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Good job Alicia

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for low waged workers finding housing is hard.PNG

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providing home sweet affordable housing.PNG

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https://www.newsleader.com/story/news/local/2015/04/09/low-income-housing-staunton-augusta-county-rental-market/25525549/

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Matthew Smithson has worked a variety of factory and service jobs as an adult between his native California and a recent sojourn in western Virginia that landed him in Staunton a year ago.

Making factory bread, cleaning movie theaters and taking food orders were toilsome. But finding affordable housing on the fringes of employment in the Augusta County region? Now, that's been hard work, said Smithson, 30.

"Trying to find a job here is just as hard if not just as aggravating as trying to find housing," he said. "It's hard to say which one's harder to do."

He and his girlfriend, Holly Cline, have given up the search for both gainful employment and affordable rents. They are ditching Staunton and leaving for South Dakota. They'll live with a friend as they begin new job searches.

"Trying to find a job here is just as hard if not just as aggravating as trying to find housing. It's hard to say which one's harder to do."
Matthew Smithson, who was living at the Mission
Like many people in the region who don't have children, they've found a scarce supply ofnon-family rental properties for people getting by on low wages. Applications languish on wait lists for months as part-timers or the unemployed drift between shelters and the couches or basements of friends or family.

Cline, 24, and Smithson say there are lots of people like them existing on the brink of homelessness in Staunton during months or years of fruitless job searches, they said during their latest stay at the Valley Mission shelter.

They've even walked around and puzzled at all the abandoned spaces in downtown Staunton or elsewhere that could house low-income residents. "And it seems like a lot of people are out on the street if they're not here at the mission," Cline said.

Development plans with the phrase "low income" attached to them have for years received cold receptions among the region's local government planners.

* Staunton officials this year recommended turning away a developer's request to endorse two apartment complexes that would have been built with a tax credit program used to reduce rents. Staunton is host to the largest number of affordable housing spaces - more than its fair share, officials believe, and more units would serve people from outside city limits.

* Waynesboro has turned down two endorsement requests from prospective low-income apartment builders, mainly due to location, the city manager said.

* In the county, a local builder's rezoning request for a mixed-use development with lower rents came with the promise not to use government subsidies or tax credits to drop costs for the townhomes planned in Stuarts Draft. That application was put on hold for unrelated reasons.

Supervisors are concerned about the cost on public resources from low-income development that can compel lower property taxes.

Previously a divided Board of Supervisors approved complexes in Stuarts Draft, Brands Flat and Fishersville while declining to back another application for more. The rents for the existing complexes aren't that low, and the apartments aren't well-known among needy renters.
Local governments: We have enough low-income housing
Whatever the breakdown of low-income units per locality, 2,000 subsidized rental homes apparently isn't enough.

Those who qualify for public housing often have to wait months or years depending on their space needs. The wait list for those low-income units and for people who qualify for rent-subsidized vouchers is in the hundreds.

Those who can't afford market-based local rents rely on charity or the sustainability of complicated friendships or family relations.

The Waynesboro Redevelopment and Housing Authority administers 188 public housing apartments and a rent-subsidy voucher program for about 400 families, said Executive Director Eddie Delapp. The waiting list is about 200 for the homes, which are funded through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

"Obviously, we could use some more," Delapp said. The rents are scaled according to income and other factors, and can start as low as $25.

Another 225 people are on Waynesboro's waiting list for vouchers.

Meantime, those who have qualified for public housing or rent assistance are typically at the Valley Mission or staying with family or friends, Delapp said.

If you're old or disabled, the wait for a one-bedroom unit can last more than two years.

Staunton's Redevelopment and Housing Authority oversees 150 public housing units, including many for the elderly and disabled. The apartments serve up to 400 people. The authority administers about 185 vouchers, but can reach a maximum of 234, said Executive Director Wanda Stevens.

About 500 people are on the waiting list for either program, Stevens said.

The wait for apartment space is usually months for adults with children who need two bedrooms. The choices go all the way up to 5-bedroom townhomes of 1,600 square feet in size. The rentals with larger families tend to be morestable than the smaller ones renting two bedrooms, which typically go to a parent with one or two children, Stevens said.

"Those are often young parents who are not ready for the responsibility, andthey don't last long on their own," she said.

FINDING A PLACE IN RETIREMENT

In contrast, for the most vulnerable adults - the elderly or disabled - those qualified for public housing have to queue up for limited one-bedroom units on wait lists that can last more than two years.

"We have approximately 70 one-bedroom units," Stevens said. And most people don't relinquish them until they die.

"It's usually the last housing for the elderly and disabled, because it's affordable, and comfortable and they don't move around," Stevens said.

Antoinette Roberts is an example of an older adult whose work life ended prematurely due to health and disability. She and her daughter found a place at the Staunton housing authority's Elizabeth Gardens complex 15 years ago, weeks before they would have been on the streets.

The two moved from the mission to the home of a friend, then back and forth from the mission to an acquaintance's place, said Roberts, 60. "Then, it was just like here, there and everywhere," she said.

They found a regular apartment of their own, but didn't make enough to pay the rent.

The last place they lived was at the home of a man whose ailing mother they care for. After the woman died, they couldn't stay at the home. The mother and daughter had already waited months for a public housing space, and her employer pleaded her case to the authorities, Roberts said.

