PRESERVING AFFORDABLE RENTAL HOUSING -- part 2

PRESERVING AFFORDABLE RENTAL HOUSING

The foundation’s “Window of Opportunity: Preserving Affordable Rental Housing” goal is to directly support the preservation and improvement of 100,000 affordable rental homes and to significantly improve the regulatory and funding environment for preservation through policy reforms at local, state and federal levels.

“Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies reports that over the past 10 years two existing units were lost for every affordable rental newly built,” said Debra Schwartz, Director of Program-Related Investments for the MacArthur Foundation. “Without concerted action, our nation’s stock of affordable rental housing is projected to fall by another million units or more in the decade ahead.”

“It is expected that by the end of 2007, over $3.5 billion in new long-term subsidy and financing will have been invested in `Window of Opportunity’ projects at an average cost of roughly $80,000 per home,” she added. “This is significantly less than the cost to build a new affordable rental unit anywhere in the country today.”