Washington Business Journal, Oct 8, 2019: Here’s How Creative Partnerships With Nonprofit Developers Can Ease The Affordable Housing Crisis
The Washington, D.C. metropolitan area faces an acute affordable housing crisis that increasingly is forcing longtime residents from neighborhoods that are gentrifying quickly.
D.C. had the highest intensity of gentrification in the country between 2000 and 2013, according to a study from the National Community Reinvestment Coalition; one of those neighborhoods is Columbia Heights.
Research shows that safe, affordable housing is one of the most important social determinants of health. Housing instability increases the odds a person will remain unemployed and that children will suffer academically in school.
Communities are trying to address the issue as incomes fail to keep pace with rising rents and home values. Nonprofit housing developers, however, face several challenges, including rising land and material costs, sharp competition from market developers to acquire properties and complex multi-party financing structures, to include public-private partnerships.