"After a couple more months, I was able to get in," she said. Her daughter moved out five years later, and Roberts moved into a one-bedroom unit.

Roberts has nothing but praise for the authority staff.

"The people are gems," she said. "They're like family down there."

Hal Porter was something of an economic refugee who moved with his wife and two kids from Arizona to Staunton two years ago when his wife lost a well-paying job.

Porter, 51, blames the lack of timely affordable housing to the dissolution of his marriage.

The couple at first qualified, but when they couldn't get a place, they moved in with a family member. The plan was for his family to occupy three of five bedrooms, but they weren't finished, so they all squeezed into one, Porter said.

"Everything went downhill from there," he said.

He found a job in truck stop maintenance and his wife got employment at a supermarket deli, which disqualified them from public housing.

Before they could find a place on their own, his relationship with his wife and hosting family member frayed, and a hereditary heart condition that has caused seven heart attacks worsened.

Within six months of arriving to Staunton, Porter was on disability, and his marriage was over.

He's grateful for the exception made for him at the Staunton housing authority due to his poor heart and the partial custody of his 13- and 6-year-old children.

"I qualified right off," Porter said. "The (housing authority) was really good to me." He pays about $200 per month for rent and utilities using his disability check, he said.

The recent spring warmth usually means an uptick in applications for space at the Valley Mission, said Ashlee Crawford, case manager at the shelter.

The mission tries to cycle residents out in three to six months, and those who leave in the fall often return around the end of March when the cold-weather overnight shelter programs in Waynesboro and other cities end for the season.

"We've got a pretty big influx of people who've been here before," Crawford said. "I guess they've been to other places and are coming back."

Mission clients tend to be working or disabled folks who don't make enough for market rents. People who stay there often might take in $700-$800 per month on part-time work or disability.

"There wouldn't be so much stupid activity on the streets - like drugs, fighting, people hanging out at places they shouldn't be hanging out at."
Matthew Smithson
Most are looking for public housing, Crawford said. "It usually takes over a year for singles and about a year for families," she said.

Cline worked part-time most of her spell at the mission, bringing in about $400 per month as a restaurant hostess. She had a chance to cross-train and double that money working in the kitchen, but wasn't interested, she said.

"I feel like it was taking employment away from someone else who has potential," Cline said.

If her boyfriend could find work, they think they could afford about $450 per month in rent.
MORE: Blocking developer efforts
Going by recent apartment advertisements, one- to two-bedroom apartments in Staunton and the surrounding area start at about $650. Even the complexes financed with tax credit subsidies restricted to elderly residents like Frontier Ridge Court in Staunton start at around $615 per month for comparable space.

Smithson said he can understand subsidized housing giving preference to families with children, but he thinks it should be easier for single people and unmarried couples like them to find affordable rents, he said.

"Then, there wouldn't be so much stupid activity on the streets - like drugs, fighting, people hanging out at places they shouldn't be hanging out at. All kinds of bad things happen," he said. "It's because, most of the time, people don't have a place to go."

CLOSE

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For low-wage workers, finding affordable housing is hard

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Matthew Smithson has worked a variety of factory and service jobs as an adult between his native California and a recent sojourn in western Virginia that landed him in Staunton a year ago. Making factory bread, cleaning movie theaters and taking food orders were toilsome.

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A nonprofit developer in King George County is poised to provide something that simply doesn't exist: new, single-family homes for under $200,000.

As Froncé Wardlaw, director of development for Project FAITH, described the housing market east of Fredericksburg, she cited three years' worth of research on home sales and prices-and how the cost keeps climbing.

The rise in home prices is making it impossible for teachers and first responders, veterans and government civilians, and people who earn hourly wages at retailers to afford a home, Wardlaw said.

At least one person around the table at Thursday's meeting, deemed the King George Housing Summit, didn't need any proof. Koontz Campbell, an associate with Re/Max Supercenter in King George, said she checked the multiple listing service on Wednesday.

"There are no houses, none, listed for $200,000 in King George," Campbell said. "The cheapest new house in King George as of yesterday was $285,000."

Wardlaw then proceeded with the description of a development, Angelwood Marshall Homes, that would buck that trend. She hopes the affordable housing project can be duplicated throughout Planning District 16, which includes Fredericksburg and the counties of Caroline, Spotsylvania and Stafford.

Project FAITH has brought $27 million worth of affordable housing units to King George and Caroline counties, and has a project scheduled for Westmoreland County. Angelwood Marshall would be the first single-family homes; the others have been apartments or duplexes. Like the others, the newest development would be subsidized with a combination of state and federal grants.

That means its 35 single-family homes-with three bedrooms, living rooms with vaulted ceilings and front porches-would be made available to working families whose total annual household income is between $42,000 and $66,400, Wardlaw said.

She referred to them as ALICE, an acronym for Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed. The Rappahannock United Way recently released a report about the ALICE population that states that 39 percent of state households don't make enough money to meet basic needs, even though the adults may be working two or three jobs.

The numbers in the Fredericksburg area range from 29 percent of King George households to 55 percent of those in Fredericksburg.

"ALICE works hard as the dickens," Wardlaw said. "They play by the rules, send their kids to school, go to church on Sunday and work 40 hours a week, 60 hours a week, and they still can't afford their basic needs."

