NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — The newly established Affordable Housing Trust has spent its first meetings determining its mission, objectives and resources. 

 

What it has to decide is the chicken or the egg — set goals with the purpose of finding funds or getting the funds first and determining the best way to use them. 

 

"I think that funding actually would dictate the projects that we do, rather than come up with we what we want to do, and then find a way to fund it," said Trustee Ross Jacobs last Thursday. "There may be sources we explore that will be successful. Some may not. ...

 

"If we start exploring funding options and get some of these wheels rolling, then we'll have a better idea within six months where some of these are going, and then what we can do."

 

Trustee Nancy Bullett said it may be more of doing both at the same time. 

 

"It's almost simultaneous looking at the projects that are incorporating funding, because your funding is specific to whatever it is that you're doing," she said. "So how do you identify the projects that you want to work on, which then dictates the funding."

 

This will tie into the trust's objectives which could include home rehabilitation, property tax relief, emergency rent or mortgage, or support of projects undertaken by private or public developers like Habitat for Humanity.