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Housing development consortiums are basically local industry
associations for affordable housing developers and their
partners. Any organization or business committed to advancing
the interests of affordable housing in the consortium’s region
of interest can be a member. These often include nonprofit
organizations, municipalities, lenders, for-profit housing
developers, legal and accounting professionals, and other
suppliers. There are several reasons why I chose to focus on
housing development consortiums in this issue of My View.
First, the creation of consortiums, along with their membership
growth and community impact, has been picking up momentum in
urban areas of Washington State. This includes consortiums in
Spokane/Spokane County, Everett/ Snohomish County, Tacoma/Pierce
County, and one of the oldest and most effective organizations
of its kind in the U.S., the Seattle/King County-based Housing
Development Consortium (HDC).
Second, I knew these consortiums had accomplished a great deal
in our state but I suspected I didn’t know the whole story. As
in previous newsletters, I wanted to document their beginnings
and share their successes and challenges with others. While
accomplishing that, I also learned about the Community
Development Network (CDN) in Portland, Oregon and the Pacific
Coast Affordable Housing Network (PCAHN), which are included in
the stories below.
Finally, I’m struck by the commitment HDC and the other
consortiums are making to meet the future challenges of
providing affordable housing. Due to a host of factors, gaps are
widening between affordable housing needs and availability and
between median incomes and rapidly increasing housing costs.
Escalating prices for cement, steel, and lumber are eating away
at the number of units we can produce with existing resources.
This is fast approaching a crisis and HDC and its peers are
actively seeking answers.
     
King County’s Housing Development Consortium:
A pearl among peers
To get a pearl, you first need some grit, something to inspire
the pearl to take shape. Many great organizations, today’s
pearls, first arose in response to yesterday’s challenges.
That’s essentially how the Housing Development Consortium (HDC)
got started. HDC has been led by Executive Director Carla Okigwe
since its founding in 1988.
“People were triumphant. What that did was give members the
ability to sustain themselves as organizations and sustain the
long-term effort it takes to get through projects." Carla Okigwe,
Executive Director, Housing Development Consortium
Back in the mid-1980s, a group of nonprofit leaders had been
meeting for lunch for several years to trade war stories about
their housing development efforts. “They were basically grouch
sessions,” Carla laughs. At that time, the way affordable
housing construction projects were structured and funded by the
City of Seattle was a sore point for local nonprofit
organizations (nonprofits).
In the State of Washington, city governments can’t directly
build and own housing—they need to partner with other entities
to address the housing needs of lower-income residents. To
provide for this, the City of Seattle was giving small operating
grants and parceling out money to nonprofits for affordable
housing construction. Nonprofits were frustrated because the
City would allow for-profit developers to take a 20% profit.
“But they wouldn’t allow nonprofits to take any developer fee
because they felt they were funding them through these small
operating grants—of about $20,000 to $50,000,” Carla recalls.
“That was hardly enough to pay one person to get anything done.”
What the nonprofits were looking for was parity—to be treated
like builders. They wanted to secure more stability as
organizations and to be more like for-profits in the way they
conducted business. “They wanted to gain more autonomy and have
the funding necessary to move quickly and control building
sites, without having to go through an onerous application
process—without all that approval time and waiting,” Carla says.
HDC levels the playing field among developers
One group member seized the initiative by writing a grant
proposal to study how the City was funding housing projects. The
group received a grant of $50,000 to hire a consultant. “The
City said: We realize that things aren’t perfect. It would help
us if you could organize so that you have one voice,” Carla
recalls.
At that time in late 1987, Carla had been consulting with the
Commission, helping us to set up the Low-Income Housing Tax
Credit program. Carla was invited to advise the group and help
get them organized by creating bylaws and filing as a 501(c) (3)
organization. Membership quickly rose to 10 organizations—and
then mushroomed. Right off the bat Carla developed training
programs for members on technical issues impacting nonprofit
housing developers and she tackled the funding parity issue. It
took them about a year, but in the end, HDC negotiated a
developer fee schedule with the City based on the size of a
given project and other key factors.
“People were triumphant,” Carla says. “What that did was give
members the ability to sustain themselves as organizations and
sustain the long-term effort it takes to get through projects.
