If the recession and foreclosure crisis have achieved anything positive, I guess you could say they've made homes more affordable. So a $30,000 grant proposed for a housing development coordinator at CACLV was all the rage at last week's meeting of Lehigh County's Board of Commissioners. Blogger Michael Molovinsky argues, "One only need look at the endless migration of low-income to the valley, to realize that there is an abundance of affordable housing. Positions like this only help create the poverty magnet." So is this really necessary?
Yes, said Cindy Feinberg, who directs LC's DCED. Yes, says Northampton County, which has already agreed to help fund this regional position. And yes, says CACLV Executive Director Alan Jennings, who points to failures by two of the three LV nonprofits that.
"Understand that the way we had this set up for many years was a very collaborative approach, where we had several nonprofits that each had - kinda' - their own turf to avoid overlap or duplication.
"We had an organization called Valley Housing Development Corporation, that did the multi-family rental housing development. They're a subsidiary of Lehigh County Housing Authority.
"We had the Alliance for Building Communities, the organization that Ed Pawlowski once ran. That was doing acquisition, rehab and resale of single family homes.
"And then we had Neighborhood Housing Service, which was doing the financing for first time homebuyers. Down payment, closing costs assistance kinds of programs.
"What happened independent of each other was ABC was overextended and struggled for several years and, as a result, that leg of that stool pretty much came apart.
"Valley Housing Development Corporation, as you may know, also overextended itself, found itself for several years basically re-working the entire portfolio. As a result, no affordable rental housing was being developed.
"So the only leg that was left was the first-time homebuyer financing piece that Neighborhood Housing Service ran.
"So in looking at the housing needs of the region, we felt that what needed to happen was to rebuild the capacity of the Lehigh Valley to address affordable housing. And that's what this position does."
Lehigh County Commissioners grumbled, but went along with funding a housing development coordinator after listening to Jennings. Before that, there was quite an interesting exchange about affordable housing between Commissioners and Jennings.
Percy Dougherty: "I would prefer to see our housing money, in the long run, go out to individuals who are going to fix up their homes, make the City of Allentown and the rest of Lehigh County a better looking place."
Bill Hansell: "We're doing nothing about housing. In this list of grants, as Comm'r McCarthy pointed out, most of them are physical infrastructure. If we delete this position, there's a tiny, little bit of money for legal services for legal aid on hosing. That's the only place we're doing anything on housing."
Dougherty: "The first thing I'd like to say is some people shouldn't own a home. Not everybody in this country should own a home. The banking crisis that we just went through was primarily because we tried to give everybody a home, and then they couldn't pay for those homes. So we really got in way over our heads ..."
Alan Jennings: "Nobody talked about predatory lending more than I did. In our home ownership counseling programs, we would tell people that if you need a sub prime loan to buy a house, that's God's way of telling you you're not ready to buy a house. And we would tell them, 'Stop! Save money. Improve your credit score. Buy a house you can afford.' And the result is that very few of the people who went through our home ownership counseling program, have ended up in the foreclosure mitigation work that we're doing.
"So this is not a home ownership entitlement program. This is home ownership for those who can afford it, that can justify a responsible level of subsidy, and keep in mind, everybody who pays a mortgage gets some form of subsidy on their housing because we deduct our interest deductions from our federal income taxes. That's an indirect subsidy. So that subsidy needs to be protected. We have to be responsible stewards of that subsidy. And i think we've done that with incredible results.
Dougherty: "And I don't think we should be paying these large developers, many of whom are not from the Lehigh Valley, to come in here and build large projects and take a large proportion of the money as their fee."
25 comments:
Bernie where was Cunningham on this issue ? Did he speak for it ?
Cunningham does not usually attend Comm'r meetings unless he is invited. He feels his presence interferes with their legislative prerogative. But Cindy Feinberg, Cunningham's DCED Director, was there and spoke in support of this approach.
So you give a pass to Cunningham not attending but condemn Northampton County Executives who do not attend. that sounds like a double standard.
I judge each Exec by the standards applicable in that County. In LC, it is considered poor form to attend unless asked. In NC, it is considered poor form not to attend. I attend meetings in both counties, and they each do things a little differently. So no, this is not a double standard.
I'll add that the topic here s affordable housing, not whether Execs should attend meetings of county legislatures.
OT comment deleted.
Your fear is palpable. The Truth will set you free!
This whole than is dadona's fault
jennings remarks are very misleading. he omits the allentown and lehigh valley housing authorities, which between them, provide thousands of apartments plus thousands more of vouchers, for apartments and houses inspected and approved by them. their overlook park offers affordable home ownership, as does the project on north street. the alliance for building communities does operate apartment houses. they own the old rosenfeld apartments on walnut street, which are currently undergoing it's second total rehab within 15 years.
before jennings, before all these organizations, allentown was the all american city. there has always been private developers for all segments of the housing market. political correctness has given the jennings of this city a career. however, not only have they not improved our cityscape, the decline accelerates.
I suppose if I want to catch more bees I'd use honey. If wanted to catch beetles I'd use one of those pheromone bag traps. If I wanted to attract skiers I'd build a ski slope.
What's Leigh Valley wanting to attract?
Hard to believe Jennings would be upfront with the obviously sad failure of regional affordable housing. He's been trying for 25 years and yet all one needs to do is drive down Allentown's Second or Third or Ridge Streets to view what's considered rental housing. What did Allentown do with its plan to go door to door with building inspectors and examine the public safety of all rentals? How hard could this plan have been to implement and still it has not been completed!
