ERA and Affordable Housing Initiatives
The unprecedented housing boom has many beneficiaries, including those already in the market, those building to meet the surging demand, and those cities and towns reaping new tax revenues from record-setting values.
Another consequence, however, is the potential loss of affordable housing units. In some cases, as in Washington DC, this loss has been severe, and threatens to cast a shadow on DC’s impressive economic recovery.
Over the past year, ERA has worked with several communities to develop appropriate policy responses to these pressures. • In Washington, ERA provided technical support for the Mayor’s Comprehensive Housing Strategy Task Force, a 24-member commission appointed in Spring 2004 by Mayor Anthony Williams and co-chaired by Alice Rivlin of the Brookings Institution and local developer Adrian Washington. ERA worked with four major sub-committees to define and analyze issues associated with housing production and preservation, special needs housing, neighborhoods, and the attraction and retention of new residents to the city. The Draft Executive Summary of the Task Force Report, now circulating for public comment, can be viewed by clicking:
CHSTFdraftexecutivesummary.pdf
• In Sarasota, Florida a dramatic 43 percent increase in market values and a boom in downtown and waterfront condominiums led the Community Redevelopment Agency to commission a study of the policy options. ERA worked with city staff to assess best practices nationally and to analyze in detail the economic characteristics and expected utility of five key policy options. Click the link to download the PDF version report.
• ERA is assisting the City of San Diego’s Redevelopment Agency evaluate developer applications for NOFA funds, a pool of tax increment funds dedicated to low and moderate-income housing assistance.
• ERA has helped evaluate the market potential for private equity funds to finance workforce housing in low and moderate-income markets in San Diego, St. Louis, the State of Maryland, and the Puget Sound region. The San Diego fund has raised over $60 million in equity capital.
• Nationally, ERA has evaluated the community impacts of New Markets Tax Credit investments for the Enterprise Social Investment Corporation (ESIC) and Bank of America in St. Louis, Orlando, Columbus, Monessen, Maine, the South Bronx, and Harlem.
archive announcements