Working with Faith-Based Organizations on Affordable Housing Development
HUD and LISC collaborated on an expansive new toolkit to help faith-based organizations expand affordable housing in their communities. The toolkit is aimed at HUD grantees interested in supporting faith-based housing strategies, and it draws on proven practices around the country—detailing the factors that enable successful projects, the roles and responsibilities of essential stakeholders, policy considerations, and financing strategies.
Introduction
The United States is addressing a compounding crisis of national housing supply shortages, through improving education on using low-income housing tax credit programs, investing in tribal communities' housing needs, and removing barriers to homeownership development. In this guide, you will find helpful information to assist in the reduction of housing shortages through the cumulative effects of disinvestment in historically redlined communities, and increasingly frequent climate-related disasters. This guide offers a better understanding and possible strategies for making it easier for all Americans to access secure, affordable, habitable housing. HUD Grantees across the nation have the potential to meet their housing supply, community development, climate resiliency, and racial equity goals through partnerships with faith-based organizations to develop and preserve affordable housing. Together and with other community partners, HUD Grantees and faith-based organizations can support climate-resilient upgrades, reduce housing and energy cost burdens, and improve neighborhood home values through new construction and rehabilitation of affordable housing.
The Terner Center for Housing Innovation at UC Berkeley released a report two years ago that determined in California alone 38,800 acres of religious institution land exists statewide that potentially could be developed for housing. As the New York Times reported, “Across the nation, faithbased organizations are redeveloping unused or derelict facilities to help rectify a housing affordability crisis while also fulfilling their mission to do good in the world,” citing examples in Virginia, Texas, Wisconsin, California, and New York of efforts that overcame the many challenges facing all development projects before real housing is built and families can occupy their homes. As noted by the Terner Center, scarce financing options, regulatory barriers, and limited real estate development experience make the already complex and difficult process of developing affordable housing even harder for faith-based organizations. Community development financial institutions (CDFIs), lenders with a mission to provide fair, responsible financing to communities that mainstream finance doesn’t traditionally reach, have advanced technical assistance programs over the last several years focused on faith-based development. These programs have successfully supported many faithbased organizations to engage in real estate development in an informed, equitable, and supported way. This guide and accompanying tools reflect the best practices and lessons learned from these programs to date. It includes summaries of the factors that enable successful development and preservation, the roles and responsibilities of the essential stakeholders, policy considerations, and funding sources available to finance the new construction and preservation developments.