FOR FIRST-TIME BUYERS

The homes in Angelwood Marshall should be ready by late 2018, but Project FAITH is working to get the word out about the development so potential home buyers can get their finances in order.

Project FAITH plans to offer a class for first-time buyers in January and has counselors who can help clients.

Also, in order to get a Community Development Block Grant from the Virginia Department of Housing and Community Development, Wardlaw needs to "create a true pipeline of qualified applicants."

That's why she encouraged Larry Robinson, pastor of Little Ark Baptist Church near Dahlgren, representatives from the King George NAACP and local Realtors to go back to their congregation, membership or clients and let people know that Angelwood is coming.

Legally, Project FAITH can't limit its housing to King George residents, but it can market the project to county residents before the houses go up for sale.

"I tell you what, the second this project hits the [market]," Wardlaw said, "they're gone."

She especially wanted to reach out to families of color and disabled households, citing Urban Institute statistics that say whites are 1.5 times more likely to own their own homes than African-Americans or Hispanics.

SUBSIDIES STAY

Angelwood will be built off State Route 3 behind the Dollar General store and near the King George Courthouse.

The actual cost for homes, which average about 1,500 square feet on third-acre lots, probably will be about $275,000, said Jeffrey Michael Meyer, director of project development with the Virginia Community Development Corp. He participated in the summit by phone and explained how state grants bring down the cost.

For instance, if Project FAITH gets up to $700,000 in block grants and another $700,000 in Housing and Urban Development home funds, the total money would be divided among the 17 homes in the first phase of Angelwood. That would bring the cost of each home down to about $195,000.

Homeowners who decide to sell wouldn't benefit from the subsidies invested in the property. That equity would be passed along to the next buyer, Wardlaw said.

"We will not have any foreclosures here," Wardlaw said, adding that Project FAITH would buy back the homes when homeowners default and find another buyer.

In addition to the class for first-time buyers, Project FAITH plans to launch a social media campaign in January. For more information, contact Wardlaw at 540/809-6726, Monday through Friday from 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

The homes in Angelwood Marshall should be ready by late 2018, but Project FAITH is working to get the word out.

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King George affordable housing project would offer homes under $200,000

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A nonprofit developer in King George County is poised to provide something that simply doesn't exist: new, single-family homes for under $200,000. As Froncé Wardlaw, director of development for Project FAITH, described the housing market east of Fredericksburg, she cited three years' worth of research on home sales and prices-and how the cost keeps climbing.

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Virginia cities scramble to provide more affordable housing
Print this page by Richard Foster

Developer Dan Clemente has proposed an apartment
project at Tysons. Photo by Mark Rhodes

If Fairfax County developer C. Daniel Clemente has his way, more middle-class and hourly workers in the county's fast-growing downtown Tysons area will one day have the option of walking to work instead of spending hours battling Beltway commuter traffic.

"If you're a secretary, you can't [afford to] live at Tysons. If you're a waiter, you can't [afford to] live at Tysons," says Clemente. He wants to build a 1,400-unit multifamily apartment building at Tysons, near the Spring Hill Metro Station, where all units would be affordably priced for workforce housing in exchange for the county waiving proffer fees of about $35 million on the development.

Currently, Fairfax County requires that 20 percent of units in new multifamily housing be dedicated to affordable housing. Nonetheless, in a desirable area like Tysons - where rents can easily exceed $3,000 per month for a two-bedroom apartment - there are no incentives for developers to create much-needed affordable housing, Clemente says.

If the county approves his unorthodox proposal, Clemente hopes the building, to be called Evolution, would be open to tenants within five years.

As more and more millennials (and, to a lesser extent, baby boomers) move to downtown areas in search of walkable, cosmopolitan environments, corporations are following them in search of young educated workers. This phenomenon has created a scramble for affordable, workforce-priced housing in cities across America.

In downtown Norfolk, where New Jersey-based Fortune 500 human-resources firm Automatic Data Processing (ADP) recently invested more than $32 million to locate an office with 1,800 employees, rents are prohibitive for some workers. With the average renter in Norfolk earning about $33,000 a year "not many of those people ... can afford to live downtown where rents are very high," says Ed Ware, director of communications for the Norfolk Redevelopment and Housing Authority.

While developers are trying to meet the burgeoning demand for affordable rental housing, Ware says, it takes time to obtain permits, financing and tax credits.

Rents triple in trendy district
Downtown Richmond also is drawing more residents. "We're seeing a lot of people moving back into the city, moving into parts of the city ... where people haven't lived since the mid-1900s," says Lee Downey, director of Richmond's Department of Economic and Community Development.

In the popular Scott's Addition area, not far from downtown, residential rents have more than tripled over the past decade to as much as $1,700 for a two-bedroom apartment.

In the city's recently released North of Broad/Downtown Redevelopment Project, it has included a "meaningful" mixed-income housing component as a requirement in a request for proposals from developers. The 20-acre project also calls for replacing the 47-year-old Richmond Coliseum as well as building a new convention center hotel and a bus-transfer plaza.

"We want to make sure that our teachers and our firefighters, the working class, that they can have an opportunity to live in the city that they work in," says Downey. The city wants to see a full slate of housing options in the project, ranging from subsidized, low-income apartments to workforce-priced homes for sale.