That was a major change in terms of their financial health.”
This success also helped establish HDC as an organization that
got things accomplished for its members.
When the consortium was officially created in April 1988, to
Carla’s knowledge, there were only three similar organizations
in the country: a housing rehab group in Columbus, Ohio; a
statewide association of community development corporations in
Massachusetts; and a group of nonprofits in Northern California
that ultimately became a conference organizer. But no one had
apparently done what HDC’s members were attempting to do in
terms of organizing to meet the spectrum of affordable housing
needs in their community. In the years to come, Carla and HDC
pretty much wrote their own playbook.
Carla thinks that so many great housing nonprofits sprang up in
this region, “Because there was a big need and the housing
authorities weren’t stepping up to meet it.” Carla points out
that, “The City of Seattle couldn’t field a major development
authority like Portland’s, so the idea of grass roots efforts
became the theme for how our housing was structured—compared to
other places where there are large development authorities that
dominate activities. Our housing authorities were fairly big,
but were basically in the sleeping mode at the time. Unlike
now,” Carla points out, “Now they’re very adept.”
Accomplishments on a statewide level
One of HDC’s most profound early accomplishments was its
involvement in the creation of the Washington Low Income Housing
Congress in 1988, which later evolved into the Washington Low
Income Housing Alliance. “Very early on, we realized that as
housing nonprofits, we needed substantially more money from the
state to fund affordable housing projects,” Carla says. “At that
time, King County did not have a strong record in the state
legislature. Rural legislators would always outvote King County
issues.” During those early years Carla and other members helped
establish the Congress. Carla served as the first Congress
chairperson and also staffed it for about three years. In 1989,
under Carla’s leadership, the Congress hired its first
legislative lobbyist to focus on affordable housing issues.
The next step was to achieve staff support for the Congress. In
1993, Carla and Maureen Howard, who now works for Habitat for
Humanity of Washington State, secured grant funding from the
National Low Income Housing Coalition (NLIHC) to start the
Washington Low Income Housing Network to fill that role.
The Network later merged with the Congress to become the
Alliance, with Carla again serving as the first chair,
continuing HDC’s efforts to strengthen affordable housing at the
state level. In fact, the current director of the Alliance, Ben
Gitenstein, was formerly HDC’s advocacy director. While with HDC
he supported Alliance issues in the state legislature, including
this year’s successful funding increase to $121 million for the
state’s Housing Trust Fund.
You may have to reread the last few paragraphs to get all the
roles and organizations straight, but the message is clear: HDC
recognized that mutual statewide support for affordable housing
programs was the best way to get Seattle and King County’s
low-income housing issues in front of state legislators.
The Bellevue/Olive Apartments
Located in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Seattle, this
housing serves households that earn below 50 to 60% of Seattle's
median income. Built by Housing Resources Group (HRG) in
1995, it is one of 25 affordable properties HRG maintains n the
Seattle area. HRG (then known as Seattle Housing Resources
Group) was a founding member of HDC in 1988.
Over the years, HDC has played a significant role in supporting
important housing initiatives in its local community as well.
HDC has led efforts for the passage of Seattle’s successful
housing levies, including the 2002 Levy that raised $86 million
to produce affordable housing in the city.
“The one thing that makes Washington State really different from
most of country,” Carla emphasizes, “is the amount of
collaboration and mutual support that we have in this state. The
idea is that if we can all get together and help each other, we
can get a lot more done. This is true with government as well.
The government works hand in hand with us: it is not the enemy.
We see ourselves as part of the system, supporting one another.”
Achieving stability
As with any new nonprofit, figuring out how to stay alive
financially was a struggle in the early years. At first, Carla
operated HDC part-time out of her home as a contract employee.
HDC largely depended on a city grant of $25,000 a year, plus
$200 annual dues from members to show their commitment. The
membership continued to work on other ways to get funding to
keep HDC going, including a city grant to work on neighborhood
housing strategies. “That was a really strong collaboration,”
Carla recalls. “Paul Fischburg, working with that group, later
founded the Delridge Neighborhood Development Association.”
