Why It Matters
Vermont faces a persistent housing shortage even as its overall population has declined since the pandemic, revealing a structural mismatch between housing stock and household composition. Fewer people per home means more total housing units are required to shelter the same population, a dynamic that will shape housing policy and affordability across the state for years to come.
What Happened
Vermont’s housing crisis stems not from too many people arriving, but from fundamental shifts in how Vermonters live. The state’s average household size has shrunk from 2.36 people per home in 2015 to 2.18 by the mid-2020s, forcing housing supply to expand simply to accommodate existing residents in smaller family units.
Single-person households are growing faster than any other household type in Vermont. Roughly 70 percent of all Vermont households now contain just one or two people. The state’s aging population compounds the trend: Vermont includes a significantly larger share of residents age 55 and older than it did a decade ago, combined with a persistently low birth rate.
Two Vermonters illustrate the dynamic. Dave Felcan, a 57-year-old retired software engineer, bought a three-bedroom Burlington home in the early 2000s when his household numbered four. After divorce and his children’s departure, he remains in the same dwelling alone. “This is a beautiful screened-in porch, which I now never use. It’s a lot of house for one person,” Felcan told the VTDigger. Similarly, William Dido, a 46-year-old accounting specialist, inherited a three-bedroom Victorian in Proctor that his parents purchased in 1985 and occupied until both died in 2021. Dido now lives there alone. “I am single. I am child-free by choice. I do not need this much home,” he said.
The mismatch between household size and housing inventory has created a shortage of smaller, more affordable units while three-bedroom-or-larger homes sit underutilized. Nearly 60 percent of Vermont’s housing stock consists of homes with three or more bedrooms—units often too large and expensive for single residents or childless couples seeking to downsize.
By the Numbers
70% — share of Vermont households with one or two people
2.2 — average residents per year-round home in Vermont
2.36 — Vermont’s average household size in 2015
2.18 — Vermont’s average household size in the mid-2020s
22,000 — homes Vermont needed to add between 2015 and 2024 to accommodate declining household sizes within the existing population
60% — Vermont homes with three or more bedrooms
Zoom Out
Vermont’s experience reflects a national housing dynamic driven by demographic change rather than growth. Across the United States, smaller household sizes—driven by delayed marriage, lower fertility rates, longer life spans, and higher divorce rates—have created housing demand independent of population growth. States with aging populations and in-migration of older adults face similar pressures to build smaller, more accessible housing units even when overall population is flat or declining.
Vermont’s housing stock is among the oldest in the country, with many homes built when larger families were the norm. The challenge of retrofitting or replacing this inventory while maintaining affordability has become central to state housing policy discussions.
What’s Next
Housing officials, including Maura Collins, executive director of the Vermont Housing Finance Agency, are working to address the structural mismatch. Solutions likely involve incentivizing conversion of larger homes into smaller units, streamlining permitting for accessory dwellings, and encouraging new construction of right-sized homes for single residents and smaller households. The state’s ability to resolve the crisis depends partly on whether policy can shift housing supply faster than household composition continues to change.