Periodically in the affordable housing world, a few of us acknowledge that the vast majority of low-income people live in unsubsidized rentals in one- to four-unit buildings, and we wonder how to preserve and improve those units. Here is a way.
How does one go about working with landlords, often who own only a few units, to keep their units up to code and affordable?
The conversations I've heard on how to do this have mostly focused on the financing and capital investments side, but a panel I attended about rapid rehousing last week at the National Alliance to End Homelessness conference made me wonder about support on the operations side as well.
Rapid rehousing is part of the growing housing-first approach to homelessness, which stipulates that stable housing is the first step toward dealing with homelessness, not the last. A rapid rehousing program helps with housing location, provides financial assistance for a short period of time (often four to six months), and case management. They tend to be run by nonprofits, using a combination of public and private funding.
Why would a landlord want to work with such a program, especially since the rents are generally limited to the fair market rent?
The presenters (Zachary Brown, WV Coalition to End Homelessness; Ben Catell Noll, Friendship Place; Beth Fetzer-Rice, Salvation Army in Central Ohio; and Michael Shore, HOM Inc) had a number of potential answers. Along with giving the feeling of doing something good and being part of something larger (which they absolutely worked), they said . . .
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