Low-Income Housing:
University-Community
Partnership Succeeds
Stephen A. Sterrett
Community Relations Director
Campus Partners
October 2003
Summary of the issue
The Ohio State University established
Campus Partners for Community Urban Redevelopment in 1995 as non-profit redevelopment
corporation to spearhead improvements to the urban neighborhoods around the
university’s Columbus campus. Campus
Partners works in collaboration with the City of Columbus, neighborhood civic
organizations and community agencies, and the university itself to implement the
recommendations of a comprehensive neighborhood revitalization plan adopted in 1997.
The Weinland Park neighborhood of the
University District has among the city’s highest poverty rate, due at least in part
to public policies more than 20 years ago that concentrated more than 500 units of
project-based, federally subsidized Section 8 housing in this neighborhood. The area has high rates of crime and transience,
although there is a significant number of long-term residents.
The project-based Section 8 units were
part of a scattered-site portfolio of more than 1,335 units in some 249 buildings in seven
Columbus neighborhoods. The housing was known
as the Broad Street Portfolio and was privately owned by 13 limited partnerships with a
common general partner. All the units were
managed by one company, Broad Street Management, Inc. (BSMI). This portfolio was the largest scattered-site,
Section 8 project in the nation.
Although the buildings were generally
structurally sound, the units require modernization and have few amenities. Because they are not competitive with newer public
housing or tax-credit housing, most of the units have become housing of last resort. The management company did not effectively screen
its prospective tenants. Some 89% of the
heads of household in the Broad Street units were single mothers with an average of less
than $5,000 per year in income. Half the
residents move each year, which has had a significant effect on the high student mobility
rate in Weinland Park Elementary School. Illegal
drug activity, gangs, domestic violence and other serious crimes affect the neighborhood.
In the late 1990s, the federal
government proposed to restructure and extend the Section 8 contracts with existing owners
under the federal “Mark-to-Market” program.
These proposed contracts would significantly reduce housing subsidies, diminish the
owners’ incentive to improve management and maintenance and offer only $1,500 per
unit for renovation. The clear implication
was that as troubled as this housing had been, it would only get worse.
Campus
Partners concluded that unless the challenges posed by this housing were met, then none of
the other efforts to improve the quality of life in the neighborhood would be effective.
Planning and negotiation
In mid-2000, Campus Partners employed
a consultant with extensive experience in subsidized housing issues to review the
alternatives involving the Broad Street Portfolio. Campus
Partners then presented the consultant’s conclusions to the president of The Ohio
State University and the mayor of the City of Columbus.
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) maintained that it could
only discuss the future of this housing with the owner or with an entity that had site
control of the properties. At the request of
the university president and the mayor, Campus Partners in the fall of 2000 began
negotiations with the general partner representing the private ownership of the portfolio.
In early 2001, Campus Partners
obtained an option to acquire the Broad Street Portfolio as a prerequisite to proposing an
alternate plan for the housing. Campus
Partners developed a “statement of values” regarding its interest in the
housing, convened a broad-based community advisory panel to offer guidance, and then
developed an innovative alternate restructuring plan.
The plan was an effective compromise between two legitimate community goals:
- the need to preserve the supply of Section 8 housing, and
- the desire to encourage greater economic diversity in center city
neighborhoods.
Campus Partners in June 2001 presented
to HUD an alternate plan supported by neighborhood and civic leaders, tenant and
affordable housing advocates, City of Columbus and The Ohio State University. In brief, the plan would:
· Preserve the total supply of Section 8 units in the broader
community.
· Improve site management, maintenance and security under new
non-profit ownership to enhance the quality of life for residents and the neighborhoods.
· Invest an estimated $25,000 per unit in rehabilitation of the
housing stock, including major interior renovations and exterior improvements to better
serve residents and to help stimulate neighborhood revitalization.
· Provide supportive services and linkages to community resources
for the residents.
· Adopt a nationally unique strategy for the voluntary relocation of several hundred Broad
Street residents and the dispersal of 300 to 500 of the Section 8 contracts to new or
renovated housing units in the broader community over three to five years. After the Section 8 contracts have been removed
from 300 to 500 of the existing units, these properties could provide new opportunities
for affordable homeownership or market-rate rental housing.
Implementation
Campus Partners in November 2001
selected Ohio Capital Corporation for Housing (OCCH) as the lead developer to implement
the alternate plan. Formed by the Ohio
Housing Finance Agency in 1989, OCCH is an independent non-profit corporation which has
worked with public and private developers to create more than 7,500 units of affordable
housing. OCCH has extensive experience in
financing development projects and in asset management and has established excellent
partnerships with key developers and managers of affordable housing.
