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untanglingwebs
El Supremo
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With all of the mixed housing being built in Flint, there is often only 20% low income and the rest is market rate. Could this Detroit scenario be played out at some point in Flint.
Detroit officials brace for affordable housing losses
Candice Williams, The Detroit News Published 12:01 a.m. ET Dec. 10, 2018
2018 1110 Jg Kel Jen 166
(Photo: John T. Greilick, Detroit News)
Detroit — City officials fear Detroit could lose as many as 10,000 affordable housing units in buildings with expiring low-income housing tax credits in the next five years, threatening massive displacement of renters.
A bulk of properties are coming up on the end of a 15-year compliance or renewal period now through 2023, according to the city. Most at risk are areas ripe for redevelopment, including downtown, Corktown and Midtown.
Margaret Dewar, a professor with the University of Michigan who has researched the issue of low-income housing tax credits, believes the figure could be as many as 7,000 housing units through 2022 and a major threat to the city's low-income housing stock.
"That’s a huge number," she said. "It’s really close to half the total low-income housing units the city has."
Without adequate funding to make financial sense for developers to maintain low rents, they could be tempted to sell to developers who would increase rents with market-rate units, Dewar said.
There’s a temptation for building owners to sell, particularly in areas with an influx of residents. It's even more so for struggling properties, Dewar said.
"What we see is that a lot of them are having a great deal of trouble breaking even,” she said. “Especially ones that have hard debt from banks or are smaller projects like maybe 20 units instead of 80 or something like that. Ones that do not have housing-assistance vouchers."
City officials also say Detroit has a large number of affordable rental units throughout the city that have low rents but aren’t regulated through federal subsidies. Both regulated and unregulated units are aging and need investment, according to the city.
To avoid a housing crisis, the city has begun planning for its Affordable Housing Leverage Fund, which will address those existing units and seek to create 2,000 more affordable housing units.
The City Council recently approved nonprofit Detroit Local Initiatives Support Corporation as fund managers to help plan a $250 million fund that will be a mix of grants, low-interest financing as well as city and federal funds. Contributors will include financial institutions, community development financial institutions and philanthropic organizations.
The city Housing and Revitalization Department estimates the $250 million figure is enough to cover the preservation of 10,000 existing units while creating 2,000 new affordable ones.
Without taking these steps, the consequences would be dire, officials warn.
“This fund is extremely important to help us address those needs,” Donald Rencher, director of the city’s Housing and Revitalization Department, said during a recent Detroit City Council Planning and Economic Committee meeting. “…If we don’t have the subsidy to continue to help and continue to keep the affordable units there, we can have a massive displacement.”
Rencher said his department receives about $5 million to $6 million in federal HOME Investment Partnerships Program funds that are used to finance about three or four projects each year.
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development awards HOME funds to state and local governments to purchase properties for rehab or vacant land for new construction for affordable rental units; homebuyer assistance programs; and tenant-based rental assistance.
“We simply don’t have enough funding to address the preservation that needs to happen with the affordable units around the city of Detroit,” he said. “So (the Affordable Housing Leverage Fund) is extremely important to help us address those needs.”
The $250 million fund will include $50 million in grant funds, $150 million in low-interest borrowing and $50 million in public money from federal and city funds.
The first available funding is expected to be announced at the beginning of 2019, said Julie Schneider, associate director for policy and implementation for the Housing and Revitalization Department.
“We’ve been working really hard to identify the financial needs in the marketplace in terms of how to actually get money into development,” Schneider said.
The federal government began the low-income housing tax credit program in 1986 to offset dollar-for-dollar a developer’s tax liability. This gives a developer an incentive to provide housing at below-market-rate rents for households that make less than 60 percent of the area median income. Those households pay 30 percent of their income.
The credits, available through the Michigan State Housing Development Authority, come with a 15-year compliance period with the option to renew for another 15 years.
So far no developers with a low-income housing tax credit property have opted out of the extended use period, according to MSHDA.
Landlords with rental units with housing assistance vouchers, known as Section 8, receive from the federal government, through a public housing agency, a portion of rent on behalf of a qualified low-income family. The family pays the difference between the rent the landlord charges and the amount subsidized by the program.
