Barbara Daniel came to the podium at an Athens-Clarke County Commission meeting last month and wanted to know, where are the affordable homes?
“I know y’all can help us. I know you can,” she said. “It seems like you refuse to help. And that’s not fair.”
Daniel is one of dozens, if not hundreds, of Athens residents who were forced out of stable, affordable rental housing when a Florida-based property management company bought Lexington Heights and two other local neighborhoods a year ago, doubled the rent and stopped accepting Section 8 vouchers.
The ACC government has invested tens of millions of dollars in affordable housing over the past few years, but frustration is growing with the pace of construction—just 56 units since 2020. Daniel’s plea was echoed by others at a recent public input session on a consultant’s affordable housing plan held at the ACC Library. “You have so many programs going on, and it’s not working,” one woman told local officials at the Aug. 23 session, attended by about 50 people.
“My comment is there is a lack of urgency around this,” said Fred Smith Sr., executive director of the nonprofit East Athens Development Corp. “People are hurt and desperate. It doesn’t seem to translate to the people in charge.”
ACC currently spends about $1.7 million in federal grants on affordable housing each year, not counting the $44 million in local sales tax revenue that’s going toward the Bethel Midtown Village redevelopment or millions more in one-time American Rescue Plan Act funds that the county commission has earmarked for affordable housing. Those federal grants are distributed by the ACC Housing and Community Development Department, at the commission’s direction, to local nonprofits like Habitat for Humanity, the Athens Land Trust and EADC. Separately, the federally funded Athens Housing Authority builds and maintains public housing.
A new report from consultants HR&A suggests that ACC spend an additional $3.3 million by creating a housing trust fund and contributing $5 million a year to it. The money could be diverted from existing programs, or come from higher taxes, philanthropic foundations or more extensive use of tax allocation districts like the one that is bringing 100 affordable apartments to the Georgia Square Mall redevelopment. With $5 million a year, the local government could triple affordable housing construction from 50 units a year to 150. The money could also go toward down payment assistance, home repairs, or to buy existing developments like Lexington Heights before investors can swoop in and raise rents. ACC could use the housing trust fund to leverage other sources of funding, like Low-Income Housing Tax Credits (used to subsidize the Bethel redevelopment and Columbia Brookside), private capital, donations and federal grants.
The HR&A report touches on other ways to bring down housing costs, like loosening zoning restrictions and expanding the county’s inclusionary zoning program, which offers developers incentives to build affordable housing. It also mentions tenants’ rights and preserving existing affordable housing. But because state law restricts local governments from enacting programs like rent control, the report focuses primarily on subsidies.
“It does come down to a question of money and what our local government is willing to contribute,” Commissioner Carol Myers said at an Aug. 10 work session.
Subsidies for affordable housing are needed because of a mismatch between the cost of housing and what local workers earn—for example, rent for a three-bedroom apartment averages $1,900, but a family with a $65,000 income can only afford to spend about $1,450, according to federal guidelines. The average home in Athens sells for $290,000, but the same family can only afford $230,000.
Even that amount is high to some. “$230,000 is not very affordable, either,” one attendee at the library public input session said. Daniel defines “affordable” as $800 a month for a two-bedroom apartment. On the other hand, some local Republicans who attended the session were skeptical that an affordable housing shortage even exists or that spending more tax dollars can solve it.
Some commissioners were skeptical at last month’s work session, too. “I was hoping to see something new we hadn’t thought about or talked about,” Commissioner Mike Hamby said.
He noted that ACC already has an affordable housing trust fund. But the amount is small, consisting of about $100,000 a year from the Athens Housing Authority.
Commissioner Melissa Link said she doubts that a “strike force” to buy rental properties that are put on the market and keep the rent low would work, given that the student rental market is so lucrative. The $160,000 HR&A report details how the market incentivizes developers to build apartments where each bedroom has an en suite bathroom, and to lease them to students by the bedroom.
Next month, the county government will receive another consultant’s report on homelessness. It and the affordable housing study will “talk to each other,” Commissioner Jesse Houle said. The commission is expected to vote on the reports in October, but that does not mean their recommendations will be implemented.
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