2023 Fall Issue of Urban Land - 86

Alameda Point, a former
naval base, already
includes housing and
programs for 500
homeless people.
The Alameda Point
Collaborative plans
to expand its services
with a clinic, a medical
respite center, and
housing for homeless
seniors, but so far the
planners have been
unable to overcome
the hurdles of the Title
V program for this
project.
the General Services Administration (GSA) in
Washington, D.C.; and a member of the Public
Buildings Reform Board, an agency established
by Congress in 2016 to expedite the
reduction of surplus federal property.
" Title V is a rarely leveraged opportunity,
partly because of a lack of awareness and
partly because there are so many strings to
untangle in the program, " says William Herbig,
head of the Homeless to Housed initiative
for ULI in Washington, D.C. " Homelessness
requires both a housing production solution
and space to provide services and amenities,
which is why a partnership between developers
and service providers can be so valuable. "
ULI is providing Title V training in partnership
with the National Homeless Law Center
and the Public Buildings Reform Board as
part of the Institute's Housing Opportunities
Conference in Austin, Texas, February 20-22,
2024.
The Title V program of the 1987 McKinneyVento
Homeless Assistance Act involves
three government agencies: HUD, the GSA,
and Health and Human Services (HHS). And,
according to people trying to work with the
Title V program, that's a problem: too many
government agencies slow the pipeline-particularly
HHS, an agency whose critics note its
lack of real estate expertise.
" The GSA holds the land, HUD determines
the properties' suitability for adaptive reuse,
86
URBAN LAND FALL 2023
and HHS reviews the financial applications, "
Fasanelli says. " Unfortunately, the way the law
is implemented now, it's impossible to use
low-income housing tax credits [LIHTC] and
other traditional housing tools for financing. "
Fasanelli describes the situation as a catch22
when it comes to using tax credits to
finance the necessary redevelopment of federal
properties.
" In order to use tax credits, the nonprofit
must demonstrate [that it has] site control,
but the federal government won't provide
site control without financing fully in place, "
Fasanelli says. " While there are numerous success
stories with Title V, they're usually for
emergency shelters, transitional housing, or
services, rather than for affordable permanent
supportive housing. "
Winstead, who is among the aforementioned
critics of HHS, calls the agency understaffed
and says that condition unnecessarily
complicates and delays Title V projects.
" So, HHS is an agency that's trying to do
good work, but it isn't used to real estate, "
says Doug Shoemaker, president of Mercy
Housing California in San Francisco, the largest
regional division of that national nonprofit
housing developer. " The GSA is more accustomed
than [is] HHS to working with real
estate, and most of us in affordable housing
know how to work with HUD. The confusing
part about this process is that HHS doesn't
C OUR TES Y OF AL AMED A POINT C OLL ABOR A TIVE
2023 Fall Issue of Urban Land

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of 2023 Fall Issue of Urban Land