Michael Essian, vice president of American Community Developers, said his company has received several calls from developers interested in purchasing the Clement Kern Gardens, an 84-unit housing complex on Bagley at Trumbull.
The development sits in the shadow of the Michigan Central Station, which Ford Motor Co. will redevelop as part of its $740 million plan to develop an autonomous and electric vehicle campus in Corktown.
“We know what’s going on,” Essian said. “The vultures are circling, going ‘Well, this is an opportunity here.’ We have to take a long hard look at it and say, you know, if we’re going to prevent this thing from going market rate, what’s it going to take to save it?”
Essian said his company is about preservation. The company owns 2,700 affordable housing units throughout the city.
“That’s what our company is founded to do, but it’s very difficult when you’ve got someone chasing you down to sell a property, and they’re throwing a big number out there,” he said. “If we don’t have funds to preserve it, it makes the choice a little harder.”
The city reached out to American Community Developers to schedule a meeting to prioritize which developments are most at risk, Essian said.
“The funds MSHDA has available and the funds that are available through low-income housing tax credits are limited, so the fact the city is taking the initiative to create this fund, I think it says a lot about the administration and what their goals are,” he said. “Making sure that Detroit is a city for everybody, you have to be proactive to achieve that goal. It just doesn’t happen by accident.”
Detroit resident Brian Demarest said he appreciates anything the city can do to preserve affordable housing. Demarest is a former resident of the Park Avenue House downtown where tenants in October initially received 30-day notices to move as the building is expected to soon change ownership.
Park Avenue House is a former hotel turned rental property that receives no federal subsidies, according to MSHDA. Due to its low rents, it's considered naturally occurring affordable housing. Demarest said he was paying $680 for a studio compared to renovated studios nearby costing more than $1,200 a month.
After some intervention from the city, tenants in the building were told they can stay until June 30. Demarest, a 50-year-old factory worker, has since found a new place to live less than a mile away: Heather Hall Apartments on Second Avenue in Midtown, where studios are about $350 a month.
Demarest said he considers himself a success story, but he is mindful of the rising rents in the area.
“I hope they work something out for everybody,” he said. “I know owners got to make money and people got to live. There’s got to be some common ground there somewhere.”
City officials say they're working to create a shift in thinking regarding redevelopment in Detroit.
In 2013, developers Broder & Sachse received some criticism when the company purchased the Griswold at 1214 Griswold and decided not to renew participation in a tenant-based rental assistance program and instead converted the building in Capitol Park into a market-rate luxury building called The Albert.
The developers did provide a one-year notice to tenants and retained the services of United Community Housing Coalition to help tenants find new housing. Tenants also received monetary assistance to pay new security deposits and other moving expenses.
But Broder & Sachse changed its approach with one of its most recent developments by preserving affordable housing in 28 units for the previous tenants of the former Milner Arms Apartments at 40 Davenport. This fall, the company celebrated the opening of the redeveloped building, renamed the Hamilton Midtown.
The city supported tax abatements and funding to supplement the rents of tenants who lived elsewhere during the renovation.
"With the Hamilton, we ensured the residents living there could return to the building, which hadn’t been done before in Detroit," said Richard Broder, CEO of Broder & Sachse.
"It was an opportunity to preserve a historic building while also preserving a special community within the building that our residents had known and loved for years."
The city expects to provide development training in the first quarter of 2019 for the Affordable Housing Leverage Fund, Schneider said.
“Developers will be able to understand what opportunities and incentives they have, including current property owners,” Schneider said. “The thought is this affordable housing leverage fund will have a number of tools and products that will incentivize property owners and developers to help meeting and exceeding the goal of 12,000 units to be preserved.”
If the affordable housing issue isn’t addressed now, it’s going to cost two or three times more in the future, said Tahirih Ziegler, the executive director of the Detroit Local Initiatives Support Corp., which helps organizations revitalize their neighborhoods.
“So that’s really the purpose -- to get the coordinated process, create the culture, create the tools that are needed and make sure that we have a way that we’re doing this for Detroit, not just for today or 2023, but beyond,” she said.
cwilliams@detroitnews.com
Twitter: @CWilliams_DN |
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Mon Dec 10, 2018 7:43 am |
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo
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Investors are buying up houses in Flint's north side and the east side. They are also reaching out to Burton which makes sense as some Burton schools, like Atherton have more Flint African American students than white.
