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Windham & Windsor Housing Trust

Thank you NeighborWorks America for featuring Bellows Falls!! We're so proud to be part of the incredible work that's happened across this community.
"This is a huge piece of a broader vision," Bridgewater says of The Garage. "We dealt with one huge problem that had been plaguing this town for decades. We replaced a derelict building with something beautiful."
While the history of The Garage dates back well over a hundred years, the stories of the land date back much farther. As Windham & Windsor looked at that history, Bridgewater says, they realized that they needed to connect with the Elnu Abenaki tribe, which included descendants who still populate the area. "We had been talking about the history of the town," Bridgewater says. "But the history goes back thousands of years."

"We knew that this area was important," adds Windham and Windsor's Marion Major. "The town was developed at a confluence of rivers with petroglyphs not far from where the village center is today. Although the land has been industrialized and redeveloped time and time again, erasing artifacts over the past centuries, this didn't diminish the fact that this land remains and this water remains and the Abenaki culture, too, remains."

They connected with Rich Holschuh, director of the Atowi Project, a nonprofit that provides cultural education to both mainstream and Native American communities. Holschuh is also chairman of the Vermont Commission on Native American Affairs and a spokesperson for the Elnu Abenaki tribe.

The connection, he says, was made not just to better understand the history and relationship with the land but to look for ways to work together to elevate the present-day Elnu Abenaki in this time, in this newly redeveloped space.

"Most folks don't know what has been here for thousands of years – and what continues," says Holschuh. "It's not in the past. Our goal is to help people understand. It's all about our shared relationship with the land."

It's important for people – including people in community development – to think about the land and their relationship with it, he says. "You can't do it without the land. It's all about place. Everything happens somewhere."

www.neighborworks.org/blog/a-comprehensive-approach-to-transforming-a-rural-community?fbclid=IwAR... ... Read MoreRead Less

Windham & Windsor Housing Trust

Applications are open for Evernorth Robert Gensburg Scholarship through February 15, 2024! (evernorthus.org/scholarships/)

If you or someone you know is enrolled in any classes, courses, or tech programs – and lives in a property managed by Windham & Windsor Housing Trust or one of the organizations listed on the poster below – YOU MAY BE ELIGIBLE!

For more information and to determine eligibility, visit www.vsac.org/.../pdf.../Scholarships_Booklet.pdf and see page 15.

For help applying go to www.vsac.org/contact ... Read MoreRead Less

Windham & Windsor Housing Trust

Newest resident at 68 Birge Street ⛄️#welcomehome! ... Read MoreRead Less

Windham & Windsor Housing Trust is in Vermont.

Construction Update 📣 Procurement is underway with our General Contractor, Neagley & Chase for construction crew to work on Central & Main. Interested? Find more information on their website: www.neagleychase.com
Central & Main will be breaking ground this spring and will be downtown development involving environmental remediation of contaminated soils then the construction of a new building in the now vacant lot adjacent to the Windsor Diner. The building will be home to 25 new apartments that will be affordable to local wages. We are co-developing this building with Evernorth. We became official landowners at the end of December and are very excited about moving forward in this process we've been working with Windsor Improvement Corporation, the Town of Windsor, among many others for several years! For regular updates and a list of FAQs visit our info page: www.homemattershere.org/central-and-main-windsor/ ... Read MoreRead Less