Presentation for the Manitoba Professional Planners Institute

Thank you for inviting me to come and talk about the development of Columbus Housing Partnership and the issues of affordable housing development.

My goal is to present some new ideas or more likely to present old ideas in a new way and give you an opportunity to find some strategies that may work for you. I’m going to review the formation and leadership of CHP and try to analyze the impact of the roles of our supporters. Later I’m going to discuss 3 housing development strategies and some ancillary ideas for activities to support affordable housing.

Many of you know of the work of Jim Rouse and the Enterprise Foundation. I was lucky enough to work for Mr. Rouse in the early years of the Enterprise Foundation. He came to speak at Harvard when I was working for the Massachusetts Housing Finance Agency ( a state-housing agency). Many of my staff and I went to the presentation. He mentioned that he was starting to work in Columbus, Ohio (my hometown) He had a passion that made me want to be a part of his effort. Here is how the Enterprise Foundation began. Mr. Rouse had retired as a successful real estate developer. He had developed Columbia Maryland, (one of the first mixed-income planned communities) and the festival marketplaces in Boston and Baltimore.

He was approached by two nuns from Washington DC who wanted to buy and rehabilitate an old apartment building. Mr. Rouse asked how much money they had and what experience they had. They reported that they had no experience and no money. He told them that it couldn’t be done; they would never get site control. Mr. Rouse went on vacation and when he came back the nuns came back to visit and said we have site control for the building. They asked, "What do we do next?"

Mr. Rouse said to himself, I have experience and resources, if these nuns can get this far with nothing I shouldn’t tell them it can’t be done I should pitch in and help. Is this story true or the legend? I don’t know. But Mr. Rouse did become the champion of affordable housing and revitalizing urban communities. He talked tirelessly about the needs. He raised money from his friends and he kept people focused on the problem. He used his celebrity to get people to want to be involved. He was a kind and committed man. And he never let himself or anyone else forget that there was more work to do. His approach to issue changed over the years. Initially the approach was to create affordable housing for very poor people. He advocated low cost selective rehabilitation focused on inner city neighborhoods. Later, he took on a much broader approach; he was experimenting with revising every service delivery system within poor neighborhoods in order to turn around those neighborhoods.

Communities would approach Mr. Rouse and ask for his help in creating an affordable housing organization. In Columbus, the Board of Realtors, Board of Consultancy in cooperation with the City was asked to lead a group focused on affordable housing. The Board of Realtor group in Columbus was led by Don Kelley, a large multifamily and land developer, Mel Schottenstein, One of the top 20 single-family home developer in the US, and Max Holtzer, the second largest Realtor in Columbus. These were very substantial people in the real estate community who were able to gain the attention of other community leaders. Mr. Rouse told the group to raise $500,000 and he would help them to form a group in Columbus. They raised that money from the Board of Realtors, personal donations from Board members, the Columbus Foundation and the City. Mr. Rouse was surprised and pleased that this leadership took the initiative and he agreed to work in Columbus. This was the start of Columbus Housing Partnership in 1987.

This sounds easy. You too have lots of interest and commitments to make this work in your community. Even with commitments, the process is not easy. You need to be determined. In spite of the financial commitments, I began working in my living room with materials that I paid for. It took some time to get together the proposals to get the program moving and the funds released. I moved into an office at the City and hired three staff and then moved into our own offices. I promised the Board one rehabilitated home at the end of seven months. It nearly killed me but we got it done. CHP completed new construction, suburban, infill, rehabilitation, housing for the homeless, single family and multifamily development throughout the County. In 3 years is had assisted in 500 units and in my nine years as director we had assisted in 2,300 units.

I want to share that experience with you because I think it points out some things that I think are critical to success:

Support from community leadership

• to champion affordable housing
• to raise money
• to raise interest and increase involvement in the issue
• to keep people focused on the issue

Support from the City

The determination and drive of the non-profit CDC staff

CHP would have had a different path without each of these components.

Many people played a role in the development of Columbus Housing Partnership. Some were Board members other were early supporters. I think it is important to talk about the roles they played. These were our partners in development.

Realtors – They were the leadership for CHP. Our first president served for 3 years. He was a past president of the Board of Realtors and the person most committed to the success of Columbus Housing Partnership. He instituted a plan where the outgoing president of the Board was the president of the CHP Board. This was important in the early years because it gave a continuity and level of leadership to the effort. CHP Board presidents were able to involve other community leadership in this effort through their personal contacts. This is similar to what Jim Rouse did with the leadership of the Enterprise Foundation. As CHP was successful and began to rely on its own reputation, the leadership from the Board of Realtors was a little less involved. However, they kept their political support and their political leadership in place. They were very important to CHP maintaining a visibility within the leadership and political community.

