Governor Douglas Highlights Innovative Housing Construction Program -- Program Provides Construction Training for Women Inmates

Governor Douglas Highlights Innovative Housing Construction Program -- Program Provides Construction Training for Women Inmates

Springfield, Vt. -Governor Jim Douglas today highlighted a program that helps women inmates leave prison with job skills and is helping to make more affordable housing available.

The Governor, and a host of state and local officials, also celebrated the completion of a new three-bedroom modular home in Springfield constructed by women incarcerated at the Southeast State Correctional Facility in Windsor.

This project, spearheaded by Vermont Works for Women, a Vermont-based non-profit organization, is part of the Department of Corrections (DOC) Workforce Development Program, the Governor said. "This program is designed to help women leave prison with a solid skills and an employment record that will help them access good paying jobs upon release," the Governor added. "And it has the added value of helping us produce homes that are affordable for working Vermonters."

More than 50 women participated in the program, and 23 of them were involved in the home construction and installation. The women were trained in frame and finish carpentry, electrical wiring, plumbing, roofing, sheet-rocking and more, and hand built the house in two sections on the prison grounds. Their training also included a classroom component emphasizing "soft skills," job search activities, and further technical instruction that, when coupled with the hands-on work, leads to skills certification in carpentry at various levels.

The Springfield Housing Authority offered the land - one of seven lots it hopes to develop for affordable homeownership - to the project, with financial assistance from the Vermont Housing and Conservation Board. The Springfield Housing Authority is working with the Rockingham Area Community Land Trust's HomeOwnership Center to find a buyer for the house, who will agree to provisions that will enable the house to be permanently affordable to moderate income households.

The project was funded through a number of different public and private sources including DOC, the Department for Children and Families, the Department of Labor, KeyBank, Agnes Lindsay Trust, Lydia B. Stokes Foundation, and from the sale of the house.

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