Local success stories:
Dreier, Peter
NONPROFIT HOUSING LOCAL SUCCESS STORIES WILL HUD'S KEMP SIGN ON? A backyard revolution has been taking place in inner cities and rural areas of the United States: nonprofit and community-based...
...Today, some housing experts see nonprofit groups as a helpful middle-ground between government-owned public housing and government-subsidized for-profit developers...
...Some nonprofits have been able to expand the significantly: • The Catholic Archdiocese of Minncapolis/St...
...head of the Bank of New England and Boston Housing Partnership chairman, has said that nonprofits "are a pan of the neighborhood and a part of its daily life They're aware of what matters after the rent is paid" -issues such as crime, job training, child tare, and building maintenance...
...In contrast, nonprofit groups are more accountable to the residents and the surrounding community...
...They're in a good position to involve local residents...
...But it provides a vehicle for steady growth in the nonprofit sector's capacity, so that within a few years it can have a major impact...
...In the wealthy community of Santa Barbara, Calitor-ma, where the average home sold last year foroverS275jOOO...
...LISC-supported nonprofit groups in twenty-six cities have produced over 14,000 units for low- and moderate-income residents...
...Many members of Congress, who went along with the housing cutbacks proposed by the administration during the eighties, were disenchanted with previous big-budget subsidy programs they viewed as expensive give-aways to politically-connected developers or to mismanaged local housing authorities...
...To an administration that emphasizes, self-help, entrepreneurship, and grassroots initiative, the nonprofit approach could have a decidedly Republican appeal...
...Corporate America has increasingly recognized that non-profits are an effective way to provide housing that is affordable for their low-wage employees...
...With the growing epidemic of homelessness among the poor and the decline of home ownership among the middle class, the Bush administration will be looking for new approaches to the nation's housing woes...
...His articles have appeared in the New York Times, the New Republic, the Boston Globe, and other publications...
...Enterprise has provided financial and technical help (on construction techniques, forexample) to overa hundred low-income groups in some twenty-seven communities, leading to more than 3,000 new homes...
...In contrast, nonprofit groups are more accountable to the residents and the surrounding community...
...At the Boston Housing Partnership (BHP), for example, the chairmen of the city's largest banks and insurance companies sit on the board with city and state government officials and the directors of communitybased nonprofit groups...
...The groups link residents with medical services, child care, and other support progroms as well...
...Subsidy funds-required to fill the gap between what working-class families can afford and what housing costs to build and operate-are scarce...
...Business leaders in Cleveland, New York, Chicago, Baltimore, Boston, and other cities have joined with government officials and community housing activists to form public-private-community partnerships...
...To an administration that emphasizes, self-help, entrepreneurship, and grassroots initiative, the nonprofit approach could have a decidedly Republican appeal...
...Some of San Francisco's top business leaders sit on the board of the nonprofit Bridge Housing Corporation, which has built over 3,000 units in mixed-income developments in the Bay Area...
...In 1980, the Ford Foundation created the Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC) to channel corporate funds to nonprofits...
...Perhaps newly confirmed HUD Secretary Jack Kemp, a conservative former Congressman from Buffalo, will expand the nonprofit approach as part of his overall housing program...
...According to a just-completed survey by the Washington, D.C.-based National Congress for Community Economic Development, however, some 2,000 nonprofit builders-with ties to community organizations, churches, tenant groups, social service agencies, and unions-have tried to fill the vacuum...
...Paul established meaty-four nonprofitgroups that management 2,200 apartments fur poor families, seniors, and hands capped persons...
...Richard D. Driscoll...
...since 1982, rehabilitated for lowincome families Bfry inner-city homes that had been stated in be ortrf...
...filed the Community Housing Partnership Act-to provide federal funding to community-based housing groups- he quickly found over 100 cosponsors...
...Today, some housing experts see nonprofit groups as a helpful middle-ground between government-owned public housing and government-subsidized for-profit developers...
...The bricklayers union in Boston pressured the bank that holds its pension fund to lend, at reduced rates, start-up monies needed to form a nonprofit housing group...
...the McAuley foundation has helped community groups in rural areas and small towns on Colorado, Idaho, and New Mexico) to build and repair 600 low -income housing units...
...Since 1981, federal housing funds have been slashed from over $30 billion to under $8 billion...
...When the Reagan administration ended subsidy programs for new apartment construction, ost private developers stopped building low-income housi g. Not surprisingly, the number of new low-income apartments has declined-from over 200,000 a year during the 1970s to less than 15,000 in 1988...
...Congress may finally be willing to put the federal government back in the housing business, if nonprofits play a significant role...
...On its own, this $500 million program is not an immediate solution to the national housing crisis," explained Kennedy...
...Meanwhile, waiting lists for any kind of affordable housing are bulging...
...They often take the money and run-with the tenants left behind in mismanaged projects and the taxpayers footing the bill...
...As Professor Dennis Keating of Cleveland State University has said, "Subsidizing profit-oriented developers to house the poor...didn't work...
...PETER DREIER Peter Dreier has written widely on housing policy issues...
...In lieu of federal monies, they have had to patch together resources from local and state governments, private foundations, businesses, and charities...
...Many members of Congress, who went along with the housing cutbacks proposed by the administration during the eighties, were disenchanted with previous big-budget subsidy programs they viewed as expensive give-aways to politically-connected developers or to mismanaged local housing authorities...
