Important piece with a clever proposal for financing more affordable housing
To some extent, LIHTC-subsidized “low-income” housing already recognizes the need for cross subsidy. Almost every LIHTC project includes housing at a range of affordability levels ranging from 15-80% area median income. The 80% AMI units are technically deed restricted, but they’re not too far from market rents, which helps finance the rest of the project
Which gets at another benefit of flipping IZ policies toward nonprofits: market-rate developers tend to provide IZ rates at the 80% AMI level, which doesn’t meet the needs of the most housing insecure people—in part bc market-rate developers really aren’t set up to provide the kinds of services those populations sometimes need. Encouraging mission-driven nonprofits to mix market-rate and affordable housing would likely produce IZ units with deeper subsidy level, managed by organizations that have experience providing sufficient onsite services to residents
If I am understanding "reverse inclusionary housing," Avenue CDC has such projects in Houston. They develop their own apartments, with the options of leasing them as market rate or subsidized housing. I would like to hear if anyone has an opinion about how well these are being managed.
Ii’ planning on doing a deep dive on the Atlanta urban development corporation, but the Houston example is super useful.
I think this funding mechanism (and a handful of other ones public devs can get access to) are pretty compelling, but the implementation/execution part is what I want to dive into next.
Solid piece on mixed-income development financing. The insight about nonprofit developers being able to optimize the subsidy mix without satisfying equity returns is key. I dunno if enough people appreciate how project-level IZ requirements can unintentionally become NIMBY ammunition when set too high. Watched this play out in my city where residents weaponized affordability mandates to block projects they opposed for other reasons entirely, essentially turning housing advocates into unwitting allies of anti-development forces.
Buildings without vested ownership die. The ‘good’ is not a building, it is a domicile. Section 8 and similar programs failed in part because the buildings constructed were often substandard, poorly maintained, and located in areas deemed less desirable due to inadequate networks – transportation, fire, police, hospitals, schools…
These deficiencies occurred in part because the organization responsible for constructing and maintaining the ‘buildings’ did not in fact live there. There is simply no substitute for skin in the game.
Important piece with a clever proposal for financing more affordable housing
To some extent, LIHTC-subsidized “low-income” housing already recognizes the need for cross subsidy. Almost every LIHTC project includes housing at a range of affordability levels ranging from 15-80% area median income. The 80% AMI units are technically deed restricted, but they’re not too far from market rents, which helps finance the rest of the project
Which gets at another benefit of flipping IZ policies toward nonprofits: market-rate developers tend to provide IZ rates at the 80% AMI level, which doesn’t meet the needs of the most housing insecure people—in part bc market-rate developers really aren’t set up to provide the kinds of services those populations sometimes need. Encouraging mission-driven nonprofits to mix market-rate and affordable housing would likely produce IZ units with deeper subsidy level, managed by organizations that have experience providing sufficient onsite services to residents
If I am understanding "reverse inclusionary housing," Avenue CDC has such projects in Houston. They develop their own apartments, with the options of leasing them as market rate or subsidized housing. I would like to hear if anyone has an opinion about how well these are being managed.
https://avenuecdc.org/
Ii’ planning on doing a deep dive on the Atlanta urban development corporation, but the Houston example is super useful.
I think this funding mechanism (and a handful of other ones public devs can get access to) are pretty compelling, but the implementation/execution part is what I want to dive into next.
Solid piece on mixed-income development financing. The insight about nonprofit developers being able to optimize the subsidy mix without satisfying equity returns is key. I dunno if enough people appreciate how project-level IZ requirements can unintentionally become NIMBY ammunition when set too high. Watched this play out in my city where residents weaponized affordability mandates to block projects they opposed for other reasons entirely, essentially turning housing advocates into unwitting allies of anti-development forces.
Buildings without vested ownership die. The ‘good’ is not a building, it is a domicile. Section 8 and similar programs failed in part because the buildings constructed were often substandard, poorly maintained, and located in areas deemed less desirable due to inadequate networks – transportation, fire, police, hospitals, schools…
These deficiencies occurred in part because the organization responsible for constructing and maintaining the ‘buildings’ did not in fact live there. There is simply no substitute for skin in the game.