A federal official was in Savannah Thursday to announce awards in an innovative national program to preserve public housing “at no cost to the taxpayer.”
The Obama Administration program, Rental Assistance Demonstration, is designed to preserve tens of thousands of the nation’s public housing properties and enhance affordable housing through a series of public-private partnerships, said Shaun Donovan, secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development. He spoke to a group gathered in a steady drizzle outside of Fred Wessels Homes on East Broad Street.
Earline Wesley Davis, director of the Housing Authority of Savannah, said four awards announced for Savannah will allow for development of 249 units in Wessels and three sister public housing neighborhoods – 100 units in Blackshear Homes, 313 units in Yamacraw Village and 210 units in Stillwell Towers for the elderly and disabled for a total of 872 units.
The program is a limited demonstration, and participation is voluntary. She pointed to already completed mixed-income developments at Ashleigh Midtown and Sustainable Fellwood as examples of what the program will look like.
“We’re going to do this even better,” she promised.
She said the local authority will spend the next 12 months determining exactly how to proceed in the four impacted neighborhoods.
Savannah Mayor Edna Jackson said the new vision will “make great things happen in this community.”
“It is about housing. … decent housing throughout this community.”
The program will create $650 million in private investments in public housing and create jobs, Donovan said.
“This is smart government,” he said, calling it “21st Century funding” that will allow public housing to compete for tax-credit and private financing that formerly was not available.
He said he expects construction to begin this summer on some of the projects.
In some cases it will be energy retro-fitting of existing sites, in some demolition and rebuilding and in others moving funding from one development to a neighboring development not possible earlier.
The program will allow public housing agencies to convert their present assistance to long-term project-based Section 8 contracts, freeing them up to seek innovation solutions freed from restraints in public housing.
Nationally, HUD officials say that despite federal investment in development and maintenance the number of affordable housing units is declining at a rate of 10,000 a year.
In the near term, the program is expected to preserve more than 13,000 units of affordable subsidized housing and generate more than $650 million in private capital.
HUD has awarded 112 initial communities to 68 public housing authorities to allow them to seek private financing.