In the next five years, 342,809 publicly supported rental homes across the United States will face expiring rent restrictions and be in danger of becoming unaffordable to the country’s lowest-income families, according to the National Housing Preservation Database. In the next 30 years, that number becomes 3.1 million. This looming shortage demands that we eliminate barriers, think creatively, and engage in unprecedented cross-sector collaborations to preserve existing affordable housing.
David Barrett, president of Glick Housing Foundation, has led the public charity’s efforts to preserve 8,000 affordable apartment homes across 11 states since 2005. Barrett is also the chairman, president, and CEO of the Glick Company, one of the nation’s largest privately held real estate ownership, development, and property management firms. The Glick Housing Foundation portfolio is managed by the Glick Company. In the following Q&A, Barrett shares insights and considerations for affordable housing preservation.
What are the most significant barriers to preserving affordable housing?
While many challenges threaten the preservation of affordable housing, three interrelated barriers stand out: aging housing stock, insufficient subsidies, and rising costs.
Much of today’s affordable housing was built in the 1970s and early 1980s with the support of federal housing programs that no longer exist. Many of these units have deteriorated over time and now require significant reinvestment that’s not currently feasible due to insufficient subsidies and rising costs. The low-income housing tax credit (LIHTC) program is the largest funding source for developing and preserving affordable housing, but it’s not enough to meet the growing need.
How can we think creatively about solutions to overcome these barriers?
Ultimately, the best solutions will involve public-private partnerships:
- Housing developers and providers can partner with city leaders to leverage property tax incentives for preserving affordable housing. Often, these exemptions are offered to encourage property upgrades and supportive services that improve the condition of affordable housing units and residents’ quality of life;
- HUD recently announced $30 billion in renewal funding for the Housing Choice Voucher program. Without concurrent expansion of funding for housing preservation—such as increased LIHTC allocations—voucher holders may struggle to find affordable homes. As state agencies are ultimately responsible for LIHTC allocations, they must think about how to incentivize preservation projects when developing their policies; and
- Philanthropic organizations can play a crucial role by providing gap funding in the form of soft funds or low-cost loans, enabling the underwriting of lower rents and helping to meet community demand.
How is Glick Housing Foundation approaching preservation?
As a public charity, Glick Housing Foundation does not have the burden of generating profit. This allows us to reinvest returns in communities to ensure they are comfortable, well-maintained, and affordable places to live for many years. A recent example of this is Bradford Lake, a community in Indianapolis. We invested about $40,000 per residence—totaling $14.3 million—to update kitchens, bathrooms, doors, HVAC units, roofs, and parking lots, and to improve ADA accessibility. These updates, supported by Indiana Housing and Community Development Authority-issued LIHTCs, will extend the property’s affordability period for another 15 to 30 years. In addition to rehabilitation, Glick Housing Foundation invested in resident support directly by leveraging tax incentives provided by the city of Indianapolis.
How might we scale preservation efforts to have the greatest collective impact?
Glick Housing Foundation would love to explore a transformational, cross-sector investment in partnership with philanthropy, government, and the private sector. Through an affordable housing preservation fund in Indiana, for example, I believe we could preserve 15,000 affordable housing units over the next decade by acquiring properties at risk of losing affordability, improving properties through reinvestment, and supporting resident well-being through on-site services.
To learn more about Glick Housing Foundation’s approach, visit GlickHousing.org.