Ultimately, it became clear that it was easier for HDC members
to get grants for the housing they produced, which helped pay
for their overhead. In turn, they agreed to pay substantially
higher dues for real services. “We realized that we could not
easily get funding from grants just for general operating
expenses. We were an indirect service organization.” HDC’s
annual dues schedule now varies from $1,000 to almost $6,000 per
member. “Some of our associate members are among our most
active,” Carla says. These include banks, architects, general
contractors, legal and technical consultants, accounting
organizations, and property management firms, among others.
“We have a huge number of associate members,” Carla says.
“Relatively speaking, we have pretty much everyone involved in
nonprofit housing development in one way or another. The City of
Seattle and King County pay dues instead of giving a grant. They
both give us a substantial amount of funding.”
HDC members meet monthly. “If we’re to stay together as a group,
it’s essential to have that constant contact.” HDC uses
“affinity groups” to focus on specific issues of concern to
members. For example, there is currently a utility cost
reduction affinity group that’s negotiating a housing retrofit
program with public utilities for the Seattle area. Members
choose which affinity groups they wish to join.
“Our organization grew so fast because we were doers,” Carla
says. A critical aspect was HDC’s ability to figure out rational
solutions to problems. They gained a reputation for responsible,
thoughtful approaches—and for results. That in turn heightened
members’ buy in. For Carla, that means the members’ personal
investment. “Members started HDC, they helped guide it, they had
a voice at the table. And now that they’re committing large
dues, they want to make sure HDC continues to work for them,”
she says.
Looking ahead
I’ve been particularly impressed by HDC’s efforts to help
members address future affordable housing shortfalls in King
County. One wake-up call was the decreased buying power of
current financial resources. Carla gives the example of how
little additional housing the increase in the Housing Trust Fund
will buy. “Normally we would have said that was a big
success—but we realized that with the cost of concrete and other
materials having gone up so much, all that [increase] did was
cover increased costs for the same number of units. That was a
real eye-opener for a lot of people,” Carla says.
A similar example is that, “The Housing Levy for the City of
Seattle has been roughly the same amount for some time,” she
points out. “When our members were originally producing housing,
we made the assumption that incomes would go up in concert with
costs.” That hasn’t happened.
All of these factors are coalescing into a dire outlook for
HDC’s housing producers. They see that production levels could
drop by as much as 20% in terms of the number of units they can
produce over the next decade, based on their current resources.
According to Carla, King County is going to need 155,000 more
housing units by 2015. A large portion of those units will be
needed for working people who will be priced out of affordable
housing.
Future of the Field
In response, HDC initiated a new process last year called
Future
of the Field. The mission is to engage its members in a
discussion about preparing for the future. The members have
committed to doubling their own housing production. “That means
we have to move up to 4000 units a year—somehow,” Carla says. To
meet the future needs of low-income residents, she and HDC are
asking the hard questions that they hope will lead to solutions:
“How are we going to double that number? We have to become more
efficient in our production—even though we think we’re efficient
already. We have to get more subsidy resources. Where are we
going to find them? To get more resources, we realize we need
even broader community support than we do now. That’s where HDC
is now heading.
“We are trying to figure out how to build more coalitions with
the for-profit development sector to see what can be done to
make a huge dent in that number.” With the right incentives, the
private sector could integrate lower-cost units—and could go a
long way towards achieving the goal of 155,000 units. “So our
other big goal out of this, other than doubling our production,
is building a broader alliance.”
HDC recently held a second
Future of the Field retreat to
continue planning to meet the future head-on. Given their past
record of success, I’m confident Carla and her members will
succeed.
Spokane Low Income Housing Consortium:
Maximizing local housing resources
“It’s all about maximizing local housing resources,” says Cindy
Algeo, Spokane Low Income Housing Consortium’s (SLIHC—pronounced
“Slick”) executive director.
"It's all about maximizing local housing resources... SLIHC
wants to ensure that people can fully utilize the resources that
are available." Cindy Algeo, Executive Director, Spokane Low
Income Housing Consortium
SLIHC has been doing just that since its founding in 1990. Cindy
took on the director’s role two years ago and SLIHC is fortunate
to have a great community of people and organizations committed
to developing, promoting, and supporting affordable housing.
Today, the Consortium has more than 25 nonprofit and public
organizations as members, along with a number of for-profit
associate members who support its housing efforts.