Shame on Pawlowski.
Overlook Park looks very nice. It would be interesting to have someone reveal the true costs of relocating the former residents for the years the redevelopment project took to complete. It must be in the millions.
Overlook Park should be nice. I think the average cost of the properties was somewhere in the $250K to $300K range. To replace public housing that was half the age of the homes in the surrounding neighborhoods.
That's our tax dollars.
Alan Jennings said:
"In our home ownership counseling programs, we would tell people that if you need a sub prime loan to buy a house, that's God's way of telling you you're not ready to buy a house. And we would tell them, 'Stop!..."
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Bernie -
I think the better approach would be that if you need a "home ownership counseling program", you're not ready to own a home.
Commissioners and city council members need to say "STOP" to funding CACLV.
Allentown has enough "affordable housing". CACLV isn't helping by wanting more.
Overlook Park is not owned by the Housing Authority. It is has been privately developed by Pennrose Properties who now owns roughly 3/4 of the neighborhood. The rest is being sold to individual homeowners.
Rents are modestly adjusted from market rates for qualifying renters without public operating subsidies. This is possible essentially because Pennrose was given the land to build on and there was no debt taken on or investment required to secure the site.
anon 11:52, i was wondering how long it would take a cheerleader to note pennrose. i hope you'er not saying that the rentals are not section 8? for the record, pennrose also operates the highrise at 7th and hamilton and has been given the recent deal with the redevelopment authority on turner street and elsewhere. pennrose specializes in income restricted housing, why are you implying something else?
If you build it, they will come. Look what came. Perhaps Allentown should try building a different "it."
Allentown is a poverty magnet. There are so many vacant houses in this city. But everyone still doubles and triples up.
If you gave the houses away they would still be vacant. Who can afford the repairs to bring to code, upkeep and utilities?
Surely not the population in Allentown at this point in time.
Maybe the city model is dead.Will we soon look like some downtown areas of Detroit?
We are no where near the bottom. But we can delude ourselves with more gangster genre nightclubs in downtown Allentown. Good job Ed.
MM,
As far as I know, no one in Overlook Park uses a Section 8 voucher. If you can prove otherwise, please do so.
anon 8:41, as you know, previously it was hanover acres and riverview terrace, exclusively housing authority owned section 8. they were given the right of first return after the completion of overlook. are you saying that in the meantime all (or any) of these people 'graduated" from section 8? are you saying that pennrose will not accept section 8 vouchers? you would have to prove to me that they're not section 8.
It may or may not be section 8, BUT they were built on the taxpayers dime.
They were built with $20 million from the federal HOPE VI grant, combined with $68 million in state and local funds.
From the city's website "269 rental town homes and twins for public housing"
As far as the homeowners-- Overlook is on the "List of County and Local Assistance Programs Approved for use with PHFA Home Loan Financing"
Hanover Acres and Riverview were neighborhoods of publicly owned housing. Section 8 subsidies are used to subsidize privately owned housing for qualifying families. It was never accepted in the Acres to start with and I question if it is accepted there at all now.
Your information and understanding of the subject is all over the place.
A modest townhouse that may go for $850-900 on the open market will lease for $650-700 up there, or even $850 depending on the applicants income. No one is paying $80 bucks a month like many were in the old acres. The neighborhood is not a field of luxury condos but it is a step in the right direction for Allentown when compared to what was on the site before.
LVCI, subsidies to demolish the old neighborhood and lay infrastructure for the new were sizable for sure but if that money didn't come here it would of went somewhere else to do the exact same thing. Progress requires investment, period.
11:49 AM"if that money didn't come here it would of went somewhere else"
I understand what your saying, but that is what's going on all over the United States.
The "if I don't take from the taxpayers somebody else will" line of reasoning should be very carefully thought out before deciding what to do with government confiscated money. Yes Overlook has a much better appearance then it's predecessor, but the fact remains after spending no doubt a couple of million dollars of taxpayer's money on the old Acres subsidizing the previous resident's rents. And another $88 million to replace it.. have the taxpayers been well served?
So to the question becomes whether someone should be able to get a house at a discount who otherwise wouldn't be able to afford it? While other's pay the full real estate value on there own homes along with the fully assessed taxes that go along with ownership + taxed wages (the federal, state grants) to enable others to do so?
I'm not against giving a hand up, but the fact is we have tons of boarded up properties that could have been repaired and PHFA'd financed or rented that are already in existence throughout the city. There is also a fair number of current unoccupied rentals that are HUD approved. I would have imagined that the $88 million would have made far more then 269 units available through a rehab program. The $88 million might be a bit of a low ball figure because there were transitional costs involved in displacement of the prior folks who lived in this previous project.
The question remains where did all the previous tenants go? So do we still have them someplace else + another 269 families more in Overlook? If they are someplace else, then we are still subsidizing them. This after we spent the additional $88 million + additional costs of the PHFA program itself.
If you really want to help the poor find them decent work. I truly believe these are not lazy people. How about we had granted the City of Allentown the $88 million to hire non vested workers to straighten out our parks and help work on the streets, mow grass, etc.? The decent thing to do is to give the willing a job so they can afford to pay their own way. Not only that but they would then be able to become fully paying tax citizens. You know what they say about giving a man a fish? Feed him for a day..
Post a Comment