Buttermilk & Molasses

A New Communities Model for Richmond?

A while back, Suzanne Morse of the Pew Center for Civic Engagement posted a brief tidbit about a LISC-initiated project taking place in two Rhode Island communities.  The New Communities model:

has five major tenets: 1) expand investment in housing and other real estate; 2) increase family income and wealth; 3) stimulate economic activity locally and regionally; 4) improve access to education of all varieties; and 5) foster livable safe, and environmentally sound environments.

Maybe after Mayor Jones finishes reorganizing and shifting boxes in City Hall, he can ask his new community and economic development guru to explore ways to implement a more comprehensive approach to sustainable communities in Richmond.

The LISC website has more on one of the Rhode Island projects taking place in the curiously named town of Woonsocket. Some great ideas that could go a long way in some of our own city's struggling neighborhoods.

A Rare Moment of Brilliance from City Council

WWBT NBC-12 reported this evening that the City of Richmond is preparing to up the ante -- in a significantly big way -- for developers interested in building in and new home owners willing to move into areas of the city with a large number of vacant lots. I was tipped to the story by the Church Hill People's News and Richmond Good Life, but the reporting machine known as Rachel DePompa delivers the goods:

How about paying no real estate taxes for five years? The city of Richmond is considering a new ordinance that would do just that. The goal of the tax exemption is to help spur growth in certain neighborhoods in the city.

The ordinance being considered says if you build a house on an empty lot, in designated areas around the city, you would not have to pay real estate taxes on the new home for five years.

John Murden at Church Hill People's News cites North Church Hill, Carver, and Highland Park as several of the neighborhoods being considered.

What should be exciting about this for residents of the city is that we're essentially talking about taking tax money that does not exist and leaving off the books for five years. It's a net neutral tax proposition, essentially -- with significant tax gains for the city kicking in after year six.

It should also drive down blight in certain neighborhoods, and decrease the absurd number of vacant, residential properties that make our community less safe, less attractive and less livable. The current number of vacant residential properties in the City of Richmond? Somewhere north of 1,500.

Capturing 100 Vacant Houses in Church Hill

John Murden should have more free time on his hands, because he inevitably does something interesting with it. This past week, he found himself inspired by the chronicling of vacant homes in the Detroit area:

Inspired by Kevin Bauman’s 100 Abandoned Houses, a chronicling of empty houses in Detroit, I thought that a similar look at just our area would be very possible and at least somewhat interesting. My parameters in starting out were that the houses had to be obviously vacant in a way that indicated that the property was not merely between tenants. A well-maintained house that is for rent or sale is different than the property that has boarded windows and doors and has been sitting for 6 months or years and years. Here are houses that are vacant now, were probably vacant 2 years ago, and will likely be vacant 2 years from now.

In rolling around the neighborhood, the most vacant block that I found was the 1300 block of 27th Street. There are areas of high vacancy along Fairmount and pockets of Church Hill North.

Check out his Flickr slideshow here.

Affordable Housing Week: I Make A Subpar Homeless Veteran

There are really three stories here.

The first story is the news story, and it focuses on the bare bones issues of affordable housing and homelessness in the Richmond region. It's not sexy, and most of the drama associated with it is genuinely depressing. But it's an important story, and one that only gains in importance as the economy continues to slide. (Find out more about it at Homeward.)

The second story is both more human and more optimistic, though it has traces of critique in it. It focuses its attention on simple human kindness, and how people extending themselves to help each other -- even in the smallest of ways -- is a warm, powerful gesture. It is also an important story, and obviously a timeless one, because it reminds us that we are our brother's keeper, and our sister's keeper, and that it is through our generosity that our community is strengthened.

The third story is basically about three white, middle-class people spending a day trying to look at the world through the experiences of three struggling veterans. That's primarily the focus of this post.

After eating breakfast this morning -- eggs, grits, untoasted bread and a bite of pastry -- I became "George", a disabled veteran staying in a transitional housing room on East Grace Street. My companions were "Keith" and "Lee", also veterans with disabilities and housing challenges of their own.