If you sell your home, be sure to get an appraisal as one person I know had their home seriously under valued. This is not an isolated incident. Facebook Watch had many renovated homes for rent and watch rental rates increase if there are Section 8 vouchers/ |
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Wed Dec 26, 2018 11:01 am |
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo
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| The Journal story indicated some projects have only ten years of tax credits. Then what? |
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Mon Dec 31, 2018 4:16 am |
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo
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ERIC Number: ED535457
Record Type: Non-Journal
Publication Date: 2009-Oct
Pages: 60
Abstractor: ERIC
Reference Count: N/A
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: N/A
New Homes, New Neighborhoods, New Schools: A Progress Report on the Baltimore Housing Mobility Program
Engdahl, Lora
Poverty & Race Research Action Council (NJ1)
In the Baltimore region, a successful housing mobility program is providing families living in very disadvantaged inner city communities with a new home and a chance for a new life. Minority voucher holders in the federal Housing Choice Voucher Program (formerly titled Section  have often been limited to living in "voucher submarkets" where racial and economic segregation is high and opportunities are limited. The Baltimore Housing Mobility Program, a specialized regional voucher program operating with deliberate attention to expanding fair housing choice, has overcome some of the biggest barriers to using vouchers in suburban and city neighborhoods where opportunities are abundant. The program's results-oriented approach has produced a replicable set of best practices for mobility programs while presenting an important model for reform of the national Housing Choice Voucher Program. This report, "New Homes, New Neighborhoods, New Schools: A Progress Report on the Baltimore Housing Mobility Program," provides the first-ever comprehensive description of the program. A Note on the ACLU Client Feedback Project and Survey Methodology are appended. (Contains 95 endnotes.)
Descriptors: Housing, Mobility, Grants, Disadvantaged, African American Family, Urban Areas, Best Practices, Program Effectiveness, Quality of Life, Neighborhoods, Safety, Health, Employment, Academic Achievement, Program Administration
Poverty & Race Research Action Council. 1200 18th Street NW Suite 200, Washington, DC 20036. Tel: 202-906-8023; Fax: 202-842-2885; e-mail: info@prrac.org; Web site: http://www.prrac.org |
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Wed Jan 02, 2019 3:31 am |
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo
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PRRAC — Connecting Research to Advocacy - Poverty & Race ...
https://prrac.org/
Poverty & Race Research Action Council. ... PRRAC Update (December 13, 2018): SOI discrimination & final 2018 fair housing anniversary reading assignment! |
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Wed Jan 02, 2019 3:44 am |
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo
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While The Government Is Shut Down, Ben Carson’s Incompetence Threatens Poor Families’ Housing
It could be a long, cold winter for many Section 8 families.
Nigel Roberts
Written By Nigel Roberts
Posted 16 hours ago
Ben Carson’s nightmarish management of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has reached a new low, as President Trump’s government shutdown threatens to increase the suffering of families living in government subsidized housing.
See Also: Report: Public Housing Is A Complete Disaster Under The Deplorable Ben Carson
Scores of federal contracts with property owners who rent to low-income families have already expired, NBC News reported. Consequently, property owners could delay critical repairs or even evict poor families if the government doesn’t pay them. Things could get much worse if the shutdown drags on for weeks or months.
Housing advocates criticized Carson for failing to renew contracts before the shutdown to prevent this growing crisis.
About 95 percent of HUD employees have been furloughed, according to a department spokesman. They, too, were victims of the president’s shutting down the government on Dec. 22 over a budget feud with Democrats. He refused to sign any funding bill to reopen federal agencies that doesn’t include $5.7 billion to begin construction of a wall along the southern border with Mexico.
Meanwhile, about 1,150 contracts—representing about 5 percent of all Section 8 program contracts—with private landlords have expired. The program subsidizes rent and utilities for approximately 1.2 million low-income families.
Another 500 contracts were expected to expire this month and 550 more in February if the budget conflict continues.
What’s HUD’s solution?
The department told landlords to dig into their own pockets to maintain the properties and to make their mortgage payments. In many cases, Section 8 properties are already poorly maintained. With winter underway, many families face living without heat or worse if the standoff continues.
