Preservation of Affordable Housing (POAH) is expanding its footprint in Chicago with the acquisition of five affordable housing properties with 247 apartments from the Chicago Community Development Corp.
POAH acquired four properties with 192 units in 11 buildings in the Uptown neighborhood. Long-standing community organization Voice of the People in Uptown will continue to be a co-owner of the properties and will provide resident and community engagement services. In the Bridgeport neighborhood, the nonprofit acquired the 55-unit Archer Avenue Senior Residences.
According to POAH, the acquisitions will ensure that the properties remain affordable for the long term despite gentrification pressures in the neighborhoods. The units at the properties include a mix of rental subsidies, such as Section 8, as well as traditional affordable apartments.
“We believe both Uptown and Bridgeport will be great places to work, and the process of integrating ourselves into these communities is already underway,” said Bill Eager, POAH’s senior vice president in the Midwest.
Over the next several years, POAH and Voice of the People in Uptown plan to make improvements to the four properties in that neighborhood: Uptown Preservation Associates, Clifton Magnolia, Hazel Winthrop, and Sunnyside Kenmore.
“Quality property management, tenant services, and long-term affordability are what we as an organization are about,” said Maurice Hamp, board president at Voice. “In this partnership, POAH helps make it possible by leveraging its experience in financing and property management—it’s a new model of collaboration that needs to happen more broadly in our city.”
The acquisition expands the nonprofit’s reach in the Chicago area, having developed or acquired and now managing more than 2,000 affordable apartments since 2008. This comes only one year after POAH expanded to Chicago’s Austin, Roseland, South Chicago, and Grand Boulevard neighborhoods a well as suburbs Elgin and Harvey. It now owns and manages properties in 10 Chicago neighborhoods and the two suburbs.