OneStopHousing.org
One recent project, OneStopHousing, illustrates how SLIHC takes
the initiative in the Spokane community. OneStopHousing.org, a
website listing of affordable Spokane County rentals, was
launched by SLIHC in July. “We’ve already had great results,”
Cindy says. “After four months, we have over 2200 rental units
listed, with approximately 80 available immediately.”
At a SLIHC monthly meeting less than two years ago, Arlene
Patton, director of the Spokane HUD office, pointed out a
disconnect: there were many vacancies at Project-based Section 8
complexes, yet many people who were in need of affordable
housing weren’t aware of them. “The knowledge of what was
available was not connecting with demand,” Cindy explains.
“SLIHC wants to ensure that people can fully utilize the
resources that are available.”
Single mom and new homeowner Janette Smith stands in the
kitchen she helped build through SLICH member Community
Frameworks' Self-Help Homeownership Opportunity Program (SHOP).
SLICH's members represent a wide spectrum of affordable
low-income housing developers and supporters in Spokane County.
SLIHC members formed an exploratory committee to research
affordable housing locator products nationwide. They ultimately
settled on a software program called Housing Point, also used by
Portland Metro’s Housingconnections.org. The Consortium’s
thinking was that sharing the same software might make it easier
for other communities in Washington State and the region to
follow suit. The City of Seattle is exploring a similar move,
and other areas of the state are showing interest as well.
“We’ve had over 6,000 searches in the past four months,” Cindy
says. “One site manager told us that most of the people who
contacted her found out about the vacant units through OneStop.”
The Spokane community has pitched in by making free Internet
access available through locations all over Spokane County, from
libraries to HUD kiosks to the Transit Authority and employment
service offices. “It’s been a wonderful partnership. There’s
just been a great response from the community.”
Proactive roles
Here are just a few of the additional roles SLIHC has taken on
during the past year to maximize affordable housing resources in
Spokane County:
Watchdog. SLIHC frequently takes on the role of watchdog to make
sure that local housing support programs are meeting the needs
of nonprofit developers. This year, SLIHC pushed for Spokane
County’s review of its plan for distributing housing money
received from the state under House Bill (HB) 2060, passed
several years ago. The initial plan had been implemented in
2002. SLIHC drafted the agenda for the review and suggested
amendments to the initial plan to make it work better. Almost
all of SLIHC’s suggestions were accepted, including setting a
clear timetable for annual funding rounds so that housing
developers could achieve more certainty for planning and
development.
Catalyst. SLIHC was a catalyst in the creation of the task force
that prepared Spokane County’s Ten Year Plan to end homelessness
as required and funded by HB 2163, passed in 2005.
Organizer. SLIHC has been leading grass roots efforts to secure
new housing through the Department of Defense’s Base Realignment
and Closure (BRAC) activities. Cindy credits SLIHC member Larry
Griffiths, executive director of Salem Arms and Spokane
Community Housing Association, for spearheading these efforts.
Griffiths and SLIHC have been keeping close watch on three
facilities in the Spokane area that are due to be privatized.
The City of Spokane has formed a local redevelopment authority (LRA)
and an LRA task force. “SLIHC has been very proactive. There are
tremendous possibilities here for affordable housing, shelters,
and employment training.”
Innovator. SLIHC was instrumental in ensuring that Spokane
County submitted a competitive grant application under HB 2163
last month to implement better planning and coordination of
services for people exiting local prisons and hospitals. “We
worked with 20 organizations on the grant submission,” says
Cindy. “We want to fine-tune housing plans to help prevent the
cycle of homelessness.”
Partners Jerry Pintler and Linda Harvey were able to buy
their home with the help of the Homeownership Opportunities
program through The Arc of Spokane. The Arc, a long-time
SLICH member, serves people with developmental disabilities and
their families.
SLIHC has truly been successful in bringing people together to
find local housing solutions. Like others involved in affordable
housing, SLIHC members are concerned about an affordability gap
that continues to grow. “At times,” Cindy says, “it feels like
we’re winning battles but losing the war—but we’re still winning
battles. The changes may be incremental, but change is
happening.”
