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Opportunities: The Value of PHA Engagement in Affordable Housing
from Reimagining HPHA Series: Public Housing Authorities and the Affordable Housing Crisis
by Brian Strawn
First and foremost, our findings suggest that Public Housing Authorities are uniquely positioned to help address the affordable housing crisis. Not only do their core services provide essential support for the poorest families, but the majority of housing authorities are actively involved in the construction and preservation of affordable housing throughout their county.
The Rental Assistance Demonstration, while both delicate and complex, will inevitably transform PHAs’ work and presents significant opportunities to grow the stock of affordable housing. Past redevelopment programs have reduced the number of deeply affordable units, replacing public housing with communities that were not focused on the needs of poor families. HUD seems to have designed the RAD program with these past failures in mind, insisting on a 1-for-1 replaced of all converted public housing units. Entrepreneurial PHAs have the opportunity to take this to the next level by adding additional LIHTC subsidizes to the new public housing units (perhaps with retail and market rate units as well). Done carefully, with deep resident engagement, these new communities have significant potential to improve the lives of poor and low-income households.
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More broadly, PHAs across the country have different tools at their disposal, but the following themes came up throughout the data, representing the opportunities PHAs have to drive affordable housing development:
The Power Of Land Assets
In many urban areas the cost of land represents a prohibitive barrier to affordable housing development. As one California PHA official we spoke with put it “we simply can’t make it work if we need to pay for the land.” Fortunately, there are a number of ways that PHAs have solved this problem. Some simply used land already under their control, generally within the footprint of a public housing development. Others were able to coordinate with other state and county agencies to collaborate on site assemblage.
