Growth through Low Income Housing Waterville ME

For many people, the thought of low income housing likely conjures up images of rundown, crime-filled inner-city residences. For David Esselman, vice president of external relations for National Community Renaissance (National CORE), it is different.

"It is a high value, high return industry in terms of emotion. You get to create great product for great people," he said. "If you like partnerships, it's the right industry to be in…it's all about the relationships."

Those who qualify for low income housing are those who earn 50 percent or less of their area's median income. Many developers "will target incomes even much lower than that…in order to make certain that their development is approved by state agencies and reaches the…greatest need for families trying to find decent affordable housing," Bob Greer, president of Michaels Development Company, said.

Low income housing makes housing more accessible for many families One way in which low income housing is different than most other types of real estate is that tenants are much easier to find than they are for typical properties. That is simply because of supply and demand; low income housing is, in many areas, in limited supply, which means that demand is high.

There is a common misconception that low income housing today is of the same quality as the low income housing projects of the past. "If you went and looked at the product that has been created in the last 15 years, you would find that it is better, on average, than market rate apartments in this country," Esselman said.

This misconception is a hurdle that low income housing developers and advocates have to work hard to overcome. Often, community members try to prevent low income housing from coming to their area, assuming that the stereotype that low income housing equals low quality housing is true.

"Every developer of affordable rental housing faces this term 'NIMBY-ism,'" Greer said. "NIMBY" stands for "not in my backyard." Low income housing developments face opposition from community residents who are afraid that such a development will damage their property values and interfere with the availability of community resources, he said.

Low income residents have their own fears about property values. "In many cases, the neighborhoods where we work become revitalized and gentrified, and then the housing is no longer affordable," Nancy Stangle, development director of Georgia-based Athens Land Trust, said.

To address that fear, Athens Land Trust uses "a limited-equity resale formula so that the house will remain permanently affordable," Stangle said. "And the appreciation in the house is shared with the whole community." 

When planning a low income housing development within a community, "all kinds of fears come out," Greer said. "They think it's going to be harmful and not helpful....And so that is an obstacle." One way of overcoming that obstacle, he said, is to partner with a community non-profit....

Click here to read the rest of this article from NuWire Investor