How a Chip System's Savings Made a Housing Complex Affordable Again
In the late 1980s, low-income residents at Green Acres, a 50-unit affordable-housing complex in Barre, Vermont, were paying an average of $250—often more than $300—every winter month to heat their apartments. The complex had all-electric heat and hot water, and tenant after tenant was abandoning Green Acres after the bills had piled up too high. Others were using dangerous kerosene heaters, and nearly everyone was trying to get by in under-heated living spaces, leading to problems with mildew, icing, condensation, and “decreased tenant comfort and satisfaction,” noted a consultant’s 1988 report on the problem...