“Historically, HUD has reimbursed owners following a shutdown and never experienced evictions,” said Jereon Brown, a spokesman for the housing agency.
Let’s keep our fingers crossed for the sake of families.
Carson, a retired neurosurgeon, came to the job with zero experience. A report released in November found that public housing’s safety and health under Caron’s management have dangerously declined, while federally subsidized properties failed inspection 30 percent more than in 2016 when President Barack Obama‘s administration ran the program.
Some affordable housing advocates were caught off guard by this development because HUD had assured them before the shutdown that contracts would be renewed through January.
“It’s a mess. The pain is coming a lot earlier than we thought,” said Ellen Lurie Hoffman, federal policy director for the National Housing Trust. |
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Wed Jan 09, 2019 7:51 am |
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo
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Report: Public Housing Is A Complete Disaster Under The Deplorable Ben Carson
The statistics don't lie.
NewsOne Staff
Written By NewsOne Staff
Posted November 15, 2018
Detroit has another reason to remove Ben Carson‘s name from one of its public schools. A new report found that public housing’s safety and health under the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HJUD) have dangerously declined under the deplorable leadership of Carson. The Detroit native has apparently managed to makes lives even worse for people in need.
A new report from NBC News revealed that under Carson and Trump, “deteriorating living conditions has been on the rise” in public housing. Federally subsidized multifamily properties failed inspection 30 percent more than in 2016. The Trump administration was explaining this shocking increase by saying its rules to pass inspections are much stricter than Obama’s.
Yep, the blame always goes to Obama versus pointing to the secretary of HUD who has no relevant experience and appears to be clueless on how to do his job.
“HUD has lost hundreds of staff members in the wake of a hiring freeze mandated by President Donald Trump. HUD’s enforcement office, tasked with going after the worst landlords, now has the lowest staff levels since 1999, according to a federal watchdog,” NBC News reported. “At the same time, Carson has proposed raising rents on poor families, requiring them to pay a higher percentage of their income for housing, and the Trump administration has pushed — so far unsuccessfully — for steep budget cuts.”
HUD has reportedly fired 480 regional staff members from the Obama-era.
“There’s no urgency on anything,” one staff member, who chose to be anonymous in fear of retribution, said.
Another staffer claimed that some housing was getting a passing grade just because of HUD’s incompetence.
“That’s how you get a passing score with mold, vermin and a falling down bathroom ceiling — the system is broken,” the unnamed source said.
“Secretary Carson owes it to these families to present a concrete plan for how he will make this better, and how he’ll make sure nothing like this ever happens again,” said Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., who previously worked with HUD.
Sadly, Ben Carson probably doesn’t have the ability to create a concrete plan, as shown when he spent $31,000 on an office dining set. If Carson stays at the top, the Department of Housing and Urban Development may be broken forever. |
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Wed Jan 09, 2019 7:57 am |
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo
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Where the rent checks will stop. National Low Income Housing Coalition
Low-Income Renters Face Eviction, Thanks to the Government Shutdown
KRISTON CAPPS JAN 10, 2019
Contracts for federal housing assistance are expiring, and thousands of low-income seniors and disabled renters could face eviction.
With the federal government shutdown in the U.S. nearing the three-week mark and no end in sight, more than 800,000 furloughed workers are starting to feel the sting of missing paychecks and mounting bills. The real-world impacts of this political brinkmanship—from airport-security sick-outs to sharply curtailed food inspections to fears that contractors may never see any backpay—are starting to metastasize throughout the economy.
That anxiety is setting on some of the most vulnerable families in America. Between 70,000 and 85,000 low-income households that rely on assistance for housing—many elderly or disabled, and some of whom make less than $13,000 per year—could see shocks to their housing status if the shutdown persists.
On Tuesday, housing advocates issued a letter to top leaders in the House and Senate outlining the plight of vulnerable families during the federal shutdown. Their immediate concerns revolve around a program known as Section 8 Project-Based Rental Assistance, a benefit that favors older renters and people with disabilities especially. Contracts under this program that were up for renewal last month instead expired after the government closed on December 22.
