ARP: Kansas City MO, Homelessness and Affordable Housing Solutions for Vulnerable Residents

Mayor Quinton Lucas, with the support of the City Council, allocated more than $15 million from the American Rescue Plan to address the dual issues of homelessness and affordable housing. An additional $12.5 million has been set aside for the City’s Housing Trust Fund to provide affordable housing, paying special attention to special needs housing for families, seniors, and vulnerable residents. According to the mayor’s office, the ARP funding represents half of the city’s $25 million investment in the Housing Trust Fund, which will help the city serve hundreds of residents.

Update

Having already set aside $12.5 million in the city’s Housing Trust Fund, Mayor Quinton Lucas introduced an ordinance in July that appropriated the first $8 million in funding to support more than 450 affordable homes. Fourteen projects were selected to receive funding, including rehabilitation projects that will provide units specifically for seniors and people with disabilities. Lucas helped establish the Housing Trust Fund while serving on the City Council and, as Mayor, has overseen the first significant investments in the program that will serve as a long-term dedicated funding source moving forward.

Reforming Zoning and Land Use in Municipalities

This week, NewDEAL Leader Speaker of the Maine House Ryan Fecteau is championing a new effort to combat the state’s affordable housing shortage through ending zoning regulations. Among other provisions, his bill would require localities to let private property owners build up to four housing units on their land, rather than restricting them to single-family homes. Fecteau’s goal is to not only quadruple the number of new affordable housing units built in Maine each year from 250 units to 1,000, but also ensure that those affordable housing developments will remain affordable for the next 30 years. Read more about Speaker Fecteau’s bill, which has wide bipartisan support. And for more on solutions for the housing crisis, register to join experts and NewDEAL Leaders for our March 16 virtual event “Implementing the Recovery: Improving Access to Affordable Housing”.

Novel Strategy to Address Mental Health and Homelessness

This week, Santa Cruz County, CA Supervisors, including NewDEAL Leader Ryan Coonerty, unanimously approved a new strategy for addressing mental illness among homeless individuals in the county. The “Mental Health Services Act Innovation Plan” aims to enroll approximately 600 people experiencing homelessness. The program will send field teams to meet participants where they are and provide clinical and case management services to both address mental health concerns and help transition participants into permanent housing. The program will help the County plot a permanent response that could serve as a model for other localities. Read more here.

New Program Boosts First-Time Homebuyers

Homeownership is vital to building a long-term, stable economic foundation, yet rising prices and stagnating wages have made homeownership unattainable for many young people. On Wednesday, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer signed NewDEAL Leader Michigan Rep. Mari Manoogian’s legislation to establish the state’s First-Time Home Buyers Savings Program. The new program will allow residents to open special savings accounts to save for and eventually purchase single-family homes. Contributions and withdrawals from the accounts will be tax-exempt. “Homeownership is a hallmark of the American Dream,” said Rep. Manoogian. “This new program will put young people and new families on the pathway to success and will help our state retain its best and brightest…” Read more about the legislation here.

2021 Ideas Challenge Finalists

The NewDEAL is pleased to announce the finalists from this year’s Ideas Challenge, our biennial policy competition highlighting innovative policy solutions from NewDEAL Leaders across the nation. Their ideas would reimagine the social safety net, create good jobs, expand education opportunities, build more sustainable communities, and strengthen our democracy. This year’s Challenge came at an especially important time to identify best practices, as Leaders grapple with the work of rebuilding and recovery in the wake of the pandemic, and have a unique opportunity to act with federal funds from the American Rescue Plan. Winners in each of five categories will be announced next week during our 11th Annual Leaders Conference, on Thursday, November 18, and be featured in Governing Magazine. Join us on social media to celebrate these extraordinary ideas, and click here to read details on the finalists in all five categories!

ALOHA Homes: Affordable, Locally Owned Homes for All

What’s the Problem?

My father, an immigrant from China, worked one state job.  He was able to buy a house, put my brother and me through private school, put me through private college and graduate school, buy investment property, and retire comfortably.

Since then, Hawaii has developed a severe housing shortage.  About 11,000 students graduate annually from Hawaii public schools.  Only 2,000 homes are built annually.  Because of this structural undersupply, the median home price in three of the four counties now exceeds $1 million, and the state has lost population for 4 straight years.  Hawaii has the country’s highest percentage of people working multiple jobs and both parents working.  For young people today, it is no longer possible to buy a home, provide for one’s family, and enjoy retirement.  The housing shortage is the principal obstacle to fulfilling the basic progressive promise, “One job should be enough.”

 

What’s the Solution?

Singapore is an island less than half the size of Oahu, but with over five times the population.  It houses over 80 percent of its population in high quality, well maintained public housing that is available to all citizens for only $180,000 on average for a new three bedroom unit.  Even the President of Singapore lived in public housing before moving into the Presidential Palace.

