2024 Spring Issue of Urban Land - 65

Housing programs that work
Community Solutions is a D.C.-based nonprofit
founded in New York in 2011. The organization,
which began as a housing developer,
now works with communities throughout the
country to help solve homelessness. " A key is
having a very accurate and timely understanding
of homelessness as an indicator as to how
the housing system is working, " Haggerty
says.
Her program operates in several large cities,
working with social impact investors and government
and community partners to acquire
existing properties. When multifamily buildings
come on the market, Community Solutions
buys them; then, when units naturally turn
over, the organization preserves some as permanently
affordable. According to Haggerty,
the goal is to fill Community Solutions buildings
with 50 percent workforce housing and
50 percent housing for those who have experienced
homelessness.
" I think in the first 14 months or so we've
acquired more than one thousand units in
six cities, " Haggerty says. The organization
operates nimbly by not relying solely on lowincome
housing tax credits (LIHTC) or government
subsidies.
Joy Horak-Brown has been working on
affordable housing since 1996 as president
and CEO of Houston-based New Hope Housing.
New Hope finds housing for individuals
and families who have been on the street for
a year or more or who have cycled in and
out of homelessness. The nonprofit has more
than 1,000 units of available housing for single
individuals who are at high risk of becoming
unhoused, and 187 one-, two-, and threebedroom
apartments for families experiencing
homelessness.
" It's a complex societal problem, so the
solutions are correspondingly complex and
varied, as they should be, " Horak-Brown says.
New Hope has 11 housing locations with 2
under construction for delivery in 2025.
Easing the transition into secure housing
for unhoused people is a vital step in addressing
homelessness. Lotus Campaign, an innovative
nonprofit startup in Charlotte, works as a
bridge between nonprofits that identify those
at risk of homelessness and landlords with
available units. The organization's landlord
participation program provides economic
incentives to housing providers, cutting
through some of the traditional barriers-
including spotty housing history or bad
credit-to renting that unhoused or at-risk
individuals face.
Beth Silverman, executive director of Lotus
Campaign, celebrated the organization's
fifth anniversary in July 2023. Although the
nonprofit is relatively new, its multipronged
approach to mitigating homelessness in Charlotte
has made a tangible impact. In addition
to connecting nonprofits to landlords, Lotus
Campaign is involved in the acquisition of
existing buildings. It reserves some units for
individuals and families at risk of becoming
unhoused. The nonprofit's first acquisition, in
partnership with Jonathan Rose Companies,
was a multifamily building with 144 units, 20
percent of which are reserved for Lotus Campaign
clients.
Ground zero
Homelessness is a national problem, but the
issue has hit some states significantly harder.
In California, the crisis is so acute that, in her
2022 inaugural address, the newly elected
mayor of Los Angeles declared a state of
emergency over homelessness.
Los Angeles-based SDS Capital Group
recognized a need for housing solutions and
created a supportive housing fund in late 2019
with about $20 million-which has grown
close to $200 million in four years. Deborah
La Franchi, founder and CEO of SDS, says
60 percent of the fund's capital is invested
in 11 projects with a planned 835 supportive
housing units reserved for formerly unhoused
people.
Providing housing for formerly unhoused
people, particularly in California and New York,
is a priority for Bank of America's community
development banking team and its clients
according to Maria Barry, the lender's national
executive for community banking. Bank of
America provides construction financing and
invests in low-income housing tax credits for
its affordable housing developer clients.
Barry's team also connects clients to partners
that provide support for residents. Barry
says that, since 2020, Bank of America has
helped create more than 3,500 units that
SPRING 20 2 4
URBAN LAND
65
FEATURES
2024 Spring Issue of Urban Land

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of 2024 Spring Issue of Urban Land