Developers – They served a role as the practical and technical advisors to the CHP staff. We were able to discuss the issues, which impact the development of affordable housing and develop solutions. For example, in some communities, 30% of the cost of a home is from government-mandated initiatives. Housing development is not a simple issue where as a developer (profit or non-profit) you don’t only use resources like city grants, housing developer significantly contributes to employment, taxes and user fees so that the relationship is more symbiotic than may have been first considered. I got advice from the developers on materials, costs, construction strategies, cost containment and government regulations. It’s like starting a dot.com company and having Bill Gates as an advisor. As a non-profit developer, you are simply not going to have that level of depth that you can get from developers.

Bankers – Bankers initially judged CHP by the membership of its Board. You need bankers to tell you what part of the banking business they specialize in. If they are comfortable with construction loans, or permanent loans for multifamily, or homeowner mortgages. Match your needs with the comfort level or your bankers; it is easier if you find your match. Bankers sell a product. They sell money. If you need something they don’t have. Explain what you need. They can make the product you need. You need to find the creative and inventive bankers and get to a point with some friendly bankers so you can explain your issues and work together on a solution. It is important to talk with Bank leadership about the potential that the urban market represents. As banks become larger and less community based, they look at larger markets and are less a part of community solutions. You may need to involve smaller banks and mortgage companies, as a part of your financing strategy.

Government – The role of government moves from leadership to facilitator in some areas and continued leadership in the big picture area. Government is an initiator, a responder and an evaluator. These are not easy roles to meld. The commitment to affordable housing and urban redevelopment needs to be long term. This is difficult because of the demands on government to look at other issues and everyone’s longing for quick fixes. The success of your work in affordable housing will create new demands on the local government staff.

The Media – Attitudes about neighborhoods are created by real and perceived conditions. The media needs to be alert to building up and protecting a neighborhood image. This is not distorting the truth, but not sensationalizing situations that occur in distressed neighborhoods. Being careful with language is important. For example in Columbus, the East Side is a predominately minority, distressed, urban area. When there is a murder, rape or other crime in the urban core it is likely to be referred to as occurring on the East Side, even if it occurred in the North end. The definition of that area is flexible and fits into perceptions about the neighborhood. If the media gave the street names rather than referring to the East Side, people would know the location of the crime rather than adding to the damming of the East Side. The media need to cover information about the positive things that are happening in the neighborhood. You need to make positive things happen so there is something to report. You also need to be very active in getting the message of positive change out to the community and the media.

Community Power Structure – Early in the effort to revitalize the community and develop affordable housing it is important to brief community leaders on the conditions in the distressed urban areas and the impact that distress has on people. Bus tours throughout the area, hosted by community leaders who are already committed, are an effective way to encourage more attention to the issue. It’s possible in many cities to use freeways and completely avoid distressed urban areas. In Columbus we took a leadership bus tour one day and were flagged down by a man who boarded our bus and asked is anyone wanted to buy drugs. People were shocked at the brazen sale of drugs, particularly the judge who was on board.

Clergy – Well-known clergy participated as Board members. They kept attention focused on the issues of neighborhood and housing and brought volunteers, public support and funding.

Neighborhood leadership and CDC’s – I’m going to talk about this later in the presentation. Columbus is a new City and it does not have long established ethnic or historic neighborhoods. So neighborhood leadership issues in Columbus are different than many places.

There are three issues that get wrapped up together in discussions like this. They are:

Affordable housing for poor people

Helping poor people move out of poverty.

Revitalizing distressed urban cores

I want to look at each of the issues and then see how we can bring them back together.

Poor people need a mixture of rental and homeownership opportunities.

Homeownership helps to make a community stronger and helps families to develop a savings account from the appreciated value in the home. This is only true if the neighborhood appreciates. This is a critical issue to inner city homeownership.

Look at the market in your area and determine the minimum house price and the minimum income needed to purchase a home. What kind of home can you buy? Is it substandard? Who is purchasing houses in the area now? Are investors making most purchases?

This intimate knowledge of the market is important to the success of a housing program and should be a major focus of a neighborhood CDC. More than anything, this knowledge of the neighborhood and the resulting design of neighborhood strategies will create influence. I would argue that this has a greater impact than the actual rehabilitation activities that a CDC might undertake.

Depending on the records kept by banks and other organizations you may be able to map mortgage and home improvement loans to determine the investment in an area. You will want to separate homeowner from investor activities.

What are the impediments to homeownership? Is the issue the price of homes, the price of mortgages, the credit of low-income families or the down payment requirements? Or, is the problem a lack of interested homebuyers for a particular neighborhood. With the answer to these questions you can craft a program that responds to the need. Without the answer to these questions you can design programs that completely misses the target. There are different strategies for each of these issues. The chart below shows some strategies.

