Clifford Symposium Examines Housing Crisis
The state’s top housing experts convened at Middlebury College on Sept. 19-21 for the 2024 Clifford Symposium to address a lack of affordable housing and its impact on local communities.
Scholars, legislators, students, and community members gathered for lectures, panels, movies, and discussions on the topic: “Home: Housing and Belonging in Middlebury and Beyond.” This included explorations of historical and contemporary approaches to housing, innovative solutions, houselessness, and examples of successful projects such as Stonecrop Meadows—a 200-unit mixed-income housing initiative in Middlebury.
A major point of discussion during the symposium was the impact of lacking affordable housing and other societal issues such as mental health, substance abuse, homelessness, and unemployment. Vermont State Treasurer Mike Pieciak, who spoke as part of the “How Did We Get Here, How Can We Get There? Housing Policy in Middlebury and Beyond” panel, called the housing crisis the state’s most critical economic and social issue.
“Growing our economy is dependent on solving the housing crisis,” he said. “On the societal front, it’s hard to make progress on issues like mental health and substance abuse disorder if people don’t have a stable place to live. When you boil down all of the other issues we’re facing, the need to expand our housing stock is at the core.”
Middlebury President Laurie L. Patton opened the three-day event with a recorded message announcing funding for the first two phases of the Stonecrop Meadows project with federal, state, private, and College support. “The bottom line is that in a community with a housing shortage, it’s impossible to bring new talent to our businesses, educational institutions and hospitals,” she said.
Student Driven
The theme for this year’s symposium was inspired by students in the Privilege and Poverty Academic Cluster within the Center for Community Engagement. Students conduct internships at local food shelves, teen centers, the public defender’s office, and organizations focused on migrant health, survivors of sexual and domestic violence, and affordable housing.
“Over the last few years, conversations during our weekly reflections have regularly returned to housing as the thread that unites the issues coming up at all those different placement sites,” said Matt Lawrence, associate professor of sociology and academic director of the Privilege and Poverty cluster. “That’s because food insecurity, job access, family care, restorative justice, and health services are all housing issues.”
Lawrence credits Ellie Cady ’25.5 and Freddi Mitchell ’25 for advocating for affordable housing as the theme of the Clifford Symposium, based in part on their exposure to the College’s experiential learning model. After completing coursework and a related summer internship, students are required to share what they learned with fellow students and faculty.
Cady said it became clear early in her internship that affordable housing was a “multidimensional and complex issue,” requiring community-wide support.
“As I witnessed my peers deeply engage, collaborate and reflect on the events of the symposium, I have a new sense of confidence for the future state of housing in Vermont and beyond,” she said.
Andy Hooper, a member of the Middlebury Selectboard, agreed with Cady’s call for a multifaceted approach. “There is always a desire to search for a silver bullet, but I think we’ve got to go with birdshot,” he said. “There are so many causes and so many things making this a crisis, and there’s a lot of places where you can shave one or two percent off of things, and we need to look at all of them.”
The annual Clifford Symposium is named after College Professor of History Emeritus Nicholas R. Clifford (1930–2019), who taught history at Middlebury College from 1966 to 1993 and who in his many years as a member of the faculty and administration cultivated critical inquiry.