Before becoming George, Keith and Lee, we were breakfast guests at the Conrad Center and the Freedom House, and preparing for a day designed to raise our awareness of the issue of homelessness. The day-long simulation was part of Affordable Housing Awareness Week, and involved 21 people taking on a variety of roles and tacking a variety of tasks related to the challenges of being homeless.

My partners "Keith" and "Lee" were really Barrett and Helen. Barrett works for the Virginia Home Builders Association of Virginia, and Helen works for Housing Opportunities Made Equal. We headed out this morning equipped with a few props (crutches for Barrett, whose role was a veteran with a prosthetic leg; goggles to simulate my vision impairment; a garbage bag filled with clothes), a bus ticket (one, one-way ticket) each and $15 cash between us.

We were dropped off at the Greyhound bus station on North Boulevard around 9:00 in the morning. Our instructions? A visit to McGuire VA Medical Center near Southside Plaza; a stop by the Social Security Administration; a jaunt west to the Department of Rehabilitative Services near Regency Square mall; and a tour of HomeAgain men's shelter on East Grace Street.

Easy peasy. Go south, go central, go west. And do it on in 7 hours on $15.

Obviously, the Greyhound station would have a clear, easy-to-understand map of the GRTC bus system to help newcomers to Richmond quickly find their way around town. Or, obviously not.

We decided to head downtown, assuming we could track down the bus to take us to our first stop -- McGuire. Because cab fare, one-way, was $19.50.

But first we had to wait 20 minutes for a bus. The driver was extremely helpful, and told us we'd need to catch the #62 and where to pick it up. While waiting downtown, a real veteran made sure we got the right bus, and then let us know where to go once we got to McGuire. We chatted on the walk from the bus to the V.A. building with another veteran from Yorktown.

While at the VA, one man in line turned to Barrett and me and said, "You guys are fast. I just left you on Broad Street." It turns out he was on the bus with us from the Greyhound station. And apparently, three white people on a city bus stand out.

From McGuire, we headed back into the city to join 240 other people for lunch at St. Paul's, which feeds the homeless and others in need every weekday.

Barrett had to leave us for part of the day to take care of some work, so Helen and I grabbed our lunch tickets at St. Paul's and trekked up Grace Street to HomeAgain. We got a great tour of the facility from the director, and then one of the residents introduced himself and said he was on the bus with us from McGuire. Standing out, indeed.

The woman at HomeAgain helped us figure out the best way to get to the Rehab center near Regency -- it involved almost two hours of time on a bus -- and we headed back to St. Paul's for lunch.

After lunch, Helen and I were joined by one of Richmond's friendly, neighborhood reporters from a publication that is not the Times-Dispatch. We caught another bus to the Social Security Administration offices on West Cary Street. (Guess where our money was going?) Barrett rendevoused with us there.

It became pretty clear as the afternoon went on that getting out to Regency and back before the 4:00 deadline was not going to happen, so we made our way back to the Conrad Center for the debrief.

In the end, a few things were clear.

First, the fact that I woke up in a warm bed with my wife and came home to dinner with my family made it hard to fully put myself in "George's" shoes entirely. It was a gorgeous day, I was traveling with interesting people, and we didn't actually have to wait in line for services.

Second, people are generally nice. Everyone we met -- average people on the bus, folks dealing with homelessness, and service providers -- went out of their way to be helpful. Most of them had no idea we were anything but three people on the streets.

Most importantly, the experience reinforced an awareness of just how difficult it must be to deal with any number of problems -- being a veteran seeking care; being homeless; dealing with a disability; having to rely on the bus system to get around time.

In real life, "George" and his friends would have to choose between making a doctor's appointment at the V.A. and making lunch at St. Paul's. They would have arrived at the bus station from Hampton Roads with no idea where the V.A. was or how to get there.

Nothing about the systems we encountered made our experience easier. It was, as always, the people who made things better.

Is Detroit an Anomaly, or a Harbinger?

