Worcester Common Ground to get $65K toward Chandler St. apartment project

The state Community Economic Development Assistance Corporation recently committed $190,000 in pre-development financing to two nonprofit organizations in Worcester and Pittsfield to develop affordable housing.

Worcester Common Ground Inc. plans to develop 31 units of affordable rental housing on two sites along Chandler Street in Worcester. CEDAC approved a $65,000 commitment for technical services for the project. The project will convert a medical-supply warehouse and an adjacent building into one-, two- and three-bedroom family-friendly apartments.

In Pittsfield, Soldier On proposes to develop 14 units of permanent supportive housing serving veterans as part of its Gordon H. Mansfield Veterans Village project. CEDAC previously committed $125,000 in pre-development loans to the nonprofit organization.

“Worcester Common Ground and Soldier On are developing the kind of affordable housing projects that reflect the needs of their communities and that will strengthen Worcester and Pittsfield,” CEDAC Executive Director Roger Herzog said. “CEDAC is pleased to be supporting both of these projects, which will help vulnerable populations in those cities.”

SourceTelegram

Baker-Polito Administration Awards $4 Million for Early Education Programs

The Baker-Polito Administration and the Community Economic Development Assistance Corporation (CEDAC) today announced $4 million in grant awards for facility improvements at early education and care programs that serve low income children. Four agencies were selected to receive an Early Education and Care and Out of School Time (EEOST) capital improvement grant, which will help increase the quality of their early education programs through critical facility repairs and renovations.

Governor Charlie Baker made the announcement today at the Crispus Attucks Children’s Center in Dorchester, the site of one of the facilities funded by the 2018 grant awards.

“With these grants, we will improve the learning environments of our youngest children, boost the capacity of programs to serve more children and create new jobs,” Governor Charlie Baker said. “Renovating and repairing facilities helps achieve our goal of improving the quality of early education and care.”

“These capital improvement grants support facility construction and renovations that modernize early education spaces and provide more enriching environments for children,” Lt. Governor Karyn Polito said. “High-quality programs help young children develop healthy learning habits, which is good for the community and for our Commonwealth as a whole.”

“We know that building deficiencies impact the quality of teaching and learning in early childhood and out-of-school time facilities,” Education Secretary James Peyser said. “These grants were created to help non-profit providers serving children living in low-income communities improve their facilities.”

The Early Education and Care and Out of School Time capital improvement grants are financed through the state’s capital budget and provide matching funds that leverage private investment. The Baker-Polito Administration’s FY18 Capital Budget Plan included $4 million for the Early Education and Out of School Time grant program. In May, Governor Baker signed An Act Financing the Production and Preservation of Housing for Low and Moderate Income Residents (H.4536), which authorized $45 million for the EEOST Capital Fund.

“The EEOST capital improvement grants provide critical funding for non-profit early education programs to upgrade their facility spaces and provide better physical environments for the children they serve,” Early Education and Care Commissioner Tom Weber said. “We are pleased to make these awards as this public investment in building construction and renovation of early education programs will benefit children, local communities, and the state for years to come.”

“The EEOST Capital Fund is helping providers create well-designed facilities that support children’s healthy development and learning, and the commitment and effectiveness of educators,” said Theresa Jordan, Director of Children’s Facilities Finance of Children’s Investment Fund. “Over time, this innovative capital resource has the potential to transform the early care and education and out-of-school time landscape for the neediest and most vulnerable children in the Commonwealth.”

The following organizations received grants:

Lead Agency	Service Area	Award
Citizens for Citizens	Fall River	$1,000,000
Crispus Attucks Children’s Center	Dorchester	$1,000,000
Elizabeth Stone House	Roxbury	$1,000,000
Holyoke-Chicopee-Springfield Head Start	Springfield	$1,000,000

“All of us at Crispus Attucks Children’s Center are grateful, excited and humbled to be receiving generous and much-needed funding from the Department of Early Education and Care,” said Maritza Juliao, Executive Director of Crispus Attucks Children’s Center. “For nearly fifty years, Crispus Attucks has been providing quality early childhood education at an affordable price to some of Boston’s most vulnerable children and families. Our facilities are in critical need of upgrades and improvements so that we may sustain our mission, and this grant will enable us to give our buildings the attention they need so that we as educators can focus our attention on our dearest assets: the children and families we serve.”