ALOHA Homes (Affordable, Locally Owned Homes for All) adapts the Singaporean public housing model to Hawaii’s unique needs.  It would provide new, unsubsidized homes to Hawaii residents who would be owner-occupants and own no other real property for below market prices.  By building high density homes on state-owned parcels near rail stations, the state can house its future generations without developing agricultural, conservation or otherwise undeveloped land; without adding to the traffic on our roads; and create walkable, livable, safe neighborhoods.

thumbnail

Pallet Shelter Homes

Problem

 We have been addressing chronic homelessness for many years and have many outreach programs and interventions in place, but the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated conditions and forced more individuals onto the street. Many of the people living outside are struggling with some combination of addiction, mental and behavioral health challenges. Prior to the pandemic, there was a lack of sufficient emergency shelter and treatment beds. With the increase that we are seeing throughout our communities, this lack of beds to place individuals experiencing homelessness has become a crisis. Having these residents continue to live outside is not a safe, compassionate, or productive option for them, nor a viable option for our communities.

 

Solution

The vast majority of individuals emerging need some form of support to ensure their success, which includes short-term housing. Rapid-response Pallet Shelters can be assembled in under an hour and allow for the creation of a short-term housing community. This community also includes on-site case management and support services to help residents find stability, consider their recovery, and services and work towards a more suitable permanent housing solution.

thumbnail

Keys to Equity: Building ADUs for Oakland

Problems

 Oakland is experiencing a housing affordability and displacement crisis. Over the past decade, rents have increased 72 percent while incomes of Black Oaklanders have decreased by four percent. Black households face a high risk of displacement. 63 percent of Black renters and 45 percent of Black homeowners are considered cost-burdened, the highest of any group. Since 1990, the city’s Black population has decreased by 44 percent.

Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs) — smaller homes on properties containing a larger, primary house — are an opportunity to provide affordable housing while building homeowner wealth. ADUs typically rent at below-market rates, are cheaper to build, can provide rental income for homeowners, increase property values, provide flexible living arrangements for owners and families, and can help stabilize communities experiencing gentrification. Black Oaklanders would benefit from ADUs but existing structural inequities, including disparities in wealth and access to capital, limit opportunities for ADU development among Black households. 

Solutions

Keys to Equity is an initiative of the City of Oakland, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, Richmond Neighborhood Housing Services and Self-Help Federal Credit Union to develop affordable homes and increase wealth for Black homeowners in Oakland by facilitating the development of ADUs. The program provides one-on-one project management services to homeowners, educational resources, complimentary ADU designs, permit streamlining, access to innovative financing products and a discounted construction process with a pre-selected general contractor. Although anyone can apply to the program, community-based program partners will conduct outreach efforts to target lower and middle-income Black homeowners.

The program’s goals are to (1) produce more housing that is affordable, (2) build wealth for Black homeowners, (3) stabilize communities at risk of gentrification and displacement and (4) create a scalable model by proving the efficacy and impact of ADU financing and development.     

 

thumbnail

Teachers Rooted in Oakland — increasing recruitment and retention of teachers of color by addressing the cost of housing/cost of living

Problem

In Oakland, 78% of the hard-to-staff specialized teachers, including STEM and SpEd, believe they may need to leave teaching because of the lack of affordable housing; this number is even higher for teachers of color. Our students — who are predominantly students of color — then suffer from major racial disparities in outcomes of academic performance. 

Solution

Our mission is to advance educational equity by addressing the cost of living and providing affordable housing to increase the recruitment & retention of highly skilled and committed Black, Latinx, and other teachers of color. We do this by providing affordable housing or housing stipends to incoming teacher residents (research shows teachers trained through residency models stay longer and are more effective) during their residency year and then supporting with guaranteed income stipends for the following 4 years, as long as they continue teaching in the school district.

 

Funding Fair Housing for All

The Philadelphia City Council passed legislation introduced by NewDEAL Leader Councilmember Derek Green to support affordable housing in the city budget, providing roughly $25 million in automatic funding for the Housing Trust Fund annually. The Trust Fund creates affordable and accessible housing projects for low-income and disabled Philadelphia residents. “We have witnessed the devastating role that a lack of accessible, affordable housing plays in the lives of many of our most vulnerable and at-risk citizens like our seniors and members of the disability community,” said Green. Learn more details about this major step forward for affordable housing, which will appear on November 2 ballots for voter approval.

Subscribe

Recent News

State Official: 1864 abortion ban gives Arizona ‘black eye’

The nonprofit NewDEAL—short for Developing Exceptional American Leaders, and reminiscent of the expansion of progressive...
LEARN MORE

State and local leaders from across the nation shine spotlight on Phoenix’s vitality

Four years ago, Phoenix and the nation faced a global pandemic that we had not...
LEARN MORE

New Poll: Freedom and Democracy Key to Vote Choice in 2024

New Poll find freedom and democracy will be key to voters choices in 2024
LEARN MORE

NewDEAL Statement on Arizona Supreme Court Decision: One More Step in Stripping Away Rights of Millions of Women

Statement from NewDEAL CEO on Arizona Supreme Court Decision
LEARN MORE