Some families will need to continue to rent rather than purchase homes. The lowest income families run risks from homeownership, which need to be understood. Homeownership requires equipment that renting does not. Homeownership requires lawn mowers, ladders, tree trimmers, tools and cash for emergencies. Very low-income families are usually operating without cash reserves and cannot afford emergencies. All homes, new or old are emergencies waiting to happen. Lending tool programs and emergency loan programs can help but the problems are still difficult.

Rental housing is the housing of choice for some families. An example might be a recently divorced mother of three who is working full time and trying to stay involved in her kid’s school and after school activities may not have time to mow the grass or fix broken plumbing. She may want to focus her energy elsewhere. It is important for a neighborhood to provide a variety of market price point opportunities for renters.

Vacant lots create opportunities for infill housing. I think that infill housing works best when there is a large infill-housing component. I will discuss infill housing later. Infill housing is not a critical part of developing an affordable housing strategy.

Having a quality affordable home is important to people in poverty. It is especially important to the children. Children have told me that they are embarrassed to have friends or teachers at their homes. They live in rooms with little or no furniture and there is no opportunity to do homework because there is no desk and frequently no lamp or overhead light that would allow them to even complete the work on the floor. I think that having a safe and decent place to live is a foundation block for growing up healthy.

But after years of developing housing I think that other things are needed too. It is not just the house that needs to be safe and decent. The community needs to be safe and decent too. There are two approaches to this that both work. Both can be used in your efforts to address distressed communities and the needs of the poor for affordable housing.

The first is to move poor people from distressed inner city neighborhood into economically and socially strong neighborhoods. Poor people fare better in non-impact environments. The Gautreaux study, in the Chicago area, established that poor people did better when they moved to non-poverty impacted areas. The head of the family was more likely to find and hold a job. The head of the family was move likely to get additional education. The children were more likely to continue in school and do better in school, go on to college and get better jobs.

Creating opportunities for poor people to live in non-poverty impacted neighborhoods whether in rental or homeownership opportunities is a very strong strategy for combating poverty. I developed rental housing in suburban school districts and in suburban neighborhoods. Finding affordable land is one issue. This is one reason why it is important to have developers as part of the effort. They know all the land in your community. There may be a piece of property that doesn’t work for market rate housing but is excellent your housing needs.

I was able to partner with private single-family developers who had small tracts of suburban land that could be used to build starter homes. I was able to access down payment assistance and mortgage rate reduction tools to make these homes available for lower income families.

It is important that the properties built in non-poverty impacted areas match the quality and general design standards of market rate housing so they cannot be distinguished from market rate housing. In the homeownership units CHP was able to get some families who were just above the low-income category that wanted to buy a home and therefore create more of a mixed market. In rental housing there is now a push to do mixed low income and market rate housing. The analysis that has been done to date shows that you need a disproportionate market rate component and very good management company that demands performance from the residents and the owner in order to be successful with mixed income rental housing.

One issue with poor people moving into suburban neighborhoods is the finding ways to make services available to people who need them. You need to look at the issues and find creative ways to get the support services to families who need them. This is frequently done by having a social service coordinator who is part of the management team. She may help with an asset analysis for families and then from that move to help the family secure emergency or ongoing services that they may need. It is important that this is not a labeling process but that this is simple serving as an advocate to link people and resources. You will sometimes see this as a triage process of helping people who have almost made it so they don’t slip back into poverty. This is very important, loss of baby-sitters, or broken down cars, or loss of work tools, or lack of funds for a uniform can cost people jobs.

The second strategy for helping people move out of poverty is generally called "community building". It is the process of creating partnerships between residents and all of the service delivery systems in a neighborhood. This needs to be done within a small and focused neighborhood. It needs leadership, facilitation and commitment from everyone. Here is the theory: a strong and healthy community has a strong social infrastructure of churches, schools, banks, businesses and neighborhood centers that nourish and support the life of the community. Beneath the obvious problems of the most distressed low-income neighborhood lies a great reservoir of human energy and aspiration. But many residents in these neighborhoods are trapped in poverty, in part, because the community’s social life, institutions and relations have become weakened. A well-functioning community – regardless of socioeconomic level- provides an environment within which its members are able to establish standards of acceptable behavior that reflect the values of the group and advance its common goals. Community links provide the means to hold individuals accountable to those values. In strong communities, people pool assets to create opportunities, interaction and cooperation to foster the quality of life they want for themselves and their children."