All of the programs selected to receive a grant award serve publicly subsidized families, have demonstrated financial need, and have secured additional funding to pay for a portion of their project costs. The Department of Early Education and Care partnered with CEDAC’s affiliate, the Children’s Investment Fund, to administer the grant awards. All of the grantees are non-profit corporations or organizations in which a non-profit corporation has a controlling interest.

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SourceGovernor's Office

Brockton nonprofit builds another building for homeless veterans

The head of Father Bill’s & MainSpring said that the new Montello Welcome Home II project is another step toward adequately addressing the homelessness problem in the city with a “housing first” approach. The three-story building features 23 new housing units for homeless veterans and individuals. The $5 million project, with a combination of public and private funding, replicates the building across the street from it called Jack’s Place that opened two years ago.

BROCKTON – Some Brockton residents complain about the presence of the MainSpring House in the downtown area, and the large crowds of homeless people who hang around Perkins Park.

But the best way to get people out of the downtown emergency shelter and off the streets is by supporting housing like the three-story building that’s now being completed on the north side of the city, according to the Brockton nonprofit behind the project.

“Our whole model is housing first,” said John Yazwinski, longtime president and CEO of Father Bill’s & MainSpring, explaining how homelessness is typically the end result of addiction and mental health problems. “Get somebody into housing, out of Perkins Park, off the streets, and out of Mainspring. And when we get them into a building like this, we can provide better case management services here, and better help them with what’s causing their homelessness, than when people are sleeping outside or staying at MainSpring. … We hope we would be able to continue to develop this type of housing response, instead of having a large MainSpring house.”

Father Bill’s & MainSpring is reaching the final stretch of its $5 million construction project for a 10,000-square-foot-building with 23 efficiency apartments for homeless individuals, including 12 units with a priority for U.S. military veterans. The building is being called “Montello Welcome Home II.”

The project included the demolition of the old Phaneuf Hospital (and former Catholic Charities site) at 682 N. Main St. last year, before construction of the new building began in its place in October. The new building replicates the design and concept of Jack’s Place, a 20-unit supportive housing that was completed two years ago, which also has a priority for homeless veterans. In addition to Jack’s Place, there’s Jeff’s Place, the nonprofit’s original supportive housing project in Brockton, which opened on Spring Street in 2010 with 32 units.

Yazwinksi said that Father Bill’s & MainSpring has a 95 percent success rate in its supportive housing when it comes to retaining formerly homeless tenants, who must contribute 30 percent of any income toward rent and abide by rules, such as no drug use or staying out at night.

“We know that the answer to ending homelessness is supportive housing like this,” Yazwinski said. “What it’s showing is a successful model.”

Yazwinski said public entities and private investors are buying into the project and the overall strategy of housing first. Yazwinski said they see the success rate and how the buildings improve the neighborhood.

For this project, according to Father Bill’s & MainSpring, $3.1 million came from the Massachusetts Department of Housing and Community Development; $50,000 came from the city of Brockton’s federal HOME funds; and $100,000 came from the Home Depot Foundation; $75,000 came from MassHousing’s Center for Community Recovery Innovations; $50,000 came from the Amelia Peabody Charitable Foundation; and the rest was financing from the banks.

There are also project-based subsidies, both Section 8 and Massachusetts rental vouchers, that go into each unit to keep them affordable, Yazwinski said.

Medicaid is contributing some to case management, amounting to about $5,000 per person each year, Yazwinski said.

“People are seeing it as cost-effective,” Yazwinski said. “What we’re targeting here is people who have struggled a long time with homelessness and have been very expensive to the taxpayer. We’re talking about the people who utilize the emergency rooms at Signature (Healthcare Brockton Hospital) a lot and detoxes and that have high costs. Medicaid is actually helping us because they are seeing … all those costs decrease drastically.”

SourceThe Enterprise

Boston to Help Affordable Housing Developers Rethink Vacant Lots

In a market where buildable land goes quickly to private developers paying cash — or investors who sit on the property and wait for its value to rise — nonprofit builders are at a definite disadvantage. Boston Mayor Marty Walsh wants to level that building field, and his administration has announced an $8.5 million program designed to help nonprofits acquire parcels for affordable housing.

The city plans to contribute $2.5 million to the loan fund, with $6 million coming from the Community Economic Development Assistance Corporation and the Local Initiatives Support Corporation, the Boston Globe reports. The program is aimed at underutilized chunks of neighborhood around Boston close to public transportation.

“If you can buy an unused parking lot in, say, Egleston Square for $1 million and put a 40- or 50-unit building on it, that’s kind of the sweet spot,” Sheila Dillon, chief of housing for Mayor Walsh, told the Globe. “We need to take things out of the speculative market.”