Housing Consortium of Everett and Snohomish County:
Expanding outreach, enhancing visibility
One refreshing aspect of researching this issue of My View has
been seeing how different consortiums have evolved to respond to
the needs of their communities. In the case of the Housing
Consortium of Everett and Snohomish County (HCESC), advocacy and
education play a significant role; members are focused on
providing strategic leadership in the formation of
housing-friendly policies and programs.
June Robinson, Executive Director
Housing Consortium of Everett and Snohomish County
June Robinson, the second executive director of HCESC, has been
on the job for just four months, but she’s been learning the
ropes quickly. “Affordable housing is a new area for me,” she
says. “My background has been in public and community health
But,” she points out, “the two have much in common with
affordable housing. It’s hardly a stretch to think of affordable
housing as a critical aspect of the health of a community.”
HCESC emerged from an Everett-area initiative called Healthy
Communities, which got its start in the late 1990s. Its
precursor organization, the Housing Stakeholders Group, built a
great track record, developing a countywide Affordable Housing
Strategic Plan, sponsoring housing forums, advocating for
progressive policies, and helping build public support for
funding the Snohomish County Housing Trust Fund.
Bringing people to the table
June credits HCESC’s quarterly Affordable Housing Breakfast
Forums the group sponsors in Everett with establishing an
effective community conversation on the topic of affordable
housing. “The breakfasts have been very successful at attracting
a wide range of folks to the table. This includes a mix of
elected officials from the cities, state legislators, county
council members, and people from nonprofits—both housing and
other human service organizations that are concerned about
affordable housing. Depending on the topic, we also get
realtors, bankers, and other for-profits who are impacted by
housing concerns.”
Looking forward, June says HCESC wants to get all the Snohomish
County cities more involved in the Consortium and in affordable
housing efforts in general. “The City of Everett has been
involved from the beginning, but we’d like to reach out beyond
Everett, to provide education and information, determine what
other cities want and need in order to help them become more
amenable to affordable housing,” she says. Most recently HCESC
has been reaching out to the smaller cities in Snohomish County
to foster a dialogue with elected officials, planners, and
managers on how HCESC can help them better address their
affordable housing needs.
“There are tools, like zoning, that cities can use to
incentivize housing efforts,” she continues. “That is certainly
an area we want to work on. Our plan is to reach out to the
staff people, the city planners, the city council members, the
mayors. How can we as a consortium support them and provide
assistance?” In the works is a questionnaire structured to
ascertain the level of interest in affordable housing, and what
kinds of structural incentives are already in place.
HCESC is fortunate to have a strong membership, June says.
Virtually all of the nonprofit housing developers that work in
Snohomish County are members, as well as the Everett and
Snohomish County Housing Authorities, and a strong roster of
associate members. The board, June reports, “is a very active
group. They’re my more immediate contact for direction, input,
and ideas. And there’s lots of room for members to set the
agenda.”
June acknowledges that visibility and public awareness of
affordable housing concerns are critical to increasing support
for HCESC’s initiatives. “We as an organization are talking
about a public education campaign. I know other housing groups
around the state are discussing the same thing—the need for more
broad-based education campaigns that speak to both elected
officials and the general public about affordable housing needs
and what that means for us as a community. Everyone knows that
housing is expensive, but it’s difficult, if you’re not involved
with it every day, to understand the magnitude of the housing
issues we face. We’re hoping to partner with other organizations
in this.”
Tacoma/Pierce County Affordable Housing Consortium: Cross currents in the downtown core
The City of Tacoma presents some unusual challenges for
affordable housing advocates. Unlike neighboring high-priced
Seattle, Tacoma, with so much visible urban blight—including
vacant buildings and run-down tenements—had too much low-cost
housing in the past. But it wasn’t the kind of safe, attractive, healthy
affordable housing that advocates strive to create. Tacoma’s
downtown core has been off limits to new low-income housing
projects since 1997, and the city council has had a moratorium
on special needs housing in place since May 2005. Their idea was
to increase livability and safety, which in turn would encourage
investment.
Tacoma’s renaissance
In general, the strategy has been successful. Tacoma’s downtown
has been reviving for a number of years, led by the new Art
Museum and the Museum of Glass, and the new University of
Washington campus in Tacoma. Tacoma is also seeing new
businesses and condominiums locate downtown. Urban renewal is
definitely taking hold. But the special needs populations have
not gone away.