During Affordable Housing Awareness Week, it's hard not to consider cities like Detroit where the built environment is crumbling around the ears of those still living in the urban core -- many trapped there by issues of poverty, class and race. Here's how a couple raising their family in Detroit describes one block of the city:

Last week I read in the morning paper about a street here where 60 out of 66 homes were vacant or abandoned on a single block. The reporter called it a "ghost street." Yesterday I found myself in the area. Other than an errant sofa, the street was completely empty, almost peaceful. I took a photo of every house on the north side of one block and then stitched them together. If you were to compare the current international housing crisis to a black hole sucking the equity out of our homes, this one-way street near the northern border of Detroit might just be the singularity: the point where the density of the problem defies anyone's ability to comprehend it. These homes started emptying in 2006.

The photo above is worth visiting at Sweet Juniper -- it's a panoramic view of the block in question, and the abandoned look-and-feel of an almost entirely abandoned streetscape.

One of the questions I continue to tickle in the corner of my mind is that we'll do as a society of Detroit's problems are more representative of our national culture and economic system than we pretend they are.

Here's a Notion to Encourage Affordable Housing

While the economic downturn may do wonders for housing costs in the next several years, it's likely that governments have a much more important role to play in helping individuals and families keep a roof over their heads. WorldChanging takes a look at how Seattle is addressing the issue, and why it should be part of our environmental conversations in cities like Richmond:

In a nutshell, when we don’t provide housing in urban areas for all residents, including those who work at or near the minimum wage, we are forcing sprawl, and all of its environmentally destructive consequences. Yet for a variety of reasons -- lack of pure market incentives for developers, limits on federal subsidies, and even NIMBY-ism -- creation of affordable housing doesn't come close to meeting demand.

So how can we take advantage of all of the growth currently happening in our city to provide more affordable units for workers and families? There's been a lot of buzz in the news recently about the City of Seattle's draft incentive zoning code provisions, a piece of legislation attached to House Bill 2984 (PDF) that is designed to promote the creation of affordable housing in Seattle.

The incentive, authorized by the City Council on December 15, works like this: Developers who want to build multi-unit dwellings that are taller or more densely populated than current zoning allows – a move that increases the value of their property by increasing residential space – can get the City's permission to do so by agreeing to sell or rent 20 percent of the new housing units at affordable rates. "Affordable rents" are defined by the City of Seattle as 30 percent of the income of Seattleites earning up to 80 percent of median income for their household size; "affordable ownership" is 30 percent of the income of Seattleites earning up to 100 percent of the median.

The WorldChanging piece examines the concept from several angles -- including that of Seattle residents who earn below the median, and that of critics of the initiative.

Affordable Housing Focus Groups Planned

Richmond's Habitat for Humanity office is conducting a series of focus groups with area residents and families to find out what homeowners are looking for in their homes (design, features, amenities). This is part of Habitat for Humanity's effort to evaluate the housing needs of residents in the region's workforce population and to assess their interest in mixed-use, mixed-income development.

Such developments (like the one pictured above) represent a significant departure from Habitat's traditional approach of single-family, single-lot homes, as Richmond Habitat reports:

A refined organizational strategy addresses both high land acquisition cost, and the critical need for affordable and workforce housing affecting the region. Public/private partnerships and governmental input on development plans feature a new portfolio of RMHFH designs, including: mixed-income and mixed-use communities, “rehabs”, and multi-family construction.  With our volunteers, families, corporate sponsors, donors, and jurisdictions, RMHFH will build homes with families in the City of Richmond, and the counties of Henrico, Chesterfield, New Kent, and Charles City.

If you are interested in participating in one of the focus groups, you should like in Richmond, Chesterfield, Henrico, New Kent or Charles City. Your income should fall within the 60%-80% median income range for your county (view the chart at Habitat's website). Finally, you should contact Anna Karnas, Acting Director of Family Services, at [email protected] or call 232-7001, ext. 111 to reserve a spot.

The dates of the three focus groups:

Thursday, March 20, from 6:30-7:30 p.m. at the Richmond Habitat office, 2281 Dabney Road, Richmond, VA 23230

Thursday, March 27, from 8:00-9:00 a.m. at the Richmond Habitat office, 2281 Dabney Road, Richmond, VA 23230

Saturday, April 5, from 11:00a.m.-12:00 noon at 508 Witchduck Lane, Richmond, VA 23223

RICHMOND CHAMBER'S WORKFORCE HOUSING EVENT

Although my vision of hundreds of people spilling out of the theater at the Cultural Arts Center at Glen Allen didn't materialize, yesterday's Greater Richmond Chamber of Commerce Vision 20|10 Update drew a respectable 180 participants to focus on the issues of affordable/workforce housing in the Richmond region. And it was further proof that the Chamber -- once the staid bastion of Richmond traditionalism -- has become a dynamic and creative force for conversation in the region.

