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Home My WebLink About12-18-23 Public Comment - H. Grenier - Public Housing Authority (PHA)From:Jennifer Madgic To:Agenda Subject:]Public Housing Authority (PHA) Date:Wednesday, December 13, 2023 10:30:57 AM Attachments:PHA key highlights nov 2023.pdf From: Heather Grenier <hgrenier@thehrdc.org> Sent: Tuesday, December 12, 2023 10:57 AM To: Cyndy Andrus <CAndrus@BOZEMAN.NET>; Jennifer Madgic <jmadgic@BOZEMAN.NET>; Christopher Coburn <ccoburn@BOZEMAN.NET>; Terry Cunningham <TCunningham@BOZEMAN.NET>; Douglas Fischer <dfischer@BOZEMAN.NET> Cc: Jeff Mihelich <jmihelich@BOZEMAN.NET>; Kira Peters <kpeters@BOZEMAN.NET> Subject: [EXTERNAL]Public Housing Authority (PHA) CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Do not click links or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and know the content is safe. Good Morning Mayor & Commissioners, Thank you for the opportunity to provide comments regarding the Public Hearing and work session on a petition to establish a municipal housing authority. In addition to being a Community Action Agency, HRDC is a certified Community Housing Development Organization. Our work overlaps significantly with the programs and projects of many PHA’s across Montana and the country. We have developed and/or preserved more than $150 million in homes that Montanans who live and work here can afford, and in every case except one, we have preserved that affordability in perpetuity. Regardless of today’s outcome, HRDC will continue to create, steward, and permanently preserve homes through the leadership and accountability of our Board of Directors and varied financing and funding partners. As our community has grown and changed, we aim to continuously evaluate how new tools or housing innovations may benefit residents of the region. This growth is what prompted our first housing development in partnership with the City of Bozeman in the mid 90's. Thisdevelopment brought the first Community Land Trust to the State of Montana, a pocket neighborhood development on North 24th - in response to the housing needs of our firstresponders. We appreciate this process and community efforts to surface additional resources and approaches to addressing community housing needs. The past several months have been an excellent learning opportunity to dive into the details of what new resources establishing an MHA could create. HRDC participated in the Regional Housing Coalition’s effort to understand the benefits of launching a public housing authority for the region. This involved conversations with the federal Housing and Urban Development office, existing public housing authorities in the state, new nonprofit organizations recently developed as an extension of existing public housing authorities in the state, the local and state bond counsel, and the Montgomery County Public Housing Authority in Maryland, the home of the model we are exploring. This process has highlighted examples of strategies being pursued by organizations in other parts of the county that are led by MHA's, we learned that there are ways to replicate some of those strategies locally and many approaches that are unfortunately not currently legal in Montana’s regulatory environment regardless of the operating agency; in most cases operating these programs is not contingent on being a MHA. While separately, the components that the petitioners seek to address through an MHA are appealing, we do not see any direct correlation between the creation of the PHA and the ability to bring any new solutions to our community outside of pulling on the already scarce resources that exist to address the housing crisis facing our community. This is a challenging decision before you today; we know our community is deeply impacted by the lack of affordable housing for families living and working in Bozeman, and any new tools should be fully considered. However, after recent exploration, we haveconcerns an MHA would divert funding that could be used to create and preserve homes today without ensuring new resources in the community in the short or long term. A persistent theme in every conversation in our exploration has been: if you have an organization or organizations locally with the capacity to do this work, invest in them to help them do more, faster. This will provide the most expedient pathway to new development. In our valley, we have the Big Sky Community Housing Trust, Headwaters Community Housing Trust, HRDC, Family Promise, Habitat for Humanity and others working to tackle this very issue. Providing these and other organizations with additional financing tools will help set in motion the work of our regional housing coalition and housing impact fund. It is important to note that while favorable financing will provide a layer of certainty and a revolving line of credit, it will not fill the funding gaps that all potential developments are facing. To truly create homes that are affordable for the people that power thiscommunity, we need subsidies. An additional persistent theme includes one that hopes to garner momentum from this local movement to apply pressure on the state legislature to enact real solutions for everycommunity in the state to advance this work. Therein lies our biggest collective obstacle in facilitating real change. HRDC believes that this new energy to the housing issue can becapitalized to have positive and lasting impacts on how we work collaboratively as a community, hold each other accountable, and pool resources to leverage local, state, andfederal funding more effectively. When evaluating this proposal, we urge you to please consider if this pathway helps reach the City's goal of “sustainable and lasting housing options for underserved individuals and families” or if alternative investments in proven solutions will advance this goal more effectively and efficiently. While we do not see a direct need or benefit to creating a Municipal Housing Authority, we do see a direct need and benefit to invest more in and create new funding opportunities toaddress our housing needs. If the city determines that creating a Municipal Housing Authority is one of these investments, HRDC will support this entity as we have supportedthe development of many of our other local housing partners. I am attaching the key highlights from the November 2023 Regional Housing Coalition meeting regarding this exploration process for your reference. Sincerely, Heather Grenier pronouns: she/her/hersPresident/CEO HRDC32 S Tracy Avenue | Bozeman, MT 59715 121 S 2nd Street | Livingston, MT 59047www.thehrdc.org PHA – Key Highlights from Regional Housing Coalition Subcommittee 1. Need for state funding – the heads of the Missoula and Helena Housing Authrority argued that the State should provide $100m annually for affordable housing development, either through grants or tax incentives. They stressed that Montana is one of the few states that doesn’t provide such funding. 2. Purpose of Housing Authorities – PHA’s were created as a mechanism to receive federal funds specifically for deeply affordable housing development/ownership, and that these funds no longer exist. Governmental PHA’s are less cost effective than nonprofit PHA’s, are eligible for fewer funding options, and do not have special powers to initiate bonds that either Gallatin County or City of Bozeman do not already have. 3. Federal Trends – the Federal government has tended away from public housing ownership (e.g. funding reductions in the 80’s and the Faircloth Amendment of 1999) 4. Vision of Social Housing – the petitioners hope for a PHA is to have a transparent mechanism by which housing is publicly owned and rented to the missing middle: 80-120% AMI. 5. State limitations on public housing ownership – Nathan Bilyeu indicated that the State of MT has placed statutory income limitations on PHA property ownership. PHA’s are only allowed to own property that is deeply affordable. 6. Local bonding – voter approval is needed for most housing bond options currently available locally, including any bonds through a PHA. However, there is a potential for using a revenue bond as an enterprise fund similar to what is used for the creation of water treatment plants. What is needed is a bank willing to take on the security without any tax backing. Further exploration is needed here.