...With financial help from local businesses...
...Since 1980...
...And they tend to spend public funds more wisely and cost-effectively-to make the housing work...
...Congress may finally be willing to put the federal government back in the housing business, if nonprofits play a significant role...
...Last year, when Representative Joseph Kennedy (D-Mass...
...the nonprofit Community Housing Corporation has con-itructed 462 units-including single-family houses, garden-style apartments and condominiums, limited equity cooperatives, and a morning house hotel-for the city's low income families and elderly residents...
...and the city government, the group has fixed up twenty-six apartments, primarily for working poor families...
...Last year, when Representative Joseph Kennedy (D-Mass...
...Developer James Rouse, who built the new town of Columbia, Maryland and whose urban festival marketplaces (e.g., Baltimore's Inner Harbor and Boston's Faneuil Hall) contributed to the nation's inner city revival, has set up the Enterprise Foundation...
...But it provides a vehicle for steady growth in the nonprofit sector's capacity, so that within a few years it can have a major impact...
...In the troubled manufacturing city of York, ntiua, a long-term neighborhood social service agency up the Output) Attacks Community Development Corpo-rauon in 1983...
...Perhaps newly confirmed HUD Secretary Jack Kemp, a conservative former Congressman from Buffalo, will expand the nonprofit approach as part of his overall housing program...
...A backyard revolution has been taking place in inner cities and rural areas of the United States: nonprofit and community-based groups have been building and renovating affordable housing on a scale much broader than in the past...
...Even the most penny-pinching nonprofit groups acknowledge that the federal government will have to resume a major role if their local success stories are to expand enough to help relieve the national housing crisis...
...With the growing epidemic of homelessness among the poor and the decline of home ownership among the middle class, the Bush administration will be looking for new approaches to the nation's housing woes...
...they're not carpetbaggers...
...Subsidy funds-required to fill the gap between what working-class families can afford and what housing costs to build and operate-are scarce...
...A few years ago, Boston's United Way began funding community development corporations, an experience so successful that the United Way of America began to fund similar projects in Houston, Chicago, Pontiac, Michigan, Rochester, and York, Pennsylvania...
...In two years, the group has built more than two hundred brick, Victorian-style townhouses in three neighborhoods...
...While most public housing is well-managed, urban "high-rise ghettos" have hurt the overall image of public housing...
...filed the Community Housing Partnership Act-to provide federal funding to community-based housing groups- he quickly found over 100 cosponsors...
...And they tend to spend public funds more wisely and cost-effectively-to make the housing work...
...foundations...
...They often take the money and run-with the tenants left behind in mismanaged projects and the taxpayers footing the bill...
...New funding for public housing run by local government agencies has been virtually eliminated...
...Over twenty-five nonprofit groups have built thousands of housing units in Boston during the last several years...
...PETER DREIER Peter Dreier has written widely on housing policy issues...
...If passed, the bill would provide three federal dollars for every dollar nonprofits can raise from local public and private sources...
...Ovef a thousand working-class families applied for the homes, which were sold at the cost of construction, about half their market value...
...A few nonprofit are sophisticated builders with a social conscience, who have-often through foundations-con-strutted multination-dollar developments...
...Building with a conscience While nonprofit housing ventures have particular problems and limitations, they also have strengths that deserve to be recognised "Nonprofit groups are responsive to community needs...
...His articles have appeared in the New York Times, the New Republic, the Boston Globe, and other publications.epublic, the Boston Globe, and other publications...
...Even with these allies however, the bootstrap approach has its limits...
...For example: • In Dallas, the Common Ground Community Development Corpotation has...
...Even the most penny-pinching nonprofit groups acknowledge that the federal government will have to resume a major role if their local success stories are to expand enough to help relieve the national housing crisis...
...Raymond Flynn, the mayor of Boston, has called the emergence of socially-committed developers alongside church and community groups "the only silver lining in the dark cloud of the housing crisis during the Reagan years...
...If passed, the bill would provide three federal dollars for every dollar nonprofits can raise from local public and private sources...
...These CDCs own and manage over 1,600 low-income apartments in the city...
...But in the 1980s, the nonprofit housing movement has burgeoned in response to federal housing cutbacks, the withdrawal of for-profit developers from the subsidized housing business, and a deepening shortage of affordable housing in communities across the country...
...On its own, this $500 million program is not an immediate solution to the national housing crisis," explained Kennedy...
...As Professoi Dennis Keating of Cleveland State University has said, "Subsidizing profit-oriented developers to house the poor...didn't work...
...Most nonprofits in housing have started by fixing up a small building or two...
...So far, ten Boston-based corporations have invested over $16 million in projects undertaken by neighborhood-based community development corporations (CDC...
...Even with these allies however, the bootstrap approach has its limits...
...Private foundations have also played a key role in supporting the nonprofit housing sector...
...Meanwhile, waiting lists for any kind of affordable housing are bulging...
...Through the BHP, the city and state government provide subsidies to builders...
...Since the late 1800s, settlement houses, labor unions, and wealthy philanthropists have built apartment houses and cooperatives for working-class families...
...While most public housing is well-managed, urban "high-rise ghettos" have hurt the overall image of public housing...
...says Sarah .Smith, president of the Denver-based Mc Auley Housing Foundation, a group sponsored by the Sisters of Mercy...
...they're not carpetbaggers...
Vol. 116 • April 1989 • No. 7
