Vermont Business Magazine Norwich University has been awarded a $20,000 grant from the TD Charitable Foundation, the charitable giving arm of TD Bank, America's Most Convenient Bank, to fund the development of a construction management plan to create Vermont’s first tiny house community.
This grant supports the development of the next generation of affordable tiny houses by students and faculty in the College of Professional School’s School of Architecture + Art through Norwich’s Design+Build Collaborative.
This project partners with Homes First, a grassroots organization founded and based in Middlebury, Vermont, to realize a village of tiny houses in Middlebury of affordable, dignified housing.
“Building on the success of our housing prototypes, we strive to integrate better solutions for community health, accessibility, and adaptability,” Collaborative Director Cara Armstrong said. “We continue to find and develop partnerships within the university and with outside organizations that align with our mission to conduct research to understand the relationship between buildings and occupant health and make refinements to a tiny house with regard to affordability, transportation, financing, mechanical systems designs and community development.”
“Supporting Norwich University's affordable housing initiative aligns with TD's social purpose to create sustainable, inclusive communities and make a lasting positive impact," said Phil Daniels, Market President, TD Bank.
The Collaborative will work with a group of community members that has spent over a year researching truly affordable housing options for people all along the income spectrum. The Collaborative will also tap insight from Conversations from the Open Road, a citizen-journalism, film production program for high school students.
The Vermont Office of Economic Opportunity and Vermont’s 2016 Point in Time Count has determined that Vermont should add nearly 400 units of new supportive housing and an additional 1,250 new units of affordable housing targeted to households with incomes at or below 30% of the area median income. A tiny-house prototype and village offers a solution to this crisis and a replicable model that can expand Vermont’s affordable housing portfolio. The Collaborative will provide design services to Homes First along with a construction management plan to create Vermont’s first tiny house community.
As northern New England’s only university to offer integrated professionally accredited programs in architecture, business, engineering, construction, and nursing, Norwich’s Design+Build Collaborative (the Collaborative) calls on students to “act as well as conceive” and create solutions for local, regional and global challenges.
About the TD Charitable Foundation
The TD Charitable Foundation is the charitable giving arm of TD Bank, America’s Most Convenient Bank, one of the 10 largest commercial banking organizations in the United States. Since its inception in 2002, the Foundation has distributed over $243 million through donations to local nonprofits from Maine to Florida. More information on the TD Charitable Foundation is available at https://www.tdbank.com/corporate-responsibility/the-ready-commitment/funding-opportunities/
Norwich University is a diversified academic institution that educates traditional-age students and adults in a Corps of Cadets and as civilians. Norwich offers a broad selection of traditional and distance-learning programs culminating in baccalaureate and graduate degrees. Norwich University was founded in 1819 by Captain Alden Partridge of the U.S. Army and is the oldest private military college in the United States. Norwich is one of our nation's six senior military colleges and the birthplace of the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC).
Source: NORTHFIELD, Vt. — Norwich University 11.9.2020 www.norwich.edu