City planners and developers have largely been unprepared for the influx of millennials. "People were a little bit asleep at the wheel in terms of demographics shifts ... and the rate at which [millennial migration] has been increasing has caught people off guard," says Daniel Parolek, principal of Opticos Design Inc., a Berkeley, Calif.-based architecture and urban design firm.

Not keeping pace
A majority of millennials, who now outnumber baby boomers, want to live in walkable, urban environments, but developers aren't building affordable housing fast enough to keep pace with demand, he adds. In 2010 Parolek coined the phrase "the missing middle." It describes the type of workforce-priced housing that has been largely absent from cities for the past several decades. Such housing is particularly sought by older millennials who may be starting families and who may be forced to consider a move to the suburbs or to less-expensive cities if they can't find available housing stock at an affordable price.

American planning and zoning policies since the 1950s have been successful at enabling the development of single-family housing projects and high-density multifamily apartment buildings, Parolek says. Yet, they haven't prioritized the construction of "missing middle" options such as duplexes, triplexes, courtyard apartments, town houses and live/work/play communities.

Faced with increased demand for affordable housing, cities and developers now must meet this need with creative options, Parolek adds, including a mix of for-sale and rental properties in the same developments. Other options may include governments relaxing off-street parking requirements in recognition that millennials are less likely to own as many cars as previous generations. Additionally, developers may consider "communal" housing designs aimed at millennial roommates. These arrangements would offer individual bedrooms and bathrooms but shared common areas.

Seniors aren't selling
Another problem contributing to the lack of available workforce-priced housing is that some senior citizens aren't selling their homes, says Richmond Association of Realtors CEO Laura Lafayette. That's because what could be a next option for them isn't affordable.

According to a recent study commissioned by Lafayette's association, about 70 percent of seniors in the Richmond area owning homes valued at less than $200,000 aren't moving because the age-restricted housing communities in the area start at more than $300,000. That's keeping an estimated 9,000 starter homes off the local market. When these homes do go on sale, Lafayette says, they're often under contract within a day because demand is so high.

Without available affordable rental or sale options, "millennials will pick up and move" to another market, she adds, creating a problem for corporations that want to retain talent. Millennials "are much more courageous than their parents in that regard.

They will go where they want to live, and then they'll figure out the job."

One unexpected side effect of the downtown migration is that, with millennials and baby boomers vacuuming up available affordable housing, people who make less than the area median income are left with even fewer options in cities.

With millennials and baby boomers moving back in, "our cities have gotten safer and more vibrant, and that's all great news, but the bad news is our lower-wage workers are not finding housing there as easily anymore," says Nina Janopaul. She's the CEO of the nonprofit Arlington Partnership for Affordable Housing, which helps provide apartments to low-income families in Northern Virginia.

Disappearing housing stock
In recent local studies, Arlington County and Alexandria determined that more than 85 percent of their areas' naturally occurring affordable housing stock has disappeared during the past 15 years. Investors have bought up older and distressed properties and remodeled them to appeal to millennials with amenities such as fitness centers and granite countertops, Janopaul says.

"New developments are always going to be geared toward the highest payers, and the folks that are often the most desirable demographics. And millennials usually tick that box because they can pay higher rents and want to live downtown," says Washington, D.C.-based developer Jeff Wainwright of West End Capital Group, which has redeveloped aging apartment complexes in Richmond and Hampton Roads. However, with rents rising, "people are getting priced out of downtown. Not everybody can afford it," he says.

Affordable housing advocates are relieved that the country's recently passed tax reform bill retained tax credits for low income housing. However, there is concern that the the reduced corporate tax rate, from 35 to 21 percent, could decrease the value of the housing credit for investors.

With a recent study showing that seven affordable housing units are needed for every unit built, it's an issue that's not going away, notes Robert Sheppard, managing director of CBRE's Affordable Housing Group.

"Cities are proactively and aggressively trying to come up with solutions to this problem," he says.

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Print this page by Richard Foster If Fairfax County developer C. Daniel Clemente has his way, more middle-class and hourly workers in the county's fast-growing downtown Tysons area will one day have the option of walking to work instead of spending hours battling Beltway commuter traffic.

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http://www.newsplex.com/content/news/Study-looks-at-affordable-housing-shortage-in-Virginia-465717703.html

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A new housing study led by the Virginia Center for Housing Research at Virginia Tech has found a shortage of affordable housing throughout all regions of the state - and that Virginia needs to produce significant levels of new affordable housing to accommodate anticipated workforce growth.

"Urban, suburban, and rural areas are all affected," said Mel Jones, research scientist at the Virginia Center for Housing Research. "Statewide, one in three households is cost burdened, spending more than 30 percent of income for housing. But it may surprise some that in 2015, affordable housing problems were most acute, not in Northern Virginia or Richmond, but in Hampton Roads, where the level of poverty is high, wages are low, and high costs of housing are compounded by high transportation costs."

The independent analysis, Addressing the Impact of Housing for Virginia's Economy, was commissioned by the Housing Policy Advisory Council, established by Gov. Terry McAuliffe under Executive Order 32 to help guide the development and implementation of Virginia's housing policy. The researchers were charged with identifying links between housing, economic development, and community development.

