Author: Rina

April 28 AHA Meeting

The April Meeting of Affordable Housing Advocates (AHA)  aka Cincinnatians for Affordable Housing will be held by Zoom on April 28, 2020.

This meeting is open to those dedicated to the goal of ensuring good, safe, accessible, affordable housing for all people in Southwest Ohio.

Affordable Housing Advocates  General Body Meeting
Time: Apr 28, 2020 12:00 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/94781801983?pwd=b3kwMzd5TXZoYkEvLzFmRyt5QjJQdz09
Meeting ID: 947 8180 1983

In order to protect our meeting from hacking, we are not providing the meeting password on this web page. Please contact us at staff@affordablehousingcincinnati.org at least one hour prior to the meeting to receive the password.

THANK YOU!

Impacts of Housing Instability on the Health and Education of Women and Girls (graphics and handouts, Nov 2019)

Graphics and Handouts from event presented by Hamilton County Commission on Women and Girls, October 2019.

Housing Directly Effects Health Chart: Source Dr. Megan Rich

Hamilton County Housing Crisis Infographic Source: LISC/Dr. M. Rich

Economics of Housing- Hamilton County One Pager Source: R. Saperstein

Summary Notes from the Community Conversation: The Impact of Housing Insecurity on the Health & Education of Women & Girls, Nov 14, 2019

AHA Comments to Cincinnati Metropolitan Housing Authority Strategic Plan

Strategic Plan Committee Interview Date:  __10/29/19___________

Group Interviewed:  _Affordable Housing Advocates

1.What do you know about CMHA?

AHA is knowledgeable of CMHA’s role as the largest landlord in Hamilton County (public housing “asset management”) and the operator of the Housing Choice Voucher program.

2. Based on you knowledge of CMHA, what do you think we do well? What areas need improvement?

Strengths:

  • CMHA’s strengths include programs such as the family self-sufficiency program, employment opportunity and first learning program. CMHA has also reached out more to area social service groups.
  • CMHA has housing in most areas in Hamilton County.

Weaknesses:

  • CMHA continues to exhibit poor customer service and communication in general and negative responses when concerns or complaints are made. Staff seems overworked and undertrained.
  • There is a huge need for much improved maintenance in all CMHA housing.
  • CMHA needs to improve safety and security in all of its public housing.
  • CMHA has been filing a disproportionately high number of evictions. CMHA evicts too many residents; it needs to participate more with other agency’s programs to reduce evictions.
  • In HCV program, CMHA does little to help participants find housing. CMHA should do more, including reinstituting a mobility assistance program for HCV participants.
  • The HCV process is long and confusing for landlords and families, and it requires day time hours from participating families, often keeping them from working. From turning in RTAs with long waits, to getting paid months after a process begins, to back and forth paperwork on HAP contracts, it’s significantly more work for all involved than market rate renting.

3.) How do you view CMHA as a developer of Affordable Housing in the community?

CMHA should develop more affordable housing for very low income seniors, persons with disabilities and families with children. CMHA should work with units of local government to get assistance to develop more affordable housing throughout Hamilton County.

CMHA should not develop housing for households with incomes above or near median income.

4.) What can we do to enhance good partnerships throughout the community?

CMHA should work with units of local government to get assistance from them to develop more affordable housing throughout Hamilton County.

CMHA should be more transparent and engaged with the entire community. CMHA needs to become a trusted organization.

CMHA should work more effectively to increase landlord participation in the HCV program. An improved and expedited HCV process, including making the RTA and HAP process available electronically, would encourage more and better landlords to participate. It would also help participants get to work during weekday hours. The approval process for housing units, including inspections, should be faster.

5.) In the next 3-5 years, what would you like to see CMHA doing?

CMHA should renovate all its public housing and develop hundreds of additional units of housing for very low income households.  Amenities should be added to larger CMHA developments, including parking, laundry, and recreational and educational opportunities. The HCV program should work more effectively to provide a broad choice of good quality housing.

6.) What economic impact does CMHA have in the local economy?

CMHA has a huge impact on the community. If CMHA improves, it will improve the lives of the people it serves directly and the whole community.

7.) What areas of housing are missing / lacking locally and how do you think CMHA might play a role in filling this need?

CMHA must play a big role in reducing the affordable housing gap for very low income households. CMHA should develop more housing for very low income families, seniors and people with disabilities. Some of the new housing should be near I-275. CMHA should also focus on housing for long-time residents  in gentrifying areas to prevent displacement.

8.) What are the best communications methods to contract each target audience?

CMHA should communicate about its plans, successes and programs at all levels:  traditional local media, social media, public meetings, etc.

Communication with program participants should make use of email, text, as well as U.S. mail.

