Austin Housing Opportunity Fund - NOAH Preservation Fund

[Marc Duchen]

Colleagues,

At our May 22nd meeting I shared a presentation from the Dallas Housing Opportunity Fund, a housing fund authorized in Dallas in 2021 that helps preserve older, low rent market-rate housing, or “naturally occurring affordable housing” (NOAH). This kind of fund has been successful across the country in places like Detroit, Charlotte, and the Bay Area. We are fortunate to now have one of the plan’s architects, Dr. Eric A. Johnson, working with our city as our new head of planning, housing, and development services.

The presentation can be found here: https://www.dallasecodev.org/DocumentCe ... 2021-11-09

I plan on bringing an item from council to direct the City Manager to help build a similar fund in Austin focusing on NOAH preservation. I look forward to discussing this as a council in July. I am grateful to have the help of council members Qadri, Velásquez , Vela, and MPT Fuentes.

A housing opportunity fund would give Austin an additional and significant tool to help to address displacement of essential workers, teachers, nurses, veterans, and many others who might otherwise be forced by market-rate redevelopment to leave their homes.

Notably, Austin already has the financial resources for this, in unexpended 2022 Affordable Housing Bond dollars and the Project Connect Anti-Displacement fund. Dallas invested $6 million and then invited grant, debt, and equity investors to grow the fund to over $40 million with a goal of reaching $100 million. Similar housing funds are as large as half a billion dollars. It would also provide an investment vehicle with a reliable rate of return to economically stretch every dollar in the 2022 Bond and Anti-Displacement fund.

These resources are used to identify suitable NOAH properties to invest in and/or buy down affordability for at least 15 years. It can often be far more economical to invest in and extend the life of a property than build new units, and this fund would target those opportunities.

I look forward to working on this with you all in July!

-Marc