Faculty from the College of Architecture and Urban Studies, including Jones; Andrew McCoy, director of the center, head of the Department of Building Construction, and associate director of the Myers-Lawson School of Construction; and Tom Sanchez, professor and chair of the Urban Affairs and Planning program in the School of Public and International Affairs, led the study overall and were responsible for the analysis related to housing supply and demand - particularly housing affordability and production.

"Projections show that Virginia can add 357,800 net new jobs over the next 10 years if affordable and appropriate housing is available for potential employees," said McCoy. "The findings point to a critical need for Virginia to produce substantial new, affordable housing to meet the needs of expected workforce growth."

"Overall, the report establishes the importance of affordable, appropriate housing to individuals, families, communities, and the state," Jones said. "Housing cannot be an afterthought; it must be central to any community or economic development efforts."

The three other universities collaborating on the report were the College of William and Mary, George Mason University, and Virginia Commonwealth University.

"I appreciate the collaborative efforts of so many Virginia housing researchers and stakeholders who identified the specific statewide and regional connections between housing affordability, economic, and workforce development, transportation, education, and health," McAuliffe said when he released the report at the recent Governor's Housing Conference in front of 800 stakeholders, including housing providers, housing finance representatives, community and economic developers, and research institutions.

Other key findings in the report include:

Failure to adequately address affordable housing needs has significantly affected key priorities of state policy, including economic and workforce development, transportation, education, and health.

The homebuilding industry - both nationally and in Virginia - faces major challenges in meeting affordable housing needs for reasons that include shortage of developable residential sites and high land costs near major employment areas; constraints on construction labor, especially in skilled trades; and limited means for reducing rapid increases in development costs.

Virginia can no longer rely on federal housing appropriations. Fiscal stress is expected to increase, reducing federal housing expenditures even further and increasing responsibility of the state to provide affordable housing.

The study recommends proactive and decisive planning and policy that supports workforce housing and embracing technology that will make housing a competitive advantage for the state. It also suggests that training and educating people in the residential housing industry is the best way to introduce changes needed in the industry.

"States and places that are willing to take this kind of action will be increasingly attractive to both workers and businesses and, ultimately, strengthen the economy," said McCoy.

Jones and McCoy presented the study to legislators at the Virginia Housing Commission last week. Find the full report here.

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college of architecture and urban studies

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Virginia Center for Housing Research leads study to tackle growing need for affordable housing

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A new housing study led by the Virginia Center for Housing Research at Virginia Tech has found a shortage of affordable housing throughout all regions of the state - and that Virginia needs to produce significant levels of new affordable housing to accommodate anticipated workforce growth.

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https://pilotonline.com/news/government/an-affordable-housing-complex-opens-in-virginia-beach-as-trump/article_2f4693fe-22ec-5886-b22a-f3a147bbaf7d.html

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VIRGINIA BEACH

The city's newest affordable housing complex opened Friday, providing much-needed apartments for seniors with limited and fixed incomes.

Tranquility at the Lakes is a brick three-story building near the intersection of Burton Station Road and Northampton Boulevard. With hardwood floors, large closets and shiny appliances, the apartments are much nicer than what many senior citizens can find elsewhere, said Angela Whitehead of Seniors Unlimited Lifestyles, which helped develop the complex.

"It's a beautiful place, and seniors can be proud to call it their home," she said at the grand opening.

As visitors and city officials toured the building, housing advocates met a few miles away to warn that federal budget proposals could mean fewer projects like Tranquility at the Lakes.

President Donald Trump has proposed eliminating certain Housing and Urban Development programs.

About $2.6 million of the city housing department's $26 million budget comes from those federal grant programs, housing director Andy Friedman said.

A White House budget briefing stated: "The federal government has spent over $150 billion on this block grant since its inception in 1974, but the program is not well-targeted to the poorest populations and has not demonstrated results."

Allison Bogdanovic, executive director at Virginia Supportive Housing, said the grant programs have been important in Virginia.

Virginia Supportive Housing creates housing across the state for the homeless. The organization developed Cloverleaf Apartments on South Military Highway and Crescent Square Apartments on Diamond Springs Road.

"I don't agree that it hasn't met the program's goals," Bogdanovic said of the grants. It takes about a dozen different financing tools to fund most affordable housing projects, and HUD grants provide the last bit of money needed for many projects, especially those created for the lowest-income people, she said.

Virginia Beach has traditionally relied on the grant programs to funnel money into the construction of affordable projects. The city contributed $566,000 to Tranquility at the Lakes.

"Without those funds, we would not be standing here," Friedman said at the grand opening of the apartment complex.

The city also contributes to affordable housing efforts by providing federally funded housing vouchers, which aren't significantly affected in Trump's proposal.

There are other ways to fund affordable housing besides grant money, Friedman said. Some communities set up trust funds or dedicate revenue to a general housing fund. Virginia Beach doesn't use either of those approaches, but a recent housing study recommended them.

Leaders of Habitat for Humanity, a nonprofit organization that builds and renovates houses for families in need, and the Judeo-Christian Outreach Center, a homeless shelter at the Oceanfront, held a news conference Friday in a renovated home near Pembroke Mall. They discussed concerns about how HUD budget cuts would tie their hands on new housing projects.

Instead of building or renovating 12 to 15 homes, Habitat for Humanity would build only two or three, said Brad Kirkpatrick, executive director of Habitat for Humanity of South Hampton Roads.