“In Tacoma, the critical need is for more decent affordable
housing. We bring stakeholders together to create a unified
voice on housing policies at various levels of government.”
Connie Brown, Executive Director, Tacoma/Pierce County
Affordable Housing Consortium
That is the focus of the Tacoma/Pierce County Affordable Housing
Consortium. As the new executive director Connie Brown explains,
“In Tacoma, the critical need is for more decent affordable
housing. We bring stakeholders together to create a unified
voice on housing policies at various levels of government.”
The organization had its beginnings in a small group of
nonprofit housing developers that started meeting in 2001. The
group grew steadily and incorporated in 2003. They
achieved 501(c)(3) status in 2006 and hired Connie as executive
director in May.
Most recently, Connie served as executive director of the YWCA
of Pierce County. She’s also worked as a remodeling contractor
and a marketer at US West. “I do bring different skills,” says
Connie. “I have an MBA in finance and accounting, but I’ve also
swung a hammer.”
Keeping members informed
Connie says her main function at the Consortium is to “support
our members with information about developments in the community
and government proceedings. It’s very hard for people to keep up
on their own.” The group consists of 16 core members who are
nonprofit housing developers, 12 affiliates and six financial
institutions. What they share is a desire to create more
affordable housing in a healthy environment.
To achieve its goals, the Consortium has been opening channels
of communication with all of the stakeholders. They’ve been
talking with builders to determine what incentives can result in
workable cost models. They’ve also been talking to policymakers
in the city and on the county level. “Everyone understands that
affordable housing needs to be produced,” says Connie. “We’ve
spoken to all the members of the City Council individually.
We’ve testified at hearings. Basically, we find them interested
and motivated to find solutions.”
Making the case for affordable housing
The consortium’s first effort is to bring some new low-income
housing to Tacoma. Connie explains that the 1997
Miller Amendment, which prohibited funding for low-income
projects in the downtown core, does have a provision that permits exceptions on a
case-by-case basis. “Developers and funders view it as a blanket
prohibition; no one has gone to the City Council for an
exemption.”
The Consortium
is working with local government and community groups to come up with long-range solutions.
The moratorium on special-needs housing expired in early
November as some land use regulation changes were approved by
the city council.
Mixed-income solutions
One high-profile project in Tacoma involves the Winthrop Hotel, which is located in
the downtown theater district. Since the 1970s, it has served as
home to 170 Section 8 tenants. However, it is sorely in need of
a major overhaul. According to Connie, a developer is interested
in renovating the current building into an upscale
hotel and condos. Part of the plan is to relocate the tenants to a
new facility—or facilities. HUD would prefer a simple
one-for-one replacement, but the Consortium believes the tenants
would be better served in three or four sites. “That would give
people more choice,” says Connie. “They could live in a more
mixed-income environment, with less concentration, better
security and an overall higher quality of life.”
The Consortium also advocates affordable housing development that
Connie describes as “decent, safe housing near schools,
shopping, and public transportation, which can help low-income
people meet their financial goals—and not have a long commute
for jobs, shopping, and school.”
Affordable Housing NOW wins a big victory in Portland, Oregon
They’re celebrating in Portland. Sam Chase, Executive Director
of the Community Development Network (CDN), was truly in high
spirits when he told me that they had just achieved “one of our
most historic victories in terms of generating resources for
housing.”
Sam Chase, Executive Director
Community Development Network
CDN is roughly Portland’s equivalent of HDC. But, as you’ve no
doubt realized by now, things don’t work the same everywhere in
the West. Oregon has Urban Renewal District monies
available—otherwise known as Tax Increment Financing or TIF—which
allows the Portland City Council to access tax revenues
collected in designated districts for redevelopment purposes.
Last month, the City Council finally said yes to a request for
an additional $25 million per year from TIF monies for
affordable housing. Sam was kind enough to explain in detail how
this was achieved.
