Friday, February 26, 2010

Board, Bills and Brainstorming

Board
We have the best board. Yesterday was our quarterly board meeting and as always, I was blown away by the talent and enthusiasm of these folks. Our dedicated board chair, Helen McInnis, will be ending her term this fall and in preparation, the board elected a new chair to take the reigns. Congratulations to Ben Collins,who has become our new chair after serving 4 years as a member. Two new board members were elected, Cindy Weeks of Mountain Housing Opportunities and Robin Merrell from Pisgah Legal Services, both in Asheville. Much of our success over the past few years is due to this amazing group. Thank you for your commitment!

Bills
We introduced our 2010 Legislative Agenda yesterday. Since this will be a short session in the legislature, we will be focusing on bills and issues that we began work on in 2009. Of course, at the top of our list is the Housing Trust Fund. We need to protect the $10 million in recurring funding. We will also work to keep the $3 million in recurring appropriations for the Home Protection Program. This helps homeowners pay their mortgage when they've lost their job through no fault of their own. The Coalition will continue to be an active voice for the appropriate use and efficient distribution of ARRA weatherization funding in the state. More details about our Legislative Agenda will be posted on our website soon.


Brainstorming

Over the last month or so we have been working with the NC Assets Alliance to hold Regional Asset Building forums across the state. These forums are serving as brainstorming sessions for the Coalition and Alliance to help us better understand the issues facing folks in different parts of the state. Up next are Fayetteville, Asheville and Charlotte. Please check out the events page on our website or facebook page for more details.

Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Bringing Hope Home Photo Project Off and Running

We've been talking about it for months, our collaboration with Alex Harris from the Duke Center for Documentary Studies, but this week, it's finally off and running. Alex and I made our first trip to the Rocky Mount/Wilson are on Monday and Tuesday. We met some amazing people. Special thanks to Stewart Mitchell at the Golden Leaf Apartments, Rocky Mount City Council Members Reuben Blackwell and Andre White and Rocky Mount native Pat Washington. The pictures will be posted soon. Below is some info about the project. Please let us know if you'd like to participate.

We’re working with Alex Harris, a professor from The Duke Center for Documentary Studies, on a photography project. 40 years ago, when he was an undergrad, he traveled across NC taking pictures of people living in substandard housing. He recently decided to do a retrospective on this work but wanted to insure today’s photographs could benefit a higher purpose. That’s when he reached out to the NC Housing Coalition.

We’re connecting him to our contacts and partners across the state to capture images of people still living in substandard housing today. This will help us, and our legislators, better understand the work that still needs to be done in regards to housing. He will also photograph families, seniors and persons with disabilities living in new affordable housing developments to help us better communicate to our legislators the benefits of investing in affordable housing. This is a two year project culminating in a traveling exhibit that will spend 2 weeks in the NC Legislature, and then tour the state’s key districts along with our strategic partners. This project holds the potential to completely reform how we, as a community, discuss housing. But, we need your help. We’ll be in touch soon to talk about Alex visiting your community and what you would like him to capture locally. Each agency will have access to the final photographs from their community to use in their own communications work.

Thursday, February 18, 2010

HUD Creates Office of Sustainable Housing and Communities

HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan formally announced the launch of HUD’s new Office of Sustainable Housing and Communities (OSHC) on February 4th. The office will operationalize the Administration’s Sustainable Communities Initiative, which was funded at $150 million in FY10 appropriations, the level requested by the Administration.

Shelley Poticha, who came to HUD in July of 2009, has been named the director of OSHC, which is under the purview of Deputy Secretary Ron Sims.

OSHC will work to coordinate federal housing and transportation investments with local land use decisions in order to improve housing affordability, increase access to housing and employment opportunities, reduce transportation costs, save energy, and reduce pollution. The office will oversee two primary grant programs: a $100 million Sustainable Communities Planning Grant Program and a $40 million Community Planning Challenge Grants Program.

As part of the February 4 announcement, OSHC issued an “Advance Notice and Request for Comments,” seeking public feedback regarding how the Sustainable Communities Planning Grant Program should be structured, in anticipation of the issuance of a Notice of Fund Availability (NOFA) for the funds.

The goal of the Sustainable Communities Planning Grant Program is to support multi-jurisdictional regional planning efforts that integrate housing, transportation, environmental impact, and economic development decision-making.

HUD is considering three funding categories for the program:

1. Where there are no existing regional plans for sustainable development, grants would support the preparation of such plans. Funds could be used for: “visioning and scenario planning exercises,” data analysis, urban design, outreach efforts to achieve broad consensus on a single “vision/scenario,” and adoption of a plan by all appropriate regional governmental bodies.

2. Where there are regional sustainable development plans, grants would support the preparation of more detailed programs to implement those existing plans. Examples of detailed programs include: inter-jurisdictional affordable and fair housing strategies, corridor transit-oriented development plans, land banking and acquisition strategies, and revenue sharing strategies.

3. Where regions have already implemented meaningful regional sustainable development plans, grants would provide incentives that could result in even greater action. Incentives might include funding for pre-development costs, land acquisition, or capital for infrastructure.
Two levels of funding are being considered. For large metro areas of more than 500,000 people, maximum grants might be $5 million, while for small metro or rural areas with fewer than 500,000 people, maximum grants might be $2 million. At least $25 million is set aside for small metro or rural areas.

A tentative schedule for rolling out these grants begins with regional listening sessions from February 16th to March 1st (locations and dates will be posted at http://portal.hud.gov/portal/page/portal/HUD/program_offices/sustainable_housing_communities), webcast briefings during the week of March 1st, comments due March 12th, a NOFA published the week of March 12th, applications due by June 5th, and awards announced on August 2nd.

A separate NOFA will be issued for the Community Planning Challenge Grants Program. This program will provide incentives for jurisdictions to make key changes in local zoning and land use ordinances that will encourage sustainable growth.

HUD’s Sustainable Communities Initiative reflects the agency’s involvement in the Administration’s broader conversation about livable communities. In June, the Administration announced the Partnership for Sustainable Communities, a cooperative effort among HUD, the Department of Transportation, and the Environmental Protection Agency. The three agencies of the Partnership have six Livability Principles guiding their effort to coordinate federal policies, programs, and resources to build more sustainable communities.

Link to the OSHC webpage at: http://portal.hud.gov/portal/page/portal/HUD/program_offices/sustainable_housing_communities

The Advance Notice and Request for Comments for the Sustainable Communities Planning Grant Program is available at: http://edocket.access.gpo.gov/2010/pdf/2010-2979.pdf

Link to the Partnership for Sustainable Communities website at: www.epa.gov/smartgrowth/partnership

Click here for the latest on all federal housing news from the National Low Income Housing Coalition, Housing Assistance Council and other groups.