I became frustrated with the problems that residents were having once they moved into their new homes. Sometimes the problems were with neighborhood. Other times the family’s personal problems overwhelmed them and they were unable to stay in their new homes. At the same time I was looking for ways to help homeless women and children develop strong and stable homes. CHP invited a large group of social service providers and city staff together to talk about the issues facing homeless women and children and we began looking for a site to provide housing and services. Early in the process we received an Annie E. Casey grant to document the process and hire a facilitator to help us work together. The facilitator was necessary to keep our frustration level within workable bounds. This is a process of communication. We had to discuss what we believed were the components of a "good" neighborhood. We had to uncover our values to make sure that we had all the people we needed at the discussion table.

We found a small street with run down duplexes in a neighborhood with strong homeownership on adjacent streets. CHP funded a staff person at a settlement house to work with the existing residents of the street. Nearly half of the homes were vacant. She began by doing an asset analysis of the families. She met with the families and talked about their strengths and identified areas where they might need some support. The families had energy and strength but they did not have the power or resources to change their neighborhood alone.

As social service agency providers we figured that childcare would be the major issues since nearby childcare centers were filled. We were wrong. The issue was safety. Residents were not safe on their streets. We involved residents in making decisions about the rehabilitation that was to take place. The residents didn’t believe that we were asking their opinion and taking their advice. Following through on early resident design decisions made a significant difference in the willingness of residents to trust us. Residents were not asked open-ended question like what do you want to see done. They were asked to make selections and give input on colors, landscaping, and were offered choices in carpet and tile. As we respected their input, residents did offer suggestions. They wanted a closet turned into a pantry. Ceiling fixtures were added because many residents had inadequate lighting. Closets had extra shelves added since them doubled as chests of drawers. Neighborhood residents had become part of the team leadership.

As we began making improvements, there were nightly problems with vandalism. The vandals were young drug dealers and prostitutes. We would replace doors and they would be kicked in. Materials and tools would be stolen from the site. We were in a war with the bad guys for control of the turf. We asked the residents to help and the problems continued. We told the residents that we could not continue with rehabilitation until the vandalism stopped. We told them they had to call the police when the vandals came back to the site. Residents agreed that they wanted the rehabilitation to continue and that they would help to stop the vandals. The next night the vandals came and the residents called police but the police never came. The residents would not give their address or name for fear of retaliation from the vandals. The police would not come because they were afraid on an ambush. Both were acting from reasonable positions but there was no communication. It took the president of City Council intervening and ordering the police to answer all calls from this neighborhood. We were also assigned a community-policing officer who became a surrogate father on site. Once the police were working with the residents the vandalism stopped, for a time.

We installed the new door locks and the next morning the all the door locks were super glued. The teens took credit for this. They said that they felt left out of the process. We were talking to the parents but no one was talking to teens. They wanted jobs. We put together work crews from the teens to install the pantry and the closet shelves and we put together summer work programs so that all teens would have jobs.

Residents now owned the process and the street. One resident sat up all night when the landscape materials were delivered to make sure they were there the next day. Volunteers worked with residents to help install playground equipment. Residents began to identify needs for services and it was astounding the variety of service needs that were present. The presence of our on site advocate meant that the needs of the residents got addressed. Some of the needs were for things like better garbage pick up, resurfacing of an alley, services for a developmentally disabled "flasher" plaguing the area, maintenance of the streetlights by the electric company. (The electric company quit replacing them because they were shot out every night.) Some of the needs were for health services, counseling services and some were physical like beds for children.

The residents, teens and adults were proud of their new homes and were telling us about other successes they were having in their lives. The social service agencies and city staff were kept busy making sure than service requests were met and that these families had priority and were not lost in the bureaucratic shuffle.

If you develop housing in poverty-impacted area you will either deal with these issue or ignore them. The issues will be present.

It is not unrelated, that at the time we were working on Kwanzaa Place, the Enterprise Foundation was working in Baltimore with hospital, colleges, the City departments, schools, social service agencies, employers and the residents to recreate a poverty impact area know as Sandtown. The Enterprise Foundation has documented both of these efforts.

The components of a community building strategy:

*Start with a manageable size area.

*Involve residents in setting goals and shaping strategies to reach the goals

*Foster respect for neighborhood residents

*Encourage long-term goals but set some short-term achievable goals to give residents confidence and establish trust

*Begin with an asset evaluation for families and the neighborhood. Build from your strengths.

*Foster the strengthening of families

*Create solutions responsive to the unique neighborhood

*Create partnerships with institutions inside the neighborhood and in the wider community

*Create solutions that are holistic, integrated and support the community values

*Recognize the contributions of individuals and groups and celebrate even small successes

*Recognize cultural difference and take them into consideration in all planning and community processes

*Involve a facilitator

*Accept agency representation from a variety to staffing levels within an organization. You need some agency leaders, but having some line staff helps agency leaders learn how easy or difficult it really is to get services.

