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Allan Timke
shared this idea
9 comments
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kozmikat
commented
It is true that a mix of incomes in a community may be helpful for the lowest income people. HOWEVER , those units should NOT be subsidized nor should any subsidized units be occupied by people above 50%AMI, they should get a 6 month notice to move as soon as their income goes over the top limit. Currently some are allowed to stay no matter how high their income goes, ie section 236.
Mixing the incomes should happen by requiring / creating unfunded, unsubsidized market rate units near subsidized units. This makes the program funding go to the people that need it, rather than the present situation where funding does not stretch far enough because of the misapplication of public funds towards moderate income units. Currently there are an extreme number of homeless while middle income people occupy subsidized or publicly funded units. This is anathema. it should not be happening. Remove the middle class from subsidzied units, and use those units for only the lowest income people.
Make the funding dollars stretch the farthest to include as many homeless as need the units. This means basic low cost construction design and efficient use of resources. Rather than the current tendency to build nice units at high cost, housing far fewer people than the need dictates. -
Laura Hansen
commented
By build more affordable housing, I mean housing that is affordable to those at 30% of AMI or lower. There should also be supportive housing for families.
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Betty Lou Larson
commented
Betty Lou Larson: 1. Affordable housing must focus on keeping these units affordable in perpetuity (e.g. via non-profits), so we do not face the loss of these units every 20-30 years (as with the current expiring Section 8 crisis). 2. Strageties must be implemented to provide access to very low income familes. This not only creates options for those most in need, but a mix of income within housing creates better communities and stabilizes the income stream for these projects. One strategy is to link funding of new projects with a mandate to provide a percentage of units in EACH new building for those at 30% of median income or below-- e.g. 5% - 10% of units. This would would require some extra subsidy for construction, but would be feasible and still make the project sustainable on the long term. This is the successful strategy used by Hawaii's Rental Housing Trust Fund which is often linked with LIHTC for new construction of affordable rentals. 3. Access to affordable housing is increasingly barring low income familes and the elderly due to credit checks and any criminal history (even misdemeanors). These issues must be addressed and some reasonable standards established. Some ideas: Housing Providers willing to be flexible in these areas could be awarded more points in the scoring process to obtain LIHTC. Encourage providers to do demonstration projects re: credit check to show if they are needed. One major provider of elderly affordable housing just cancelled all credit checks for its elderly projects since they found these had not made any difference in their delinquency rates. Be creative.
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McKinney Strat Comm
commented
Build more “family friendly” affordable housing- I added in family friendly because we need to build housing that allows families to build community support systems such as front porches to sit out and watch their children play.
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Gloria Edwards
commented
More affordable housing is essential in ending homelessness. I agree with Frank that only federal assistance in building and maintaining housing units will put a dent in the huge need. In addition, I would like to see incentives for developers to build modular housing communities and other smaller, more economical homes for those who are not extremely low income, but still can't afford a home. Programs like Habitat for Humanity should be expanded - when families put their own sweat equity into a place, they are more likely to take pride in it and take care of it.
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Frank McCann
commented
Only Federal assistance in building sufficient affordable housing units will eliminate the overwhelming shortage that now exists. That housing will also create jobs and reduce the needs for other subsidies (section 8) for which there is inadequate funding serving too few people.
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mary wakefield
commented
Nonprofits that are known to be working on this need should be supported. Affordable housing that is in exsistence needs to be taken care of so that we do not loose it. In some instances MORE is not so much as make WHAT WE DO HAVE affordable and accessable.
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Jessica
commented
I agree with this, but I think we need to build more DEEPLY affordable housing for EXTREMELY LOW INCOME families. Traditional affordable housing is still too expensive. The only real option we have now are our vouchers and public housing, so building more public housing or housing options that mirror PH in affordability is the only thing that will make a real difference.
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Allan Timke
commented
Captialize the National Housing Trust Fund. Provide vouchers to make the units affordable. And build the capacity on nonprofit organizations to do the development in both urban and rural areas.