The program is similar to another one that the city announced last year to help nonprofits buy apartment buildings. According to the Globe, results of that program have been mixed with some success in East Boston and Roslindale. But in other neighborhoods, the money offered hasn’t gone far enough.

Like other cities struggling with the many flip sides of a hot housing market — skyrocketing rents, displacement, homelessness — Boston has gotten creative in the last few years. In 2016, voters chose to adopt the Massachusetts state Community Preservation Act (CPA), which allows municipalities to add a small surcharge to their property taxes to fund affordable housing, open space acquisition and historic preservation. As Next City has reported, the city had previously opted out of the agreement, under which the state can match local dollars by up to 30 percent.

Walsh has also made housing a legislative priority, promising to address the city’s housing shortage by building 53,000 new homes by 2030, although questions remain about how he plans to go about doing that without causing displacement — a worry that’s especially prevalent in black communities like Dudley Square.

https://nextcity.org/daily/entry/news-boston-affordable-housing-developers-rethink-vacant-lots

SourceNext City

Housing Bond Bills Aim To Add $1.3B To State Programs

Massachusetts is a national leader in affordable housing by creating a system that provides reliable capital funds to affordable housing developers and because of leadership that consistently supports it. Current legislative proposals aim to recapitalize these programs through the introduction of new housing bond bills that seek over $1.3 billion in additional capital authorization for affordable housing.

The housing bond bill is critically important to ensuring that community development agencies and affordable housing developers have access to public financing options that make their projects feasible. In recognition of the importance of quality housing to the region’s economic competitiveness, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts has bold housing production and preservation goals over the next several years. These goals were expressed in the Baker-Polito administration’s ambitious capital budget plan for fiscal years 2018–22, which increased housing funding by 18 percent over prior levels. The enactment of a new Housing Bond Bill in the current legislative session is essential for the state to meet these goals.

The bills are important because they include resources that promote the production and preservation of affordable housing in general, including an extension of the state’s housing tax credit program. I want to focus on one specific area of community development for which both legislative proposals include significant funding – supportive housing. The commonwealth’s ability to create supportive housing units that provide case management and other services to some of the state’s most vulnerable populations is a quiet but important success story. The commonwealth produced 1,750 supportive housing units through these programs over the past three years.

The Community Economic Development Assistance Corporation (CEDAC) manages three supportive housing loan programs on behalf of the Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD). The Housing Innovations Fund (HIF), the Facilities Consolidation Fund (FCF) and the Community Based Housing (CBH) programs provide resources to community-based developers. These loans not only offer developers much needed funds for their projects, they also help those organizations meet the housing needs of their most vulnerable community members.

Over the past 29 years, DHCD and CEDAC have through the HIF program allocated over $248 million to produce more than 13,500 units to assist homeless families and individuals, victims of domestic violence and their families, individuals living with HIV/AIDS, disabled veterans and single working adults. Through FCF funding, we have financed another 2,400 units with over $140 million to provide service-enriched housing to clients of the Departments of Mental Health and Developmental Services. And with the newest supportive housing bond program, CBH, CEDAC has allocated over $48 million to produce 342 fully accessible units for disabled persons. Ninety percent of these units serve extremely-low and very low-income residents of Massachusetts.

Continued Success

The success of the state’s investment in supportive housing programs is exemplified by the recent opening of the New Joelyn’s Home in Roxbury. Victory Programs, an experienced provider of housing and services, was forced to create a new residential facility serving those struggling with addiction after their original site on Long Island was abruptly shut down in 2014. As the city and state continue to deal with the opioid crisis and finding ways to treat individuals looking for a way out of addiction, facilities like New Joelyn’s Home become even more important. DHCD and CEDAC committed almost $1 million in HIF funds to Victory Programs, the state’s Department of Public Health provides over $750,000 in annual operating funds, and the nonprofit agency is now serving 24 women with supportive housing.

The bond bill also supports two other programs that CEDAC manages – the Home Modification Loan Program (HMLP), administered with the Massachusetts Rehabilitation Commission, which provides low- and no-interest loans to individuals and families with a disabled loved one to construct accessibility improvements that help them stay in their homes; and the Early Education and Out of School Time (EEOST) Capital Fund, managed in conjunction with the Department of Early Education and Care, which offers loans to community-based child care providers looking to upgrade or renovate their facilities. All of these programs help to strengthen Massachusetts’ cities and towns.