 

Community building is not an easy process but we learned a lot from it. This is one reason why it costs more and is more difficult for non-profit organizations to building housing opportunities in the distressed neighborhoods. Community building is a critical role for the neighborhood CDC.

Section C. Revitalizing distressed urban areas.

Revitalizing distressed urban areas can focus on the real estate the assets of a location and the features that are needed to make the area desirable to homebuyers and renters. A significant amount of market research is needed in this scenario. What would draw people to this area? Is it close to large employers such as hospitals or universities? Is it close to downtown or an attractive amenity such as parks or a river? What are the characteristics of people who would be interested in living here? What can they afford? What do they want in design and style issues? Are the design and style features available in existing homes?

Poverty impacted neighborhoods need to create economic diversity. They need to increase homeownership and create market rate rental opportunities. Large-scale redevelopment efforts are needed to stabilize distressed urban areas. This is a good place for private sector developer and builders to partner with CDC’s. The private developer or builder can bring financial capacity and construction capacity to the effort which will allow it to include more housing units at one time than a small CDC acting alone. The CDC and the government could work with the builder to create a portfolio or homes for rehabilitation which would allow these homes to be renovated in a short period of time, creating an impact that would benefit the other redevelopment efforts of homeowners and CDC’s.

It is generally "urban pioneers" who are interested in revitalizing distressed areas. These are middle income and above shoppers looking for bargains and amenities and willing to work for change of the issues which they view as impediments. There are many examples of this type of revitalization.

Large-scale infill housing is frequently a feature of this strategy. Cleveland has very effectively used new construction subdivision construction in urban areas. This has been combined with single-family rehabilitation and reduced interest rate loans for home purchases and home improvement. Large-scale infill housing generally requires a non-profit or public assemblage of land. The City frequently condemns and demolishes substandard homes. Cleveland has a very active land-banking program that has supported the development of large-scale infill. Some distressed property owners are willing to give away problem property for redevelopment efforts or tax advantages. Some properties will be purchased for an infill effort.

Scattered site infill is difficult because there may not be sufficient redevelopment activity to support the value of the homes for mortgage purposes. Scattered site infill is difficult to sell unless it is going into a reasonable strong neighborhood. And then the question is do you need this house here. It is good, if it is creating affordable housing opportunities in an otherwise unaffordable area. If it is just creating one more $60,000 home in a neighborhood of $60,000 homes, is it just taking away from a home that could be rehabilitated? I would rather see rehabilitation of existing homes and pocket parks.

Any infill housing developed should reflect the design feature of the neighborhood. This cannot be too strongly stated. If you can recycle some materials such as doors or steps or mimic the style it adds tremendously. This is where it is easy to see the conflict with trying to use this as a strategy for affordable housing. CHP was considering the development of infill housing in one neighborhood. The homes in this neighborhood all had large front porches. Porches are not used much since the advent of air conditioning but they are a very nice feature that adds to the attractiveness of the homes. Unfortunately it also adds several thousand dollars to the price of the homes. When we develop affordable housing we are trying to meet the affordability constraints of the family and the funding agency, and the space needs of the family and a porch amenity could not fit that classification. Ultimately, we did not build the houses. I am glad. I fought this for a long time but I think I was wrong. I now agree that those porches were an important feature and our houses without porches would not be appropriate. This was a neighborhood that was attempting to revitalize a distressed area.

To facilitate this redevelopment the City generally takes a role in increasing garbage collection, increased enforcement of code regulations, one stop shopping for permits for improvements, improved streets, improved street lighting, improvements to neighborhood commercial areas. Many areas develop a community standard for improvements that include color and design limitations. A design center (generally associated with an architecture school) can be a very useful tool to help with neighborhood revitalization.

This revitalization of distressed areas provides a good place for CDC and private sector participation. There was one problem that CHP experienced. When we were rehabilitating homes for homeownership, it became a custom design and restoration process that was expensive and time consuming. It does not save money when your homebuyer purchases an antique chandelier to replace the one you planned to install but first you need to repair the antique chandelier. Creating brick walls and open spaces and stylized kitchens is good and appropriate and helps to build the community but is difficult for CDC’s focusing on affordable housing development. One of the difficulties with the restoration work in distressed neighborhood is that custom refinishing work is expensive and best left to the private market or homeowner unless you set that as one of your agency goals. This example and the earlier example of developing infill housing with a porch demonstrate the difficulty of trying to merge the goals of affordable housing for the poor and neighborhood revitalization.