Building the coalition
The Affordable Housing NOW (AHN) coalition came together about
three or four years ago. Sam recalls discussions with
representatives of like-minded groups, which were focused on
different issues, such as the environment, tenants’ rights, and
so on. The group made a strategic decision to focus on
generating resources for affordable housing. They examined all
of the sources for revenues, including real estate transfer
taxes, document stamp fees, linkage fees, and urban renewal
monies. Then they started organizing.
The first step was forming a core group to coordinate the
effort. This included CDN, the Coalition for a Livable Future,
the City Club of Portland and the Community Alliance of Tenants.
Members of these groups wrote grant applications that procured
initial funding for early administrative efforts.
Next, AHN organized community forums to identify priorities and
broaden the base of support. The forums clearly pinpointed
people at the lowest income levels as the highest priority. Says
Sam, “We used that information to build our agenda. We
articulated our ideas about solutions and did a series of
outreach programs to a broad range of community organizations
and asked them to sign on to our agenda.” This resulted in
endorsements from 40 organizations and hundreds of individuals.
The political process
Although Portland generally has a reputation for being
supportive of social needs, Sam knew that AHN still had a
formidable task. “Even with sympathetic ears on the City
Council, it’s another story when you’re trying to get an actual
dollar commitment. Plus, the scale that we wanted to reach—that
can be hard on the local level.”
The solution was a massive postcard campaign. AHN created
postcards and encouraged supporters to send them to City Council
members. The high volume of mail translated into a tangible show
of the community’s support for affordable housing. AHN also
hosted forums with candidates in conjunction with local
elections. “We asked them if they supported our agenda, and got
a great response.”
"There were 30 pieces to the puzzle to match the 30% set
aside of urban renewal funds we were pushing for and the $30
million in the general funds request.” Sam Chase,
Executive Director, Community Development Network
Putting the Pieces Together
This is the picture of affordable housing, created by the
Affordable Housing NOW coalition, that Portland City Council
members assembled after the delivery of 30 individual pieces.
Finally, Sam says a key part of the strategy was the decision
not to specify where the resources should come from. AHN
consistently presented its entire range of funding options, but
declined to single-out any of them. This allowed the elected
officials to take ownership of the eventual decision.
Once the City Council decided to focus on the TIF solution, AHN
launched an innovative “Puzzle” campaign to show their support.
As Sam explains, “We had different delegations go to the Council
each week throughout the spring to tell their stories and give
one more piece of the puzzle. They timed the visits to take
place just before the weekly budget meetings where the Council
would decide on housing. There were 30 pieces to the puzzle to
match the 30% set aside of urban renewal funds we were pushing
for and the $30 million in the general funds request.”
On October 18, 2006, the City Council voted to approve the 30%
urban renewal set aside, with the funds earmarked for affordable
housing. It’s a textbook case of how a coalition can work with
elected officials to create an outcome that truly benefits
everyone in the community.
On advocacy and organizing—and PCAHN and HTFs
A conversation with Mary Brooks of the Center for Community
Change
The Pacific Coast Affordable Housing Network (PCAHN—pronounced
Pecan) has been in existence for about two years. The brainchild
of several of the most adept and effective housing development
consortiums on the West Coast, it’s a consortium of consortiums.
PCAHN, which currently numbers about 18 consortiums in
California, Oregon, and Washington, is still wrestling with
fine-tuning the challenges that most new organizations face,
including how to best meet the needs of its members and finding
financial support.
As Carla Okigwe tells it, the idea for PCAHN came up at a
national conference for community development leaders. PCAHN’s
founders wanted to establish a forum to discuss gaining peer
support to sustain their organizations, how to deal with
conflict, how to keep a group together, and how to advocate
effectively. “They called me up and we decided to have a
planning group of all the coalitions up and down the West Coast
to see if we could figure out the commonalities,” says Carla.
"Bringing the advocacy and organizing elements together has
been a challenge. The efforts that can bring them together are
successful. And that’s the challenge of my work...
Nationally, we need to figure out how to call on organizations
that are really effective—and do that in a way that builds the
influence and power that they can have locally."
Mary
Brooks, Director, Housing Trust Fund Project Center for
Community Change
The fledgling group first met in Oakland, California in 2004 for
an initial planning meeting; the members brought in Mary Brooks
of the Center for Community Change (CCC) to advise them. Founded
in 1968, CCC is a national organization dedicated to helping
community organizations become more effective. Mary has worked
in affordable housing for three decades, and founded CCC’s
Housing Trust Fund (HTF) Project in 1986.
