Tuesday, August 9, 2022

Affordable Housing in Asheville: What a Panel of Local Providers Told AVLmeetup

Meetup Recap
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From the AVLmeetup event on August 9, 2022

Affordable Housing: A panel discussion about Affordable Housing

Event details, podcast, and full transcript ›

Affordable housing does not run on one funding source or one definition, and that was the throughline of Affordable Housing, the August 2022 AVLmeetup at Archetype Brewing North. Four panelists from Asheville's housing nonprofits and housing authority discussed how their organizations define, fund, and pitch affordability to landlords.

Key Takeaways

  • The panel's shared definition of affordable housing: a household spending no more than 30% of its monthly income on housing costs, whether that is rent or a mortgage plus essential utilities.
  • A local housing needs assessment found Buncombe County needed roughly 5,500 new housing units, and almost 4,500 of those were needed for households making under 50% of the area median income (AMI).
  • Michelle Moore of the City of Asheville Housing Authority cited fresh data showing a child raised in a low income household in Buncombe County grows up to earn an annual income of about $28,700.
  • A $40 million affordable housing bond was on that fall's Buncombe County ballot, aimed at infill development, multifamily construction, and additional scattered site housing.
  • The Mountain Housing Opportunities panelist described funding for the group's rental developments as a three legged stool: roughly a third traditional permanent debt, a third from the Low Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) program, and the rest from local soft subsidy sources like Buncombe County's affordable housing services program and city bonds.

How These Organizations Define and Fund Affordable Housing

All four panelists used the same 30%-of-income definition, but their funding stacks differed. Michelle Moore explained that the Housing Authority's monthly housing assistance payments (Section 8 vouchers, officially Housing Choice Vouchers) are funded through HUD, supplemented by city HOME funds and grants for deposit assistance. The Homeward Bound of WNC panelist said most of its rental assistance runs through HUD's continuum of care allocation, layered with grants and donations for staffing. The Thrive Asheville panelist described a leaner model, a small staff funded by individual donations plus county and city landlord incentive money, arguing federal rental assistance stretches furthest, since local dollars draw roughly four matching federal dollars.

The Pitch to Landlords

Much of the panel worked as a direct pitch to landlords in the room. The Mountain Housing Opportunities panelist said the waitlist for voucher holders trying to find units that accept vouchers is overwhelming, and pushed back on the idea that Section 8 tenants are undesirable: "It's kind of like guaranteed rent." Voucher holders, she said, treat their vouchers "like a golden ticket" and will do almost anything to hold onto them in this market.

The Homeward Bound of WNC panelist described a fuller service model built to lower landlord risk: intensive case management for tenants, a dedicated housing specialist who functions like a co-property-manager, quarterly unit inspections, and help filling a unit before a tenant moves out. The Thrive Asheville panelist added that the group offers up to $10,000 in indemnification for damage beyond normal wear and tear, plus coaching for landlords and tenants. Michelle Moore said the Housing Authority sets payment standards that keep landlords near market rent while keeping vouchers usable for voucher holders.

NIMBYism and the Politics of Getting Units Built

Zac Ruiz steered the panel into NIMBYism, resistance to nearby development. The Mountain Housing Opportunities panelist did not soften it: NIMBY sentiment has been given "way too much power for way too long" in Asheville, and the claim that infill development devalues neighboring property is unequivocally untrue. Her fix was policy that makes by-right multifamily zoning easier to get, since, in her view, a hotel is currently easier to rezone than a multifamily building in Asheville.

The panelists pointed to a live example: Maple Crest at Lee Walker Heights, a former public housing site the Housing Authority redeveloped with Mountain Housing Opportunities, adding a LIHTC component and bringing the unit count to around 212 on the same footprint near South Slope. The panel also tied NIMBY resistance to Asheville's history of urban renewal displacing Black neighborhoods, and said families placed in historically resistant neighborhoods still sometimes face hostility from new neighbors. Michelle Moore said the Housing Authority has spent years running landlord listening groups, hearing out bad past experiences rather than letting one story block future placements.

Questions

  • What does the application process look like for a prospective tenant? Michelle Moore said the fastest path is accepting a unit in one of the Housing Authority's project based developments first, renting there for a year, then fast tracking to a portable tenant based voucher rather than waiting on the open voucher list, which she called extremely long.

  • Can someone use a LIHTC unit without a voucher? Yes. The Mountain Housing Opportunities panelist said LIHTC units are restricted by household income under a set area median income percentage, not voucher status, though waitlists are long given the limited supply. She pointed to the City of Asheville's website, which lists LIHTC developments in city limits, and said the county was building a similar resource.

  • Beyond rent bills and multifamily construction, what other strategies address affordability? The Thrive Asheville panelist pointed to the $40 million county bond on that fall's ballot, funding infill development, multifamily construction, and scattered site housing. The Homeward Bound of WNC panelist raised individual leases per bedroom in a shared unit, and asked the room how landlords would feel about higher total rent from multiple leases in one home.

  • Does sewer and water access limit development? The Mountain Housing Opportunities panelist agreed topography limits where sewer and water reach in Buncombe County, but said the bigger constraint is policy: multifamily by-right zoning needs to be easier to secure where infrastructure already exists.

  • What is the panel's take on short-term rentals pulling housing out of the long-term market? The Mountain Housing Opportunities panelist pointed to county and city policy favoring long-term tenants over short-term rentals. The Thrive Asheville panelist said the county should invest in landlords as micro affordable-housing developers, so long-term renting competes with converting to short-term. Michelle Moore closed by urging attendees to follow the city's affordable housing committee and show up.

  • What about co-living as an alternative? Michelle Moore said only a handful of voucher holders currently use shared living, though the authority is open to it.

Zac Ruiz opened the night with the Ruiz Report market update: Buncombe County's active inventory sat at 1.6 months in July 2022 and the average sale price was $515,000, up 13% year over year. The topic picked up again the following month at Co-Living Spaces, which dug into the shared-housing model raised in the Q&A above.

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