The City tools to facilitate redevelopment are low interest loans and grants that encourage redevelopment and homeownership. Low interest loans to homeowners may encourage them to reinvest in their home. Loans for rental housing should be focused at increasing the upper end of market rate housing opportunities since those probably don’t exist. Increasing property values will enable homeowners and investors to get appraisals that would support additional investment in their properties. Loans for occupied units should focus on facade and health and safety items in exchange for preservation of existing rents for low-income people. Tax abatement should be available for new homeowners and for owners improving their properties. Look at creating a $1 lottery for the purchase of vacant homes and then providing a loan interest loan to provide some of the money needed for the rehabilitation.

There are issues that overlap the three issues of: affordable housing for poor people, helping poor people move out of poverty and revitalizing distressed urban core neighborhoods.

In any neighborhood, but especially in distressed neighborhoods, it is important to maintain buildings to assure that the building remain an asset to the neighborhood. The tools for this include:

. Housing code standards for rehabilitation,

. Mandatory inspections,

. A housing court and

. Some services that might be supplied through the City and/or a neighborhood groups such as grass cutting, shoveling sidewalks, maintenance of trees, landscaping of common space, and parking limitations.

You will also want to look at laws that facilitate a landlord’s eviction of unsatisfactory tenants. In some areas, landlords want to be a part of solution but laws protecting tenants from eviction mean that irresponsible and sometimes illegal activities are not sufficient reason for eviction of residents.

Managing property is a very difficult business. There are thousands of details. It is even more difficult if you are managing single-family scattered site rental property. Just getting by to see the property is maintained is very time consuming. It would be a good strategy to know major landlords in your targeted neighborhoods and talk about how you could work together to maintain the exterior of properties.

Substandard vacant properties should not be tolerated, at all.

Poorly maintained multifamily is blight on the neighborhood and you may need to purchase and rehabilitate or demolish multifamily housing to support other rehabilitation efforts.

An issue in rental and homeownership rehabilitation is the establishment of the standard you are striving for. This creates a major impact of the cost of the rehabilitation work. It is important to discuss this standard with everyone involved in the effort to make sure there is agreement. Otherwise serious problems develop over standards. This was a substantial problem for the Enterprise Foundation effort. Initially, Enterprise supported the idea of selective rehabilitation. Fix only what is broken. If the kitchen cabinets are functional and the old claw foot bathtub is serviceable don’t replace them. This kept cost low. However, some people thought that rehabilitated units should match new construction in materials and questioned the quality of workmanship. There was a misunderstanding about standards. The other issue with selective rehabilitation is the cost of maintenance. Maintenance costs are increased with selective rehabilitation. Any decision will have a short and/or long term cost implication. Your community partners should discuss the short and long-term costs and decide on a strategy that accommodates resources and needs.

In a affordable housing development strategy, you will want to look at the possible roles of your for profit and CDC developers. You will want to look at them in both homeownership rehabilitation and rental rehabilitation. Look at the possible contributions of substantial private developers. What part can they play in this effort? They have more resources than CDC’s will ever have. I used the words substantial private developer because individuals who want to become rehabbers will approach you. You may choose to involve these start up business but then look at that component as an entrepreneurship program rather than a housing program. These new businesses will generally need lots of support and cash. This will take time away from your core housing development business.

Your interest in creating affordable housing and neighborhood revitalization may have an impact of the market of substandard and vacant property. It may create a false sense of market value. People holding on to substandard property may feel that this is there big chance for a killing and may be unwilling to sell at reasonable prices. This is resolved by City code enforcement. You’ll need to monitor this process through and make sure that it is working to get homes repaired and not just flipped between slumlords.

One slumlord property owner used to call me from jail to sell me property. He was in jail on code violations. He had amassed substantial property in an area that I was very interested in. He wanted too much money but I was willing to pay above market value because the property was important to a large neighborhood development effort. I couldn’t buy that property because I could not get clear title. He had sold the property to poor people under land contracts multiple times and had not gone through the correct foreclosure processes. There are properties all over town that will need City foreclosure in order to create valid redevelopment opportunities. You will need to look for problems like this.

Some CDC’s hope to combine construction job training and affordable housing development. I don’t think they mesh well. I think that the job training will always be more important because it is real people staring you in the face every day rather than the abstract concept of future residents. Here are some of the problems with combining job training and affordable housing. It does not reduce the cost of the housing. Generally the work takes longer so the carrying costs on the property are higher. It creates scheduling difficulties with skilled trades. The cost of the rehab is higher because people are learning and make mistakes. Mistakes mean that you are replacing building materials. The supervision costs of the training program more than exceed the savings from labor. In addition to paying the workers who complete the labor you are also paying the supervisor who was working as a teacher. As the CHP director, I tried to separate the activities. I said that we would provide houses for students to rehab but the job-training agency had to agree to cover the cost from wasted materials and time delays. One homeless agency took me up on it and we did complete some homes together. This was better than the homeless agency trying to get into the business of housing selection and specification writing, finance, marketing and management and better than me trying to manage unskilled crews. CHP did sometimes maintain crews for demolition, trash out and punch list. These were neighborhood residents. CHP also facilitated the hiring of neighborhood residents by contractors and subcontractors. These residents were frequently brought in as trainees, which allowed us to accomplish the same result, but without the management of the construction company. We also matched neighborhood and minority subcontractors with contractors working on construction for CHP.