Bringing advocacy and organizing elements together
Mary’s work in advising HTF campaigns around the country has
been phenomenal. When she first started the Project, there were
just a handful of HTFs in the U.S. Now there are some 400 in
cities, counties, and states nationwide. I was interested in
hearing her perspective on PCAHN and its efforts to organize and
make the transition from a great idea to a great tool for its
members and their causes; our conversation also touched on her
work in HTF advocacy and technical assistance.
“The effort of PCAHN was fascinating to me and also to the
Center for Community Change,” Mary says. “There’s a huge amount
of interest in both advocacy work and organizing. They’re seen a
bit differently, of course. With organizing, you’re engaging
grass roots groups. And then advocacy works on a different level
when the organizations are involved. Frankly, with the
consortiums that are part of PCAHN, all of them have a foot in
both areas. They were interested in how to be more effective on
both levels. Throughout the country, at least with HTF work and
I would say in affordable housing altogether—that’s a tension
that exists.”
In Mary’s experience with HTF campaigns, virtually all are a
product of collaborations or coalition efforts. Some are brought
together to create a HTF; sometimes they have a broader agenda.
“But bringing the advocacy and organizing elements together has
been a challenge,” she states. “The efforts that can bring them
together are successful. And that’s the challenge of my work.
“With HTFs, we’re trying to get a dedicated source of public
funds. Even if a legislator is committed to doing something
about affordable housing, it is a very difficult position to put
them in, to take scarce public resources and commit them to
affordable housing. So they need to hear that it’s the right
thing to do. And frankly, the best way to hear that is from the
voters.”
The grass roots are what brings that element to a campaign, Mary
emphasizes. They communicate the message that they have members
and constituencies that are impacted by their inability to find
acceptable affordable housing. “That gives those elected
officials the kind of grounding they need to make those
decisions.”
Striking a balance
One of the key topics brought forward at that first PCAHN
meeting was how to balance the local community needs and relate
them effectively to a national agenda. “That was a big part of
the conversation,” Mary says. “Nationally, we need to figure out
how to call on organizations that are really effective—and do
that in a way that builds the influence and power that they can
have locally.”
Prioritizing the needs of its various constituencies is a
concern that PCAHN members are still struggling with after their
first three meetings. What they’re finding, says Carla, is that
they’re confronting similar issues to those they face as
‘individual’ consortiums. “Members want PCAHN to happen, but if
we decide that there’s value to it, we’re going to have to get
some kind of staffing. Mainly what we’ve been doing these first
meetings is deciding what would make sense for all of us.”
There’s a clear difference: some organizations are relatively
new or have a recent change in leadership. With the more
experienced directors, on the other hand, the desire is to delve
into broader advocacy issues vs. more nuts-and-bolts peer
support.
Mary Brooks points out that all three West Coast states have
completely different histories and environments in terms of
their strides towards achieving affordable, decent housing for
their residents. PCAHN, she asserts, has some of the top housing
advocacy groups in the country as members. In other words, this
is an organization to watch.
* * * * *
As an aside, I was pleased to hear Mary’s perspective regarding
Washington State’s strides to address affordable housing on a
statewide level. “Washington State has one of the best HTFs in
the country,” she told me. “And [House Bill] 2163 just set
Washington State apart even more, by showing that it really
could work in partnership with its counties. Pennsylvania did it
first, but they did it differently. They had legislation that
enabled counties to increase their document recording fees by a
vote of the county commissioners. But it wasn’t quite the same
thing that Washington did. People around the country are really
looking at 2163 as a model.”
NEWSLETTER ARCHIVE
About Us
The Washington State Housing Finance Commission is a self-supporting
agency that provides below-market financing to buy, build or
preserve affordable housing and nonprofit capital facilities. The
Commission builds partnerships with the private sector to raise
capital needed to further these social and economic objectives at no
cost to the taxpayers of Washington State. For more
information about the Commission and its work, visit
www.wshfc.org or call
206-464-7139 or 1-800-767-HOME (4663) toll free in Washington State. |
