1. 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

2. About POAH --Founded in 2001 --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

3. 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

4. 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

5. 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

6. 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

7. 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

8. 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

9. Affordable Housing and Neighborhood Preservation Patricia Belden, Manager of Development Preservation of Affordable Housing, Inc. (POAH) 40 Court Street Boston MA 02108 617.261.9898 www.poah.org Thank you very much.