PH+ Seeks creation of ‘generational wealth’ by affordable rent & homeownership
17th January 2023 · 0 Comments
By Christopher Tidmore
Contributing Writer
An abandoned fire station on Louisiana Avenue, constructed in the Tudor revival style, has stuck out for years as a proverbial blight in a neighborhood which has seen so many properties rehabilitated – and so many young families taking residence. Now, a new nonprofit, formed out of the union of three historic agencies, plans to create seven affordable housing units in the former fire station, including child care on the first floor.
Those $700 to $800 per month apartments – far below the average rental rate for the neighborhood – will be the first step into homeownership for many needy families.
“The pathway to getting a person into holding on to their home is having an affordable rent,” explained People’s Housing+ Chief Executive Officer Oji Alexander. “The launch of a new Black-led, community driven organization, that will bring a new approach to affordable housing development and delivery has been over a year in the making. We are taking a comprehensive approach to wealth-building that goes beyond just affordable housing.”
The conversion of “a blighted firehouse owned by the city of New Orleans, that will consist of seven affordable apartment units upstairs with an early childhood development facility downstairs…will provide a road map for how city assets can be repurposed to meet two of the city’s most urgent needs, access to affordable housing and access to quality childcare.”
People’s Housing+ is a merger of three New Orleans-based Community Development Corporations (CDCs): Home by Hand (HbH), Crescent City Community Land Trust (CCCLT), and Tulane Canal Neighborhood Development Corporation (TCNDC). According to Alexander, the organization was created to foster multi-generational wealth and fight systemic racism through affordable housing and stewardship.
In an interview with The Louisiana Weekly, Alexander noted that there are a few things in this attempt to create affordable housing that make the endeavor different from others.
“From an organizational standpoint, the merger and subsequent creation of People’s Housing+(PH+) will increase organizational capacity and long term sustainability. We have built on the strengths of the three individual organizations and eliminated redundancy. Three small community development corporations have come together to create a mid-tiered, Black-led CDC. From an approach standpoint, we will not only address the City’s affordable housing supply issue with increased development capacity, but we will also offer a number of affordable housing options from permanently affordable rental housing to fee-simple affordable homeownership,” Alexander said.
“What is most unique will be the creation of a comprehensive battery of wrap-around stewardship services that will include financial fitness training, homebuyer training, homeowner education, retirement planning, estate planning as well as other financial and legal resources. In essence, we are creating a one-stop affordable housing shop. To our knowledge, there is no single entity that offers all of these services under one roof that exists in the city,” said Alexander
Some efforts at affordable housing have generated a negative reputation of late, including residents in River Garden and the PythIan who awoke one day to find their once-affordable rents drastically increased, with little warning. Alexander outlined how his PH+’s non-profit model will protect against sudden increases in rent.
“This question seems to speak to individual development projects, specifically multi-unit, low income housing tax credit (LIHTC) projects, where there is a mix of market rate units with some affordable units included to satisfy certain requirements. First I’d like to state that PH+’s mission is to foster multi-generational wealth creation and battle systemic racism in housing, so the large majority of our work will consist of developing single-family affordable housing for homeownership. But we believe that the pathway to homeownership begins with stable, affordable rental housing. As a mission driven 501©3 organization, our motivation is creating and preserving affordability, not profit, which is counter to the type of projects you reference in your question. Though LIHTC is one of the most reliable mechanisms for creating large-scale multi-unit housing, affordability, in many cases, is a requirement, not a stated goal. As far as rental housing goes, in the near term, we intend to fill the void in the 2-10 unit space,” Alexander said.
Alexander went on to say, “In all of our current rental projects, all units will be affordable. We occasionally utilize what we call a Cross-Subsidy model in our single family development for homeownership where we build a market rate house and use the proceeds to subsidize affordable housing homeownership units, but that market rate units comprise a very small percentage of our total housing development. In those instances, the market rate home is larger than the affordable homes to maximize the proceeds and subsequent subsidy for the affordable homes.”
“As I alluded to earlier,” Alexander continued, “creating affordability is at the heart of our mission. When we develop projects, long-term affordability is built into all of our modeling and our capital stack reflects that. That is also the case in our community land trust homes for homeownership. Permanent affordability is written into the ground lease and resale formulas. I can’t speak directly to the specific projects you mentioned, as I was not involved in any of them, but what I can speak to is another reason for this merger. We are creating a larger, more productive entity that will better position us to dictate the terms of the projects we are involved in, as opposed to being small minority partners that don’t have the leverage to advocate for tenants.”
The full interview with Alexander can be heard on the author’s WRNO radio program, Archived at www.thefoundersshow.com.
This article originally published in the January 16, 2023 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
