HARTFORD — Residents came out in force to protest a Twin Pines Housing grant application at a recent Selectboard meeting, prompting the board to delay its decision on the request.
After years of struggling, working with mental health providers and trauma specialists and going through rehab, Erin Brown said in a letter to the Selectboard read aloud at its Feb. 3 meeting that she was “blessed” a little over a year ago to secure her subsidized apartment in a Hartford Avenue building owned by Twin Pines.
“Much to my dismay, this has been an absolute nightmare,” Brown wrote.
She described drug use in the building that is making it “harder and harder to remain sober,” including multiple overdoses, some of which resulted in death, fires and maintenance issues, which she said Twin Pines has not addressed.
“Speaking as a current tenant, I’m afraid already living where I am,” Brown wrote. “What’s going to happen if you give them a grant to build yet another building when they can’t control the ones they have?”
Brown was among the Hartford residents who expressed concerns with safety and management at Twin Pines properties such as the Hartford Avenue apartment complex for people who have been chronically homeless and the Riverwalk Apartment complex near Lyman Bridge at a Feb. 3 Selectboard meeting.
The nonprofit, which owns 665 rental units in the Upper Valley, is planning to build a four-story, 48-unit income-restricted apartment building off Sykes Mountain Avenue with its partner Evernorth, a Burlington-based nonprofit that facilitates financing for low-income housing developments.
The affordable apartments would be on a lot next to a 192-unit market rate development being built by Black Rock LLC. The Hartford Planning Commission approved the joint project in 2024.
To help finance the development, Twin Pines and Evernorth are requesting Selectboard approval to apply for a $1 million Vermont Community Development Block grant that must go through the town.
The Selectboard approved the same application last year but the developers did not lock down the grant in time “due to the timing of other funding resources,” according to meeting materials.
The block grant is just one of several funding sources planned for the project. About 40% of cost is expected to be covered by low-income housing tax credits and another 40% by other state and federal grants. The VCDP funding along with energy efficiency grants and a permanent mortgage is expected to cover about 20% of project costs.
At its Feb. 3 meeting, the board discussed requiring Twin Pines and Evernorth to create and release a safety or incident management plan for the proposed development on Sykes Mountain Avenue.
The board is scheduled to take up the conversation again Tuesday night and may impose new requirements on the nonprofit housing developer as a condition of grant approval.
“This board has to decide if we want to apply for taxpayer dollars and give it to this nonprofit organization and I think that we’re well within our right to have some requirements attached to that,” Selectboard member Ashley Andreas said in a recording of the Feb. 3 meeting.
The director of the nonprofit housing developer said his organization is aware of the challenges. Dealing with issues at the Hartford Avenue property such as those Brown described “has been among the most frustrating experiences of my professional career,” Twin Pines Executive Director Andrew Winter said at the Selectboard meeting.
Twin Pines is taking the issues seriously, Winter said. Twin Pines has evicted three residents and is in the process of evicting three more, with four of those evictions being drug related. The organization has removed 11 non-residents from the premises and secured seven no-trespass orders.
But in some cases Winter said the ability of landlords in Vermont to evict residents and enforce such orders is limited and he is pushing for change on this at the state level.
Twin Pines also works with the Upper Valley Haven to provide supportive services at many of its properties, including the Hartford Avenue building. Eviction is a last resort.
Neither nonprofit can force people to undergo substance misuse treatment.
“Addiction is terrible and it takes a terrible toll in the community and we do what we can to try to bring treatment to people,” Winter said. “But at some level they have to be there themselves and ready to accept it.”
Will Towne, executive director of the Haven, said addiction in Vermont is a “perpetual cycle,” especially for low-income people who may only have access to three weeks of treatment “if you’re lucky.”
“When I first started here, which was not that long ago, one of the first things I heard from our team was we need to try to figure this out,” Towne, who started at the Haven in November, said.
The proposed project, Winter said, is different from Hartford Avenue and would be more like Twin Pines’ Riverwalk property, with a mix of units available based on residents’ income levels. None of the apartments would be subsidized specifically for homeless tenants.
Six of the units would be subsidized for veterans, 32 units would be available for people making 60% or less of the area median income, or $46,080 a year for one person, and 10 units would be for people making 80% or less of the area median income, or $61,450 a year for one person.
The complex would have four studio apartments, 26 one-bedroom units, 15 two-bedroom units and three three-bedroom units.
Despite Winters’ reassurances that the proposed development will be more like Riverwalk, several residents said that property, on Prospect Street, also has problems.
Riverwalk resident Rob Hebert said there is criminal activity such as drug use at his apartment building and he has been repeatedly dismissed by Twin Pines when he has expressed concerns.
“They need to take their attention and devote it to the units that they have,” Hebert said.
Hartford resident Michelle Boleski said she had “serious concerns regarding criminal activity, substance use and poor maintenance at existing properties” and requested that Twin Pines release a safety plan for the new development.
“While Twin Pines is effective, and I would say amazing, at property acquisition, raising funds, marketing and making connections with state politicians, their property management requires significant improvements to ensure all tenants are treated with dignity and respect,” Boleski said in a recording of the meeting.
The Hartford Police Department has not seen an unusual demand for service at Twin Pines’ Hartford Avenue or Riverwalk apartment complexes, Hartford Police Lt. William Furnari said in a Friday email.
“I appreciate engaged community members and always encourage people to reach out when they see something that concerns them,” Furnari said. “Based on our data, the number of calls for service at these addresses is consistent with what we would expect for a multi-unit residential property.”
Hartford Police responded to the Hartford Avenue building 121 times in 2025 and responded 138 times to Riverwalk out of 6,340 total calls, Furnari said.
The Hartford Fire Department has seen an increased demand for service at some Twin Pines properties, Fire Chief Scott Cooney reported.
In 2025, Hartford Fire Department responded to the 18-unit Hartford Avenue property 44 times and to the 42-unit Riverwalk Apartments 37 times. Most of those calls were for emergency medical services, Cooney said.
In comparison, Hartford fire responded to the 69-unit market-rate apartment complex owned by Ledgeworks on South Main Street in White River Junction five times in 2025.
Other complaints levied against Twin Pines and Winter at the Feb. 3 meeting were more personal, with some Hartford residents saying the nonprofit and its director had silenced residents in the past or forced them to provide positive letters about their experiences.
In response to these concerns, Winter said Twin Pines had reached out to tenants to ask for feedback in support of the application at the recommendation of the Selectboard at a previous meeting. He added that some residents said they were afraid to attend the meeting because it would not be a “supportive environment.”
After about an hour of public feedback at the meeting, the Selectboard seemed to favor including some requirements for Twin Pines in the grant approval based on community feedback, but opted to delay the final decision so board members could have more time to think about what that might look like.
“I think we’re missing some criteria when big scalable projects like this come in front of this town,” Selectboard member Tim Fariel said. “… We need to improve the process.”
The Hartford Selectboard will meet at 6 p.m. Tuesday at Hartford Town Hall.