If you are revitalizing an area or developing affordable housing in a distressed area here are some things that will help to improve the neighborhood. These techniques bring people together and broaden community involvement. I have divided the list into two categories, activities for the government and private sector activities.

You should establish a very low tolerance for illegal activities and encourage strong law enforcement in an area. This is second nature to a healthy neighborhood but a neighborhood acquiesce to crime is a symptom of a weakened community social life, values and standards of acceptable behavior. It leaves people without resources feeling trapped in the neighborhood. People with resources will frequently simply move.

If you are revitalizing and area or developing affordable housing in a distressed area here are some things that will help to improve the neighborhood. These techniques bring people together and broaden community involvement. I have divided the list into two categories, activities for the government and private sector activities.

Dumpsters. Provide additional dumpsters or hold several neighborhood clean up days. There are mountains of garbage and trash just waiting for your dumpsters to show up. If you don’t provide additional dumpsters, the trash will be dumped on your site on at vacant homes or lots. The City can substantially help this process by agreeing to pick up large items and making more frequent garbage runs if it is warranted.

Demolition. If it can’t be fixed for a reasonable price, demolish it unless it has great historic significance. If it has great historic significance, find some way to make it look acceptable.

Permitting home commercial uses. Permitting home commercial use can be important in strengthening the economic stability of the family and can create some resources for other neighborhood residents.

Ancillary housing. Ancillary housing is granny flats of small homes on the same lot that serve the needs of seniors. This is an affordable housing strategy that has no public sector costs. Keeping seniors in the neighborhood can help maintain the values of a neighborhood.

Tax Abatement and Waiver of Fees. You should look at the impact of government fees and taxes on housing development. Is your subsidy simple going to pay fees and taxes back to the city? Can you look at waivers so that the subsidy goes to making the housing twice as affordable? Tax abatement for several years in very common in revitalizing neighborhoods. It is one feature commonly used as an incentive to encourage middle-income people back into distressed urban areas. You could look at it as no loss in revenue since you were not receiving the taxes prior to the improvement. Or you could look at it as a loss because there will be an additional demand for services from the new resident.

Public funding for infrastructure improvements. This can reduce the price of the homes developed if the sidewalks, streets, sewers, water lines and taps are publicly funded rather than passed through to the homebuyers.

Low Interest Loans or grants for facilitate acquisition, construction, rehabilitation, homeownership - Developing and operating a variety of funding programs to assist in the development and rehabilitation of housing.

Monitoring of the financing and insurance marketplace. - Evaluate of the products on the market to assure that products are available in low-income neighborhoods and for low-income people. If products are not available working with the banking or insurance community to develop products which will allow the private market place to respond to low income neighborhood needs. This is critical, because government does not have sufficient resources to meet all of the demands of distressed neighborhoods. Facilitating the involvement of the private market place is an important strategy to a large and sustainable effort.

Salvage Materials. Salvage materials from homes being demolished and recycle it into new homes to add historic character or create some public space with some of the recycles materials to recognize and honor the past of the neighborhood. Salvage materials can be sold to other completing rehabilitation. This can be a break-even or close to break even activity for a non-profit and can create some jobs.

Landscaping. There can’t be too much landscaping. Find ways to increase the resources for this feature. This is something that volunteers can contribute to. Make street trees available. There has been some research that shows that trees and landscaping is the major features that people use to judge housing. Trees and landscaping increase the perceived value and hide a multitude of sins.

Trump de Oil. If you are going to have vacant buildings, make them look occupied. We were very successful with this as a strategy. We used teens in an employment program to create and install the Trump de Oil. You could partner with a school or an arts college to complete the work. At first glance the community looks occupied and prosperous. You must also maintain the landscaping and mow the grass or clean the snow at vacant building. The City can subcontract with neighborhood groups for this service. This can be an employment activity.

Christmas in April. Christmas in April is program using volunteers to assist seniors, the disabled and poor with needed repairs in a blitz program.

Habitat. Habitat can be an effective way of increasing understanding of the affordable housing issue. It can also provide homeownership for very poor families. The Habitat homes should blend with neighborhood homes.