Two-thirds of the people who receive housing aid under this program are seniors or individuals with disabilities; the average income level for these beneficiaries falls below the federal poverty limit. For these fixed-income households, there’s no margin between disruption and despair. And with more Project-Based Rental Assistance contracts set to expire this month and next, the ranks of seniors and disabled people facing a housing crisis may grow.
An interactive map assembled by the National Low Income Housing Coalition shows where these expiring Section 8 Project-Based Rental Assistance contracts are located. The soon-to-be-affected households live in affordable housing developments in nearly every state.
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Project-Based Rental Assistance program differs from the more familiar tenant-based Section 8 vouchers. Under Project-Based Rental Assistance, HUD contracts with private property owners to open up some or all of their rental units to low-income families. To be eligible, at least 40 percent of the units in a development must go to families with extremely low incomes (at or below 30 percent of area median income or the poverty line, whichever’s higher). That makes Project-Based Rental Assistance useful for seniors, people with disabilities, and others on fixed incomes—right up until the federal government stops cutting the checks.
Thanks to the shutdown, roughly 1,150 contracts between HUD and private property owners are already in limbo. Another 500 contracts are set to expire in January, affecting tens of thousands of residents, with another 550 contracts to follow in February. These lost contracts could jeopardize the rental status of 80,000 low-income households or more. That’s in addition to the tens of thousands of residents whose rents are already up in the air, after HUD failed to renew contracts with their landlords last month.
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“Without additional funding, HUD cannot renew these contracts or obligate funds,” reads the letter from the Campaign for Housing and Community Development Funding, an umbrella coalition of more than 70 national organizations.
Disruptions stemming from these lapsed contracts are likely to compound. Section 202, for example, provides supportive housing for the elderly; the program is supported by a combination of subsidies through Project-Based Rental Assistance contracts and another category called Project Rental Assistance Contracts. Section 202 provides housing and services for more than 400,000 older adults with average incomes of $13,300. These housing developments could soon go unfunded.
If landlords can’t afford to house them, then they’ll face eviction; if federal agencies can’t afford to feed them, then they can’t buy food.
Problems that multiply for low-income households will inevitably hit entire communities. Carol Ott, tenant advocacy director for the Fair Housing Action Center of Maryland, counts 542 units of project-based affordable housing in the Baltimore metro area (plus scattered subsidized homes and apartments that may add up to thousands). “That could mean absolute disaster not only for the residents, but also local economies,” she writes in a tweet.
While urban areas with large low-income populations stand to be severely affected, it won’t be just the Baltimores and Detroits dealing with the ramifications of broken housing, if the shutdown lasts much longer: More than 270,000 rural families also receive rental housing aid. The U.S. Department of Agriculture, which distributes this aid through its Rural Development program, has not indicated yet how far its rural housing funds can stretch. But the Idaho State Journal reports that local rural housing authorities are already dipping into savings to cover aid for tenants.
The true housing aid cliff, however, looms in February. If the federal shutdown isn’t resolved before the end of next month, Section 8’s tenant-based Housing Choice Voucher program will run out of funds—meaning public housing authorities will not be able to pay out vouchers to landlords for millions of households across the country when the rent comes due on March 1. The USDA’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program can only guarantee food benefits through February, too, which means that some truly unlucky families could face the prospect of eviction and hunger. A federal government shutdown stretching beyond February would be unimaginably chaotic.
But the shutdown wouldn’t have to reach these kind of endgame scenarios to trigger a crisis; to do that, it won’t even need to extend through February. For landlords whose contracts with HUD for low-income properties expired in December, the end of January will mean a second month that they don’t receive federal subsidies. Landlords use those contract subsidies to make mortgage payments, perform maintenance, and pay staff. Few people expect that Uncle Sam missing a single month’s rent will lead to widespread evictions (although they’re bound to happen). But two months in a row?
Days into the federal government shutdown, the U.S. Office of Personnel Management posted sample letters that they suggested federal workers give their creditors and landlords, in lieu of payment. (Helpful advice: “If you need legal advice please consult with your personal attorney.”) It was laughable then; two weeks later, it feels more like gallows humor, as feds face tough questions about stretching their budgets from paycheck-to-no-paycheck. |
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Fri Jan 11, 2019 10:18 pm |
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo
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| Some Federal workers in Flint were not paid |
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Sun Mar 31, 2019 7:10 am |
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