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Affordable housing gets a boost
In Central Oregon, the effort was just awarded $3.89M in grants, tax credits and loans to contractors
Published: November 15. 2009 4:00AM PST
Thousands of low-income people in Central Oregon struggle to find apartments and houses they can afford to rent.
The state’s housing agency wants to add affordable housing units and keep the existing ones in good repair. On Friday, the agency announced it awarded about $3.89 million in grants, tax credits and loans to contractors in Central Oregon for affordable housing preservation and construction projects.
Statewide, Oregon Housing and Community Services awarded $70.5 million in funding.
Oregon Housing and Community Services handed out most of the funds as part of its normal funding cycle, said Lisa Joyce, policy and communication manager for Oregon Housing and Community Services. Two of the local projects that received funding are aimed at preserving existing affordable housing. Joyce said the region cannot stand to lose any affordable housing because demand is already higher than the supply.
More than 78,000 low-income rental households in Crook, Deschutes and Jefferson counties are rent burdened, which means the tenants have to spend more than 30 percent of their income on housing, according to Oregon Housing and Community Services.
In Bend, Oregon Housing and Community Services awarded $3.47 million in grants and tax credits to Northwest Housing Alternatives, for a $6 million preservation project to maintain the 52 one-bedroom units at the Quimby Apartments on Northeast Quimby Avenue. The apartments are project-based Section 8 rentals, which means the rental subsidies are available to the people who live there.
“This particular round of funding will replace the roof, windows and exterior finishing of the building and preserve that housing for senior citizens,” Joyce said.
“To the extent we’ve been able to identify, there is demand for a couple hundred more elderly and disabled (housing) units. It’s very important that we keep this housing stock,” she said.
Funding for the Quimby Apartments project includes a $100,000 grant from the state Housing Trust Fund, a $1.2 million federal grant, a $441,050 federal tax credit, a $1.7 million state tax credit and $33,000 for weatherization of low-income housing, according to a news release from Oregon Housing and Community Services. Affordable housing providers can raise money by selling the tax credits to investors, who use the credits to reduce their tax liability.
In Redmond, Oregon Hous- ing and Community Services loaned $375,000 to TimberRiver Development Inc. for costs related to construction of the High Desert Commons Project, which will provide 28 family units of affordable housing between Salmon Avenue and Reindeer Avenue, west of Southwest Canal Boulevard.
The agency is also trying to prevent people who live at Grasshopper Village on Northwest 10th Street in Prineville from losing their Section 8 rental subsidies, which are attached to the apartments.
The owners no longer want to maintain the affordable housing project, so Oregon Housing and Community Services provided a $40,000 loan to cover some of the costs of transferring the property to the Northwest Real Estate Capital Corp., which will keep Grasshopper Village as affordable housing, Joyce said.
“We have a lot of interest in providing the ... financing to make that possible,” Joyce said.
Hillary Borrud can be reached at 541-617-7829 or at hborrud@bendbulletin.com.
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