"Unfortunately, the HUD budget as recommended, will only keep up current low-income housing and completely eliminate all opportunity for families ready to take the next step toward financial independence," Kirkpatrick said.

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An affordable housing complex opens in Virginia Beach as Trump's budget cuts loom

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VIRGINIA BEACH The city's newest affordable housing complex opened Friday, providing much-needed apartments for seniors with limited and fixed incomes. Tranquility at the Lakes is a brick three-story building near the intersection of Burton Station Road and Northampton Boulevard.

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The escalating cost of construction and dramatic changes in how affordable housing is financed are leading Alexandria officials to consider modifying a requirement to replace any of its 1,150 public housing units that are redeveloped with equally priced apartments.

A change is necessary, proponents say, because local housing authorities such as the Alexandria Redevelopment Housing Authority can no longer afford to simply replace an apartment priced for the poorest residents - those who make less than 30 percent of the area's median income, or $26,500 for a two-person household - with another unit priced for the same income level.

Instead, ARHA proposes to either build more housing for people higher on the income ladder to subsidize the rents of the poorest tenants or to get substantial additional financial support from local, state or federal governments.

"We need a broader spread of [household incomes] if we are to do the job without deep subsidies," Roy Priest, ARHA's chief executive, told the City Council last week.

Priest, who is retiring at the end of this month, said the long erosion of federal housing subsidies, which is expected to worsen under President Trump's administration, as well as the emergence of independent affordable housing organizations, has boosted competition for scarce federal tax credits, which support almost all affordable housing development in the nation.

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Changing Alexandria's 36-year-old promise to preserve the number of housing units for its poorest families at affordable rents would break a social compact, affordable housing advocates say.

"At the time this law was passed, it was never envisioned that public housing authorities would be losing their funding from the federal government," said Michelle Krocker, executive director of the Northern Virginia Affordable Housing Alliance. "We need to be sure any solution provides housing in perpetuity for these extremely low-income people, because we know these are the hardest populations to serve."

While existing tenants would be protected from losing their housing even if the policy is changed, the supply of housing for the poorest residents would undoubtedly dwindle, even as population growth and income trends in the region guarantee that the need will increase.

Krocker said the proof will be in the details of whatever is proposed and whether the cash-strapped city can persuade other entities - and offer subsidies - to build housing that's needed when the existing 1,150 units are not enough.

Alexandria and the greater Washington region are not alone in grappling with the increasing cost and declining federal support for affordable housing.

"It is going on all over the country, particularly in urban and suburban markets experiencing growth," said Stephen Glaude, president and chief executive of the Coalition for Nonprofit Housing and Economic Development.

A low-income housing project requires five to seven different types of subsidies to get off the ground or "the math doesn't work," Glaude said.

Unique to Alexandria, the local law known as Resolution 830 has guaranteed that this small city would always replace, on a one-for-one basis, any of its lowest-income apartments lost through decay or demolition. Far larger Fairfax County, the only other Northern Virginia community with a public housing authority, provides 1,060 low-income rentals and makes no promise similar to Alexandria's.

Most communities in the region, including Alexandria and Fairfax, support affordable housing projects with grants or loans. Those projects are usually financed in the expectation of having tenants whose incomes range from 40 to 80 percent of the area's median income, or up to $88,300 for a two-person household. Apartments at the high end of that range are often called "workforce" housing, because tenants with full-time jobs can qualify.

Much rarer are the developments that offer apartments for those who make less. The federal government provides housing vouchers, previously known as "Section 8" vouchers, but they are hard to get, and it's up to tenants to find landlords willing to take them - an exceedingly difficult hunt in an area where rental costs are rising.

While it will be at least the end of the year before any changes are proposed for Resolution 830, Alexandria Housing Director Helen McIlvaine said the issue is coming up now because officials are trying to avoid the tempest that erupted in late 2015 and early 2016, when ARHA's plan to redevelop the 15-unit Ramsey Homes public housing project ran into a buzz saw of neighborhood and political opposition.

That brouhaha delayed the agency's application for federal tax credits by a year. After multiple meetings, the city and the housing authority agreed to a "no surprises" rule in the future.

ARHA wants the City Council in the fall to approve a redevelopment of the 48-year-old Andrew Adkins apartments just east of the Braddock Road Metro station. The housing authority plans to sell the two blocks of land beneath the apartments to a private developer, who wants to build 500 market-rate units in seven-story buildings, with ground-level retail.

The developer would also build a new public housing tower, to be run by ARHA, but only 60 of the current 90 units would be replaced. ARHA officials said they would use the money they earned from the land sale to buy or rent housing elsewhere for the remaining 30 tenants.

The East Braddock area is rapidly gentrifying and has acquired the nickname of Old Town West. New apartment and condominium towers have gone up amid older, low-income apartments, and several middle-to-high-end restaurants have opened nearby.

While public housing residents sat outside one recent evening barbecuing on a tiny grill, with laundry drying on their clotheslines, more affluent neighbors two blocks away played bocce ball and outdoor ping-pong under strings of lights.

That idea of modifying Resolution 830 did not go over well with City Council members who were briefed on it at a workshop last week.

Mayor Allison Silberberg (D) objected to both the possible abandonment of the resolution and to the reduction of public housing units at Andrew Adkins. Council member Willie Bailey (D) said the four plots of green space at the site should be sacrificed to add more housing.

