Brenda Torpy

Brenda Torpy has 28 years of experience in the affordable housing field, starting with rural community development and affordable housing advocacy in northern Vermont. As the Community and Economic Development Office's first housing director for the City of Burlington, Brenda worked on the development of the Burlington Community Land Trust, now Champlain Housing Trust, and served on its board of directors. In 1991 she joined the staff as executive director.

The Champlain Housing Trust is the nation's largest community land trust with over 4,000 members, 70 employees, and 2,000 affordable homes in northwest Vermont, including 470 in their shared appreciation homeownership portfolio along with multiple nonprofit facilities, retail, and commercial tenants. Under Brenda's leadership, CHT was selected as the 2008 winner of the U.N. World Habitat Award for the Global North for its leadership in the development of the CLT model of permanently affordable and community-controlled housing.

Brenda has also worked for the Vermont Housing Finance Agency as development director, and coordinated the $21 million tenant-led buyout of Northgate Apartments—336 apartments that needed extensive rehabilitation and reinvestment to assure continued affordability. She serves on the board of Northgate Resident Ownership Corporation and on Vermont's Governor’s Housing Council.