Community Planning. The process of planning should be a public one that looks for input not only in formal ways but also in unconventional and informal ways. Keeping communication flowing will reduce the number of concerns about the changes and will help to develop hope and a feeling of well being.

Volunteer Labor. Volunteers can get involved in trashing out units, conducting surveys, landscaping, painting and helping to develop neighborhood celebrations. Skilled volunteers can be part of the labor crew or help with installation of special features or maintenance or rehabilitation efforts.

Design Center. An organization focused on exterior design of space, buildings and amenities. A design center can provide facade assistance for commercial and residential redevelopment. The preparation of design layouts including colors, signage and materials is provided free or at a low cost to facilitate improvements in the physical appearance of a neighborhood. Design centers are usually associated with Architecture and Landscape Design programs at Universities.

Schools. School children can be involved as volunteers in a community building, affordable housing or neighborhood redevelopment efforts. This involvement can include neighborhood based and suburban schools. It can include elementary, middle and high schools. Middle and High School students can be part of volunteer work crews. Elementary students can work on community building activities such as creating posters, developing anti-crime and drug strategies, creating litter patrols and acting as good neighbors. Involvement of community-based school children can help to facilitate the involvement of neighborhood parents.

CDC’s are frequently the only rehabilitation effort in distressed neighborhoods or they may be the only effort focused at the needs of the poor. They are generally leaders in the efforts to bring attention to these issues. CDC’s can facilitate an opportunity for neighborhood resident voices to be heard as part of the planning and implementation process on any strategy. These are the primary roles that I believe CDC needs to fill.

A CDC should have a very deep knowledge of the assets and the needs of a neighborhood. They should be able to tell you the strengths and the dreams of the residents. They should be able to describe the frustrations of current residents and the physical and social needs of potential residents. This in-depth knowledge of the physical and social needs of a neighborhood is critical to the design of any program geared at neighborhood improvement. CDC’s should gather formal data about the neighborhood and its residents, as well as anecdotal information. Both are important to program design. CDC’s are the major source of market data in poor neighborhoods.

CDC’s should be very good at marketing the neighborhood. They should help to create the interest of renters and homebuyers in the neighborhood. They should be advocates for the neighborhood. If homes are available for sale on a street, the CDC could help by assuring that neighboring homes are well maintained. CDC’s will need to initiate and help to carry the message about the positive improvements and hopes for the future of a neighborhood.

CDC’s should gather the resources necessary for the housing and redevelopment effort. They should prepare funding applications and operate programs that support the development of housing and the neighborhood. They should move from the planning stage to implementation stage and fund raise for the activities that need to take place. They need strong skills in grant writing, fundraising, proposal development, program implementation and project reporting.

The CDC staff should be the technical experts on government and private funding programs which will work for housing and neighborhood development. They should continue maintain contact with other organizations and review research that describes strategies for housing and neighborhood development.

CDC’s should bring together public and private partners to bring resources and energy to the effort of developing housing and revitalizing neighborhoods. CDC’s may need to develop new housing or rehabilitate homes for sale or rent in order to identify the issues and opportunities associated with that work. CDC’s are frequently the first to attempt home rehabilitation, but frequently neighbors and the private sector notice the activity and begin their own revitalization. This is not a competition but something that the CDC facilitated. The CDC not only benefits the community by the units it directly rehabilitates but also by the units that are indirectly rehabilitated following the lead of the CDC.

Creating partnerships and bringing new the public and private sector partners to the effort to revitalize demonstrates the leadership of the CDC. A CDC should facilitate the increased involvement of the residents, social service organizations, schools, realtors, bankers, builders, suppliers, property management agents, the government, churches, and funders. A CDC should hold each of it partners responsible for moving forward the effort to create strong homes and neighborhoods for the poor. A strong CDC can bring the leadership and tools to move the housing and neighborhood redevelopment process from a small activity to a large-scale effort. There is much work to be done. A team is needed.

Celebrate success - This is difficult work. It is important to celebrate every success. Show off your work. Bring people together to celebrate the progress that has been made. This is the time to brag. The more people that know about the changes, the more the perception of the neighborhood will change for the better. This builds on itself. Celebrate your history, celebrate your progress, celebrate your old residents and celebrate your new neighbors. Celebrate the trees. Change the image of this community to a positive one.

You have a very difficult job ahead of you. We have talked about leadership participation, we have talked about resident leadership in neighborhood revitalization, we have talked about planning roles for CDC’s, and strategies housing development and community revitalization. In spite of the hard work involved there are tremendous rewards from the physical rebuilding and the joy of residents. Celebrate your success; it will keep you energized you for the work ahead.