People’s United grant boosts affordable housing

Tammy Torres, People”™s United Community Foundation administration and agency liaison director, left, and Donna M. Donaldson, New Neighborhoods Inc.”™s board director.

 Bridgeport-based People”™s United Community Foundation, which awards grants to nonprofits in communities served by People”™s United Bank, also Bridgeport based, has awarded a grant of $8,000 to New Neighborhoods Inc. in Stamford “to develop and preserve affordable housing in Fairfield County.”

New Neighborhoods is a nonprofit developer and manager of low- and moderate-income housing with properties completed and on the drawing board in Stamford, Norwalk, Danbury and other communities in Fairfield County. It will celebrate its 50th anniversary in 2017 as a developer of affordable housing in what it calls “one of the least affordable housing markets in the country.”

“We thank the Foundation and the Bank for recognizing the importance of affordable housing as a safety net and springboard to self-sufficiency,” said Ross Burkhardt, New Neighborhoods’ president and CEO.

The funds will be leveraged to move more than 100 units of housing through the nonprofit developer”™s pipeline and into construction. When completed, the units will benefit families, retirees, veterans and others who don”™t earn enough to rent a standard apartment. The wage considered necessary either to rent or buy a basic 2-bedroom in Stamford and Norwalk, according to the nonprofit, is $37 per hour.

New Neighborhoods said it has developed and preserved 165 units of housing for qualified low- and moderate-income buyers and has 450 units of developed rental housing in its property management portfolio in Stamford, Norwalk and Danbury. It has plans both collaboratively and on its own to add another 200 units of housing in Fairfield County over the next two years.