City of Cincinnati Anti-Eviction Ordinances Passed 10/30/19

Sponsor: Greg Landsman. Passed 7-1 10/30/19

AFFORDABLE HOUSING ADVOCATES ( AHA) HOLDS ITS ANNUAL MEETING – HIGHLIGHTING WAYS TO PROVIDE AN ADEQUATE FUNDING BASE FOR THE AFFORDABLE HOUSING TRUST FUND

by Bill Woods for StreetVibes, July 11th Issue.

AHA ( Affordable Housing Advocates) held its  annual meeting over lunch at the United Way on June 28th. The theme of this event was the new Affordable Housing Trust Fund established by Cincinnati City Council and how to effectively organize to insure adequate funding for it. Besides reviewing AHA’s work to date on the Fund, the lunch featured a presentation by Amanda DeStefano, a Baltimore community organizer who helped lead a successful campaign to insure financing for a Housing Trust Fund in that city.

AHA, a diverse coalition of organizations and individuals concerned about the lack of affordable housing in Greater Cincinnati, has been working for a number of years to improve this situation. Despite its efforts, the number of units available for low-income residents has steadily shrunk, and a recent LISC study found that Cincinnati and Hamilton County collectively had a 40,000 unit shortfall in affordable housing. The Trust Fund offers a potentially effective way to respond to this crisis, and AHA has spent the last year and a half both developing a trust fund model and championing this concept to local government officials.

Josh Spring, Executive Director of the Greater Cincinnati Homeless Coalition, who co-chairs the AHA committee working on the Trust Fund, brought the lunch attendees up to date on the Fund’s current status. Although City Council did establish a Fund several months ago, it still lacks an adequate funding base to do much to increase the supply of affordable housing. Spring noted the City has earmarked to the Fund approximately  $600,000 from existing revenue from the Cincinnati Rail Road, but this entire amount would only finance a small number of units. What is needed to make a real dent, declared Spring, is between fifty and one-hundred million dollars annually.

Where is such a large pot of money to be found? Spring explained that Trust Fund proponents have always advocated for multiple sources of funding, and he expects the County will allocate revenue to the new entity. He listed some other sources such as a tax on large housing developments that would then go to the Fund. Nevertheless, in order to produce the amount of money that would actually start to change the affordable housing equation, a major public initiative such as an entertainment tax will be required. If City Council isn’t ready to accept this fact, noted Spring, then a grassroots ballot campaign led by AHA may have to be launched.  “That is why,” he continued, “we are looking at examples such as the successful campaign in Baltimore.”

Via Skype, Amanda DeStefano talked to AHA lunch attendees about the Baltimore experience. DeStefano was a key community organizer in the recent campaign to create a steady and sufficient revenue source for Baltimore’s Affordable Housing Trust Fund. Established by a voter approved ballot initiative in 2016, the Fund languished when City Government failed to properly fund it. DeStefano then helped organize a grassroots campaign in 2018 that finally persuaded City Council to pass legislation establishing a $20-million annual resource for the Fund.

DeStefano described the nuts and bolts organizing effort that led to City Council’s action. An informal coalition of groups concerned about affordable housing provided the organizing base for championing funding for Baltimore’s Trust Fund, and community organizers such as DeStefano worked to put together the actual grassroots campaign. Focusing on the city’s faith community, sixty congregations became involved, and several Sundays were utilized to collect signatures for a ballot initiative.

The ballot initiative that went forward in 2018 featured a one percent surcharge on sales and other transfers of non-owner residential and commercial properties. Not only did this effort include a well organized signature gathering process, but it emphasized obtaining steady news media coverage. By the summer, the coalition had collected the 10,000 plus signatures needed to qualify its proposal for the November ballot, and faced with what looked like a certain grassroots victory at the polls City Council decided to negotiate with activist leaders to adequately fund the trust fund.

Besides its focus on the Trust Fund, the annual meeting dealt with business such as the election of AHA’s  board of trustees. AHA also gave its Affordable Housing Advocate Award of the Year to Elaina Johns-Wolfe, the lead author of the Cincinnati/Hamilton County Eviction Study, a project conducted under the auspices of the U.C Department of Sociology.

AHA Board 2019

  • Morag Adlon, Cincinnati Development Fund
  • Elizabeth Brown, League of Women Voters of the Cincinnati Area
  • Margaret A. Fox, Metropolitan Area Religious Coalition of   Cincinnati
  • Patricia Garry, Housing Consultant
  • Jeniece Jones, Housing Opportunities Made Equal
  • Alexis Kidd, Seven-Hills Neighborhood Houses
  • Mary Burke Rivers, Over-the-Rhine Community Housing
  • Rina Saperstein, Caracole/Woman’s City Club
  • John Schrider, Legal Aid of Southwest Ohio
  • Alice Skirtz, Social Worker
  • Josh Spring, Greater Cincinnati Homeless Coalition
  • Matt Strauss, Madisonville Community Urban Redevelopment Corp.
  • Mike Volmer, Caracole
  • Marsha White, Easter Seals
  • Bill Woods, Applied Information Resources Inc.