Affordable Housing and Neighborhood PreservationPatricia Belden, Manager of DevelopmentPreservation of Affordable Housing, Inc. (POAH)September 4, 2008NALCAB Annual Conference 2008San Francisco, CA

About POAH--Founded in 2001--Dedicated solely to preservation--Own and manage 4921 homes in8 states and the District of Columbia--House10,000 residents including working families, elders and the disabled--Typical resident earns 30% to 50% of area median income

What is “Preservation”?

--Between 1965 & 1990, $60 billion tax dollars were invested to build affordable housing--Developers were offered below-market interest rates in return for promising to keep rents affordable--Agreements are now expiring. NYC alone lost 2,000 apartments between 2003 and 2005--Replacing with new construction is unrealistic: costs, zoning, NIMBY-ism

Why Preserve?--The ‘housing wage’ is nearly $18 per hour; the minimum wage is $7.25--There are 6.2 million affordable apartments and 9 million households who need to rent them--Abandoning this asset is fiduciarily irresponsible and environmentally wasteful--Preservation costs 1/3 to 1/2 less than new construction

Why Rental Housing?--”American Dream” is to own, but on any given day, 34 million renter families in the US--Some are in transition (job, health, divorce)--Some are saving to buy--Some are seniors on fixed incomes or low-wage workers without other choices--These are the residents in POAH homes

Why Not CDCs or Statewide Organizations?--CDCs and statewide organizations have been the backbone of the industry for three decades--POAH is an add-on to their work--Uses transactions to push housing policy, especially at the federal level, and also to expand best practices among states

Opportunities for Preservation--existing supply is solid asset deserving protection--cadre of talented, committed long-term owners --increasingly creative state agency partners--enthusiastic local government partners--HUD experience with deal oriented decisions--new legislation, new Congress, new Administration

Barriers to PreservationFINANCING--complex, “one off” transactions --inadequate and unpredictable funding to enable financingREGULATION--outmoded and balky regulations and policiesINCENTIVES--tax burdens on sellersINFORMATION--lack of timely information about properties in jeopardy--insufficient sharing of successful strategies

Affordable Housing and Neighborhood PreservationPatricia Belden, Manager of DevelopmentPreservation of Affordable Housing, Inc. (POAH)40 Court StreetBoston MA 02108617.261.9898 www.poah.org

Thank you very much.