The commonwealth last passed a housing bond bill in 2013. In doing so, it strengthened community development agencies across Massachusetts and effectively created thousands of supportive housing units in cities and towns across the state. The challenges for homeless families or individuals living with addictions or disability have only grown since then. These bond programs work, for individuals and families, for the communities they live in and for the programs that help them. Let’s keep building on that success.

Roger Herzog is the executive director of the Community Economic Development Assistance Corporation (CEDAC).

http://www.bankerandtradesman.com/2017/06/housing-bond-bills-aim-add-1-3b-state-programs/

SourceBanker & Tradesman

Ceaseless Commitment From All Corners Of The Commonwealth

State’s Dedication To Supportive Housing Creation Has Paid Off – But There’s More Work To Do

Massachusetts has done something remarkable – it has produced more than 1,750 new units of supportive housing in just three years. By doing so, it has helped to stabilize the lives of thousands of formerly homeless families and individuals. And by helping these families become more self-sufficient, neighborhoods and communities across the state have been strengthened.

Why is this so remarkable? Because even though Massachusetts has an affordable housing finance system that can be considered the nation’s gold standard, the commonwealth’s nonprofit affordable housing providers still face considerable challenges in producing new units of housing for extremely low-income residents. Supportive housing, in which organizations offer support services and affordable housing, can be even more complex for agencies to create. So it is encouraging to see that the commonwealth not only met but exceeded its goal in developing new units.

How did Massachusetts do it? For one, the state brought all of the major players together to work collaboratively towards a goal. For the past several years, 20 state agencies, from those focused on housing to those providing human services, have worked together in a collaborative effort to improve the way we fund and produce supportive housing. This interagency initiative, chaired by Health and Human Services Secretary Marylou Sudders and Housing and Economic Development Secretary Jay Ash, meant improved communication and coordination, more sharing of information, and a better understanding of best practices.

For another, the commonwealth also experimented with ways of streamlining an often complicated funding process. Nonprofit organizations require different sources of financing to turn the idea of a project into a reality – they need capital dollars to acquire or build affordable housing, operational funding to maintain units and service funding for tenant stabilization and other supports. Piecing together that kind of financing can be a challenge, especially for smaller nonprofits.

But a successful pilot program that allowed affordable housing developers to access these funding streams in a consolidated process proved to be an effective way of developing supportive housing units. CEDAC, which provides early stage capital to nonprofit affordable housing developers, played a role in both efforts. We helped lead the interagency initiative and worked closely with the Department of Housing and Community Development on the pilot program.

An example of the pilot program’s success can be found in the partnership between Lowell’s Coalition for a Better Acre (CBA) and the Veterans Northeast Outreach Center (VNOC), which teamed up to build 27 units of supportive housing near downtown Haverhill. One of the first projects to benefit from the combined funding process, the Welcome Home Vets project now serves 27 veterans households.

More To Be Done

There is additional good news – the governor’s capital budget includes $1.1 billion for affordable housing production and preservation over the next five years, an 8 percent increase in FY17 and 18 percent increase over the life of the plan, and includes an enhancement of resources for supportive housing. And we will see additional funds from the federal government for production of these units. In April, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) announced the launch of the National Housing Trust Fund to help states create new housing for extremely low-income individuals. While the fund is modest in its first year – $174 million to be shared among all 50 states – it will still help Massachusetts in its quest to help homeless families and individuals find housing. And it could grow. The initial allocation for Massachusetts from the fund is $3.4 million.

The proof of all of the commonwealth’s efforts to address homelessness is in the numbers – after many years of hard work by providers and policy makers, the numbers of homeless families living in motels has sharply declined. Producing supportive housing units is one of the ways that the commonwealth has pursued to move homeless families out of emergency shelter.

Massachusetts has shown it is possible to address the challenge of homelessness but there is, of course, more work to be done. We remain a state with a high cost of living and one where income inequality is growing. The successful supportive housing initiative has been merged into the state’s Interagency Council on Housing and Homelessness, demonstrating a continued commitment by the state. With critical agencies working together on a common goal, we can continue to find new ways to strengthen communities and stabilize families.

Roger Herzog is the executive director of the Community Economic Development Assistance Corporation (CEDAC).

