Brenda Torpy, CEO of Champlain Housing Trust, may be leaving her post, but she isn't exactly retiring. Torpy, director of the Burlington Community Land Trust since 1991, before it merged with Lake Champlain Housing Development Corp., will serve as lead consultant for Champlain Housing Trust's new Technical Assistance Arm, TA/CHT, providing training and support services.
"I always thought it was the best thing," Torpy says of the Burlington Community Land Trust, created while she was housing director for Bernie Sanders, then mayor of Burlington. "It was a model organization that engaged residents in solutions. I wanted it to grow and last."
As she leaves a position she's held for nearly 30 years, she looks back on the growth of what is now the country's largest community land trust. When she started working for the organization after her stint in government, there were just six employees. But the organization had several growth spurts – in size and scope – over the years.
The first was in 1997, Torpy says, "when we joined the NeighborWorks network. At the time they had the National Homeownership Program Center, and we were able to be the place everyone came for homebuyer education and becoming mortgage-ready."
The next big growth spurt was when they merged with Lake Champlain Housing Development Corp., an organization that specialized in new construction and affordable rental housing. They began serving a broader area – urban, suburban and rural. Today, the organization has 3,000 apartment units, 115 employees and $300 million in assets.
What didn't change, Torpy says, was the core mission: permanent affordability and community input and control.
Lessons learned from her years as CEO include:
- On-the-job training: The whole thing is on-the-job training, Torpy says, and it's important to keep learning. That helped when during the merger. "I understood how to build a strong nonprofit. We agreed not to just mush everything together, but to remake it," she says.
- Balance: Always have the balance of core values but stay informed about the different ways you can fulfill your mission. For Champlain Housing Trust, that included adding services. "We realized that people lived in our homes 24-7," Torpy says. And they needed services on-site.
- Community development, not just housing development: During the real estate crash of 1991, when there was a lot of disinvestment in New England and "we had to switch our whole thinking and redevelop nonresidential projects. It was an opportunity for us to develop community centers and a food shelf and offices for the shelter. That was a big conversation for us. And we realized that if we were dedicated to the neighborhood, we needed community development, not just housing development."
- A strong board: "We always invested a lot in our board. NeighborWorks America, by providing organizational capacity training, really supports that. I believe having strong representation, meaningful representation, all these years has really helped us."
- A strong institution: Invest in infrastructure – not just physical infrastructure but in people.