With Senator Mike DeWine and
Congresswoman Deborah Pryce as sponsors, Congress in November 2001 approved a special
appropriation of $750,000 to help implement this affordable housing plan as a national
model for Section 8 housing. An additional
appropriation of $450,000 was authorized by Congress in February 2003. These funds provided valuable financial support
for effective implemen-tation of the alternate plan.
Legal, consulting, and architectural fees for the pre-development work amounted to
hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Discussions with federal housing
officials continued through the spring of 2003. Meanwhile,
OCCH, in cooperation with Campus Partners, developed the new ownership structure, housing
management team, financing, and plans for renovating the units over three years. OCCH closed on the Broad Street Portfolio in
April 2003. The housing is now known as Community Properties. The management company is Community Properties of
Ohio Management Services.
The
following actions are underway with Community Properties:
· More effective property management and tenant screening practices
are in place, including better property maintenance.
Implementation is being done in dialogue with residents and tenant advocates.
· Supportive services coordinators connect residents with existing
community resources and social services. A
network of social service agencies is being created to help residents and respond to
resident and neighborhood issues.
· Dialogue continues with Ohio State to identify opportunities for
mutually beneficial partnerships among the university, community agencies & residents.
· Resources are being sought to address public safety issues, and
cooperation is growing with the police and other law enforcement agencies.
· Interior and exterior renovation, which will cost an average of
more than $30,000 per unit, will begin in January 2004.
· The City of Columbus – with cooperation from Campus Partners
– later this year will begin a public process to develop a community plan for the
Weinland Park neighborhood. This plan will
identify public and private opportunities to leverage the improvements to the Section 8
housing with sustained improvements in the quality of life for the whole neighborhood.
· Discussions are continuing with Congressman Pat Tiberi and
neighborhood civic leaders to seek federal legislation that would declare Community
Properties as a demonstration project and permit greater flexibility in the
de-concentration of up to 300 housing units. HUD
maintains that legal roadblocks prevent the dispersal of Section 8 contracts contemplated
in the alternate plan.
Lessons learned
The Broad Street Portfolio of Section
8 housing, now known as Community Properties, involved exceeding complex legal, regulatory
and financial issues. Any intervention with
this housing also created equally complex issues of human, neighborhood and institutional
relations, as well as concerns with politics, race and socio-economic status. In this
situation, the university-community partnership worked well for the following reasons:
1.
The city, university and neighborhood had
already been engaged for several years in a deliberate effort led by Campus Partners to
improve the quality of life in the neighborhood. This
engagement provided a level of trust among the stakeholders that permitted Campus Partners
to address the potentially divisive issue of subsidized housing without polarizing the
community. (The level of trust was not as
high in other Columbus neighborhoods outside the University District where portions of
this housing portfolio also were located.)
2.
Campus Partners early in the process
developed a statement of values which would
guide its involvement with this housing, indicating that one goal was to preserve its
affordability and that the units would not become student housing. Campus Partners also created a broad-based community panel to advise on this housing initiative
and to communicate back to the neighborhoods what was happening. The statement of values and the community panel
were critical to building broad support for an alternate plan for this housing.
3.
As a
separate non-profit redevelopment corporation, Campus Partners – with critical
financial and institutional support from Ohio State – had the vision and flexibility
to develop an alternate plan for this housing. No
other public, private or non-profit agency was prepared to undertake the challenge of the
largest scattered-site, Section 8 portfolio in the nation.
This speaks to the effective role which a non-profit community development
corporation can play.
4.
Although Ohio State was not directly involved
in the planning, negotiations and implementation for this housing, the university provided credibility to Campus
Partners’ alternate plan in making the case to HUD and to local and state officials. In addition, the university supported the efforts
of Senator DeWine and Congresswoman Pryce to secure a congressional appropriation for
renovation of this housing portfolio.
5.
Due to the concentration of this housing in a
neighborhood adjacent to the university and its operation under one non-profit owner and
management company, extraordinary opportunities exist for effective partnerships among the
residents, the management company, social service agencies, the schools, and the
university. Ohio State currently is exploring
these opportunities with the management company. This
project underscores Ohio State’s national leadership
in outreach and engagement.
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Prepared for:
Outreach Scholarship 2003 Conference
October 12-14, 2003
Campus
Partners
for Community Urban
Redevelopment
1824 N. High Street, Columbus, OH 43201
(614) 294-7300 * fax (614) 294-7333
* www.campuspartners.osu.edu