $20 million to the Champlain Housing Trust, the state’s largest affordable housing owner/manager, Seven Days reported today.
In a byline story by veteran reporter Anne Wallace Allen, the weekly newspaper reported that her not-for-profit organization, Yield Giving, will provide the largest single gift in CHT’s 40-year history. The group’s annual budget is about $27 million, 7D said.
Champlain Housing Trust provides low-interest loans to low-and-middle income homebuyers, and also rents to low-income residents, mostly in Chittenden and Franklin counties. It owns several motels that have been converted into housing for low-income residents.
According to 7D, CHT will use the funds to:
- Increase its endowment, which in turn pays for homeowner education and for social workers assisting homeless people
- Expand its homeownership equity program to assist people of color
- Avoid borrowing and strengthen its balance sheet, providing more favorable lending terms.
CHT published a statement on the Scott gift on its website.
Categories: Housing
“Established in Burlington, Vermont in 1984, the Champlain Housing Trust (CHT) is one of the world’s pioneering and most emblematic Community Land Trusts (CLT), and the largest in the world”
“Currently, CHT owns over 2,400 low-cost rental properties, 600 for-purchase units, and 115 housing cooperatives. In addition, it owns many commercial spaces and offices. These buildings are not contiguous; CHT’s properties are distributed throughout Burlington, covering a large part of its metropolitan area. This enormous scale makes it the largest CLT in the world, offering some 18% of Burlington’s residential units.”
https://rioonwatch.org/?p=71474#:~:text=Established%20in%20Burlington%2C%20Vermont%20in,the%20largest%20in%20the%20world.
Just out of curiosity, is the Champlain Housing Trust a non-profit entity and/or does it pay property taxes an all that they own? A $20 million gift in Burlington is going to attract grifters like ‘chum’ attracts sharks. VDC–follow the money on this one…
What a nice thing for her to do with Jeff’s money.
Maybe you’d prefer she give it to the democrat national party?
Isn’t this just another progressive deception; a cloaked land grab and a beacon to bring more government dependent voters to Vermont? These progressives are killing the Vermont culture I grew up with and grabbing the land in perpetuity.
I wonder what strings are included with the Scott donation?
Just out of curiosity, is the Champlain Housing Trust a non-profit and/or does it pay property taxes on all the real estate it owns? And a $20 million gift to the CHT is going to attract grifters like chum attracts sharks. VDC–follow the money on this one…
https://www.getahome.org/tax-information/
well, this is wonderful I hope they spend this money wisely. I believe I read a report that the state blew through $20 million a month for the homeless hotels.
65% of $20,000,000 is a rather nice payday for “operational” and “administrative” costs. I wonder who or what Mackenzie has ties to in the Champlain Valley? Property, business, relative, kickback, bio-engineering labs, globalist co-conspirators?
Sometimes it pays to look a gift horse in the mouth. Putting more housing essentially into the public sector is NOT a good thing.
There is something very wrong with this.
Maybe you’d prefer she give it to the democrat national party?
Good one…..
I’d prefer she keep it, start a business and hire some people so they can get their own housing and contribute to our ever increasing tax cost.