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

About POAH --Founded in Dedicated solely to preservation --Own and manage 4921 homes in 8 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 Replacing with new construction is unrealistic: costs, zoning, NIMBY-ism

Why Preserve? --The ‘housing wage’ is nearly $18 per hour; the minimum wage is $ 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 Preservation FINANCING --complex, “one off” transactions --inadequate and unpredictable funding to enable financing REGULATION --outmoded and balky regulations and policies INCENTIVES --tax burdens on sellers INFORMATION --lack of timely information about properties in jeopardy --insufficient sharing of successful strategies

Affordable Housing and Neighborhood Preservation Patricia Belden, Manager of Development Preservation of Affordable Housing, Inc. (POAH) 40 Court Street Boston MA Thank you very much.