The issue of affordable housing first hit the Chamber's radar this spring, when it pulled together 100+ residents to participate in the Greater Richmond Challenge -- a two-day event that sent teams out into the region to learn about key issues from the people and organizations most actively engaged around them. The affordable housing teams (a total of about 20 people, including me) seemed to hit a chord with our closing presentation at the Challenge. A month after we went back to our lives and the Challenge was set to become another of those "been there, done that" visioning exercises, Stephanie Kirksey of the Chamber invited us back together -- 12 of the original 20 team members came back to the table and agreed to stay engaged around the issue of affordable housing.

We had a few simple objectives -- use our experience with the Challenge to build public awareness of the issue of affordable housing in the community; learn more about the Affordable Housing Trust Fund proposal set to go to the General Assembly and decide if we wanted to become advocates for it; find a hands-on project for the team to engage around the subject personally; and look at ways to begin conversations with local politicians and policymakers on solutions to the issue.

The Times-Dispatch's Public Square discussion on affordable housing in September went a long way toward meeting our first objective, and set the stage for yesterday's discussion on workforce housing.

I got to the Cultural Arts Center earlier than I needed to, and spent some time chatting with Chamber staff (a young, hip and energetic bunch for those readers who had images of doddering men in blue suits) and helping some exhibitors set up tables. Exhibitors included the Better Housing Coalition, East West Partners, ElderHomes Corporation, Habitat for Humanity, Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC), Partnership for Workforce Homes and the Virginia Housing Development Authority.

The Challenge's affordable housing team kicked the morning off. Eight of us attempted to set the stage through a skit that looked at the issue through the eyes of various groups -- the "Not In My Back Yard" soccer mom, the senior citizen in transition, the fireman who can't afford to live in the community he serves, an hourly store clerk, a single mother and a local employer. We were followed by Conrad Egan, CEO of the National Housing Conference, who presented a stark and compelling view of national housing trends. More importantly, Egan discussed key solutions that he and his organization have seen in communities around the nation. (Egan's complete presentation can be found at the Chamber's Vision 20|10 website, along with other presentations and photos from the event.)

Today's Times-Dispatch did an excellent job of summarizing the rest of the morning, which included some local statistics; brief presentations by a local teacher, police officer and former EMT on their personal struggles finding affordable housing; and a panel discussion.

The sharp increase in housing prices in the past decade has made homes unaffordable for many working people.

"Prices exploded, but incomes did not," said Conrad Egan, president and chief executive of the National Housing Conference, a nonprofit affordable-housing advocacy group. "This has created a gap that is not going to go away by itself."

Egan was the keynote speaker yesterday at the Greater Richmond Chamber's conference on work-force housing at The Cultural Arts Center at Glen Allen.

He outlined actions local governments can take to increase the supply of affordable housing. Policies should expand the sites on which affordable housing can be built, reduce regulatory barriers, raise more capital for housing and empower residents.

Changes in zoning standards that allow denser residential development can jump-start affordable housing and alleviate traffic congestion, Egan said.

Elizabeth McLaughlin, chief operating officer of the Southeastern Institute of Research in Richmond, said only 795 houses for sale in the Richmond area are affordable for people with moderate or low incomes. And less than 40 new homes are being built.

"This is a growing problem," she said. "Where are we going to be in the next five years if we don't start doing something about it now?"

One of the more compelling points was made by Doug Jones of Keystone Builders. Jones showed a slide comparing the cost of building a home in Charlotte-Mecklenburg County (North Carolina) compared to building the same home in Chesterfield County. His company builds starter homes in Charlotte for about $160,000. All things being equal, Jones said, the exact same house in Chesterfield goes on the market for almost $215,000 -- because of zoning requirements, higher proffers and taxes imposed by the county, and sewer requirements.