"They're going to build 500-plus homes, and all we're getting out of it is 60 units?" Bailey asked. "I know we like to talk about open space, but people can't live in open space."

Canek Aguirre, president of the board of Tenant and Workers United, said his organization opposes the proposal for Andrew Adkins but has a "wait-and-see" attitude toward the idea of changing Resolution 830, because it's still in preliminary stages and community reaction will be solicited before anything happens.

Vice Mayor Justin Wilson (D) told the council that if it wants to retain the one-for-one replacement of the lowest-income apartments, "someone . . . has to show up with a lot of money."

"This is our choice. This is our decision," Wilson warned. "We could have [fewer] units with deeper affordability or more units with less affordability. . . . That is the brutal math."

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High costs could imperil Alexandria's decades-old promise on low-income housing

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The escalating cost of construction and dramatic changes in how affordable housing is ­financed are leading Alexandria officials to consider modifying a requirement to replace any of its 1,150 public housing units that are redeveloped with equally priced apartments.

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This information was collected in Homeward's 16th winter (January 30, 2014) count of individuals and families experiencing homelessness in the

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Housing Virginia - A Statewide Partnership of Public & Private Organizations and Individuals Committed to Affordable Housing

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Why is decent, affordable housing important?

Decent, affordable housing is important to families. Certainly, it fulfills a basic human need for shelter, but it also contributes to the well being of both parents and children. Studies show that children in stable housing do better in school and are less likely to experience disruption in their education due to unwanted moves. Decent, affordable housing reduces stress, toxins, and infectious disease, which leads to improvement in both physical and mental health. Affordable housing also frees up funds within families' tight budgets to spend on health care and food. Studies have shown that children whose parents receive housing assistance benefit from better nutrition. For parents, living in decent, affordable housing also means reduced stress due to a lessening of concerns that high housing costs will lead to foreclosure and eviction; this in turn leads to fewer physical and mental health problems and reduced absenteeism on the job.

Affordable housing also is important to the economic vitality of communities. Affordable homes can attract and retain employees to your community- a selling point and a competitive advantage for area employers. Affordable homes also support the local workforce so they can live close to their jobs. Shorter commutes allow workers to spend more time with their families while the community benefits from reduction in traffic congestion, air pollution, and expenditures on roads. In revitalizing communities, the construction of affordable homes can also help to stimulate economic growth. A healthy mix of housing options, from market- rate and affordable rental housing, single- family homes, duplexes, as well as developments for seniors, ensures opportunities for all individuals to improve their economic situation and contribute to their communities.

Which is more important- rental homes or homeownership?

To meet the diverse needs of your community, both rental housing and homeownership are important. Rental homes fulfill the needs of many families. For some, especially low- and moderate- income families in high- cost markets or families who have recently lost a home to foreclosure, rental homes are the most financially realistic option. Other people rent because they prefer the lifestyle of renting and may still be as socially invested in their community as homeowners typically are. Among their ranks are both former homeowners who are empty- nesters and lifelong renters who don't want to worry about lawns, gutters, and home repairs. Still others rent because they expect to move frequently. Finally, for some families, affordable rental housing is an important stepping stone that allows them to accumulate savings and prepare for homeownership.

Homeownership is also a critical part of the housing stock and can be a stable and affordable option when the mortgage terms and home price are within reach of a family's budget. For many working families, homeownership represents the American Dream. Aside from comprising their largest financial asset, homeownership provides security from unwanted moves and control over features of their home. Some studies have shown that homeownership is beneficial for children- they are more likely to do well in school, less likely to have behavior problems and less likely to become pregnant as teenagers. From a community's perspective, homeowners may provide stability to their neighborhoods in which they are invested.

For these reasons, communities should work to ensure there is sufficient rental and homeowner housing stock to meet the diverse needs of all families in the community.

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Why is affordable housing important? Is rental or homeownership more important? - Housing Virginia - A Statewide Partnership of Public & Private Organizations and Individuals Committed to Affordable Housing

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Decent, affordable housing is important to families. Certainly, it fulfills a basic human need for shelter, but it also contributes to the well being of both parents and children. Studies show that children in stable housing do better in school and are less likely to experience disruption in their education due to unwanted moves.

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After Venita Walker pays the rent and utilities on her modest, three-bedroom brick house in South Richmond, she barely has enough money to make it through the month.

Walker, a teacher's aide who also works three days a week for AmeriCorps, spends almost half her income on the roughly $1,150 a month it costs to stay in the house and keep the lights and water on. So she pinches pennies any way she can, noting on the calendars she uses to track her finances when she can give blood in exchange for a free oil change or swing by a food pantry for help making it to her next paycheck.

"Constantly it's a balancing act to be able to afford, and hoping that no crisis arises," Walker said.

Walker is among the roughly one in three households across the region paying more than 30 percent of their income on housing, caused by a severe shortage of affordable places to live, according to a recent study. The problem has direct ties to Richmond's legacy of racial segregation and has resulted in less diverse neighborhoods than ever before. And it's leading to calls for regional solutions.

The shortage is split almost evenly among renters and homeowners, and it's not confined to the city or suburbs. Across the metro region stretching from Powhatan County to New Kent County and Chesterfield County to Hanover County, at least a quarter of all families in each locality have housing that exceeds their budgets.

