In the beginning, all Connie Snow ’77 wanted to do was take a few houses — Victorians, once stately but now decrepit — and bring them up to code, creating homes for needy families in Brattleboro, Vermont.
“We were in a period of rapid housing appreciation,” Snow says. “There was a feeling the state was losing what little affordable housing we had. A lot of it was privately owned and derelict, and the rest was being bought up by investors.”
That was in 1987. Her budget was $7,000.