SourceBanker & Tradesman

PUTNAM SQUARE APARTMENTS, CAMBRIDGE: Anatomy of a Preservation Deal

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SourceUrban Institute

How Cities Are Preserving Affordable Housing

The U.S. needs more affordable housing. A lot more. Between 2001 and 2013 the countrylost 2.4 million rental housing units (both market-rate and subsidized) that were affordable to people making less than 50 percent of area median income. Building more units will help, but preserving existing affordable housing is critical too: It’s generally cheaper than new construction, prevents displacement, takes advantage of existing land use patterns and allows people to remain where they already live. But preservation also presents challenges of its own, often necessitating the blending of multiple federal, state and local funding sources and greater collaboration between developers, policymakers and other stakeholders.

In a bid to better understand how affordable housing preservation happens, the Urban Institute has released a new report and a series of six case studies under the title “Anatomy of a Preservation Deal.” While the report emphasizes that every case is different, it identifies five key lessons for other groups seeking to preserve affordable housing.

First, write the authors, federal subsidies may play a crucial role in funding a project, but they’ll likely be insufficient. Federal subsidies have been flat or declining since 2004. According to the report, between 2004 and 2014 the number of housing vouchers increased from 2.1 million to 2.2 million, but 106,000 public housing units and 146,000 project-based rental assistance units were lost. Another 400,000 units are at risk of losing their affordability because of expiring contracts, and 50,000 are at risk because of deteriorating physical conditions.

Therefore, state and local resources are critical as well. Putnam Square, for example, an affordable rental property in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with 94 units for senior citizens and residents with disabilities, utilized both Low-Income Housing Tax Credits (LIHTC) and Project-Based Rental Assistance (PRBA) funding from the federal government. But the project also received acquisition and predevelopment funding from the state’s Community Economic Development Assistance Corporation and financing through the city of Cambridge and the Cambridge Affordable Housing Trust.

Funding these sorts of projects is a complex endeavor, often involving a host of stakeholders. Funding Putnam Square alone involved 13 agencies and organizations. Hence the second lesson identified in the Urban Institute report relates to developer capacity: “The bigger a project, the more sophisticated the methods needed — and partners involved — to make it successful.” Projects are further complicated by expensive, competitive markets or by the need to preserve historic structures or serve the needs of special populations, like the elderly.

And sophisticated, mission-driven developers are particularly necessary in areas where private capital can’t be attracted. The report cites as an example 4657 West Madison in Chicago. A private local buyer wanted to purchase and renovate the vacant building, but a bank wouldn’t finance it. Community Investment Corporation, a local CDFI did. Now the building provides 10 units that are naturally affordable because of low market rents in the area.

The report also highlights the need for collaborative relationships, which are often led by mission-driven sellers. Putnam Square, for example, had previously been owned by Harvard University, which sold the property to nonprofit developer Homeowner’s Rehab with the explicit desire to keep the units affordable. Harvard continues to fund a resident services program there. A similar relationship ensures the affordability of Billings Forge, a development in Hartford, Connecticut.

Relationships and social goals were key in the two deals above, but the report notes that policy is also key in supporting preservation efforts. Putnam Square was aided by Massachusetts’s 40T expiring use preservation law, which requires affected parties to be notified when affordability restrictions are going to expire, protects against displacement of current residents, and gives the state an opportunity to make or match purchase offers on subsidized properties up for sale.

Both Oregon and Washington, D.C., have Opportunity to Purchase Acts, which require landlords planning to sell their properties to give tenants the chance to buy their homes. In D.C., they have a set period of time to secure financing and negotiate a sale, or to assign their rights to a third party to do so. The latter occurred at the Monseñor Romero Apartments in D.C., purchased by a nonprofit organization.

The final lesson included in the report is the importance of communicating these successes and the policies that made them possible to other interested groups around the country. This can include sharing how financing was structured or how policy frameworks were created — any strategies that helped preserve affordable housing. The report cites the example of the National Preservation Working group, a coalition of affordable housing advocates, developers and other stakeholders who are lobbying for more effective preservation policy. Locally, the Preservation Compact does similar work in the Chicago region.

The report concludes with a lesson that should have been learned from the failures of large-scale public housing. “Initial funds for construction were not enough to ensure stable, secure, and solvent developments in the long term,” write the authors. “Buildings get old. Contracts and rent restrictions expire. Residents and community needs change. Funding for renovations and repair, services, and other features need to come from somewhere. Tax credits and the like can help, but the reality is that affordable housing can be lost for a number of reasons. Preservation requires the continuing efforts of those in the affordable housing field to obtain funding and respond to ever-changing local contexts.”

https://nextcity.org/daily/entry/five-lessons-for-preserving-affordable-housing