An estimated $862 million a year could be freed up to flow through other parts of the region's economy if the price of housing was more in line with incomes, according to the study by Virginia Tech and Virginia Commonwealth University researchers on behalf of The Partnership for Housing Affordability.

Experts say the shortage of affordable housing is only part of the problem. The location of places that poor and middle-income working-class families can afford aren't spread evenly around the region or close to the businesses where they work.

That's one of the main reasons the Richmond region is more segregated today - racially and economically - than at any point in the past two centuries, said John Moeser, a professor at the University of Richmond who studies local poverty trends.

One example of the trend can be seen in the region's school systems, where half of schools reported this year that at least 50 percent of their students qualify for free or reduced lunch. A decade ago, only 35 percent of schools fit that description.

And with housing prices rising faster than wages, the complex problem will only get worse without a concerted effort to reverse it.

Laura Lafayette, CEO of the Richmond Association of Realtors, said she hopes the recent study will serve as a call to action for government leaders, nonprofits and private businesses.

"I think the challenge in this work is to make folks understand that their self-interests are inexorably tied to the self-interest of their neighborhoods," Lafayette said.

"The point we're trying to make is economically integrated communities are healthier communities for a lot of reasons. They make for greater opportunities to have people live in perhaps closer proximity to their work," she said.

"They definitely create more integrated and more diverse school systems. I think they make us more economically competitive as a region. What we can say to employers looking to relocate in Richmond is if you bring your business here, your employees are going to have a wide variety of options of where they rent, where they own, and you're not just going to have to show them a few areas of the region."

Richmond's challenge of today is in many ways a self-inflicted wound, stretching back to the city's checkered housing history. A long record of past government policies and tactics by bankers and real estate agents effectively kept neighborhoods racially segregated.

After the Fair Housing Act of 1968 passed, Moeser said, middle-class black families began moving to the suburbs just like whites had done previously, leaving behind communities that began to deteriorate.

Many of the areas where affordable housing exists today are in those neighborhoods or in the first tier of suburbs near the city limits, Moeser said.

A study by HOME found that the longest commute times in the region are for people living in Richmond's Church Hill neighborhood. Affordable housing has remained in the same place, while job opportunities for lower-skilled workers in areas such as retail have shifted to the counties.

The Amazon distribution plant in Chesterfield, for instance, provides thousands of jobs with decent wages. But the new homes going up near Amazon are too pricey for Amazon's workforce, costing in the $200,000 range. And the region's bus routes, which with a few exceptions end at the city limits, can't get residents who can't afford a car to and from work.

Lafayette said much of the reason for the high percentage of people who pay such a sizable chunk of their income for housing is because that's the only way they can be close to work or schools with the best reputations.

The shortage of low-income housing is compounded by a shortage in the middle-class price range. In many cases that results in middle-income families occupying homes that are among the only ones poorer residents could afford.

The housing report recommends incentives for builders to include low-income units as part of their developments and persuading governments to find a dedicated source for an affordable-housing trust fund. Richmond's government is the only one in the region that has such a trust fund, and, while the $1 million it put there last year is helpful, it only goes so far.

Cost will be among the largest barriers to solving the problem, which also include changing perceptions about having affordable housing near wealthier neighborhoods and garnering regional support in an area where local governments don't have a reputation for cooperation.

Lafayette said it's important to realize that no one sector - public, private or nonprofit - will be able to solve the housing crisis alone. And the process will look more like a marathon than a 100-meter dash, she said.

And although the magnitude of the challenge will continue to grow - the region will need more than 100,000 new affordable homes or apartment units to meet housing demands for the expected growth over the next two decades - there are agencies and government officials trying to address it.

Lafayette, Moeser and Chesterfield School Board Chairwoman Carrie Coyner hosted a forum in January to bring attention to the issue of increased poverty in that county. More than 200 people attended.

Chesterfield leaders are focusing their limited revitalization funds on neighborhoods near the schools that will be renovated as part of a $304 million bond package.

Richmond, Henrico and Chesterfield governments each paid $250,000 to support a program to help add rooms in South Richmond that can house the homeless.

And Richmond Mayor Dwight C. Jones is trying to replace thousands of public-housing units in the East End with a new mixed-use community that would include businesses and a combination of market-rate and subsidized housing.

But it's not fast work. The idea has been discussed publicly for more than two years, and the hundreds of millions of dollars in necessary investment have yet to be identified.

The city finally has acquired its starting point - the old Armstrong High School property, vacant for more than a decade - but the project will take years

And Walker, the teacher's aide, is about four months away from moving to a house where her bills will be slashed by about half, thanks to Habitat for Humanity. Maybe then, Walker said, she'll be able to turn her cable TV service back on or eat out at a restaurant every now and then. And she won't be under the constant, stifling pressure of living paycheck to paycheck.

jramsey@timesdispatch.com
(804) 649-6911

Staff Writer Zachary Reid contributed to this report.

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Study cites lack of affordable housing in area

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After Venita Walker pays the rent and utilities on her modest, three-bedroom brick house in South Richmond, she barely has enough money to make it through the month. Walker, a teacher's aide who also works three days a week for AmeriCorps, spends almost half her income on the roughly $1,150 a month it costs to stay in the house and keep the lights and water on.