Angela Gets Creative

Thoughtful content to stand out in a noisy world.

Subject Matter Focus: Affordable Housing

I wrote these research-dense blogs for a regional housing authority. They turned out to be valuable text assets for the agency, as they repurposed the copy for multiple channels: blogs for website traffic, newsletters to potential funders, public press releases, and resident education communication.

Innovative Financing Models for Affordable Housing: Success Stories and Emerging Trends

In a world with unlimited budgets, every person would have access to a home. Realistically, though, housing supply is finite because budgets are finite. 

PHAs must work within the limitations of city, state, and federal funds, often piecing them together to propel the construction, renovation, and maintenance of their properties. While this task may seem daunting, especially to PHAs in the midst of a budget struggle, this is where creativity, innovation, and adaptability come into play. 

The nimblest PHAs get projects done because they are able to find untapped resources to increase and improve housing supply. Read on to learn how PHAs can become more innovative with their financing – and move beyond a reliance on LIHTC.

RAD

One way to “increase” affordable housing is actually to preserve the existing stock. Housing agencies may fixate on the initial financing to get new units built, but maintaining properties over time also takes a considerable budget – a consideration all its own. 

Each year, long-overdue renovations put many affordable units at risk of falling out of use, which often occurs when tight budgets bottle-neck repairs. In these cases, residents may apply for vouchers, abandoning their original affordable location and community in search of higher quality housing. In the worst cases, the affordable units may simply be demolished.

On top of this, keep in mind that LIHTC leases only require properties to be affordable for a finite number of years in order for developers to benefit from the tax credit. Units at the end of their LIHTC lease requirements may suddenly find their residents subject to market rate rents. These forces can combine to effectively remove affordable housing stock when all signs point to the need to increase it.

HUD’s RAD Program strives to address both of these affordable housing subtractions by:

  • Unlocking new sources of funding for affordable properties
  • Permanently enshrining the affordability of low-income housing
  • Keeping residents in their housing – or with decent alternatives

RAD does this by converting disparate types of affordable housing properties into permanent Section 8 housing. Think of this transformation as going from a small toolbox with bits you’ve pieced together to an entire workshop of varied and functional tools. 

RAD bestows housing agencies with the power to combine public and private equity in order to accomplish the repairs and renovations that they need to maintain and improve the public housing that we already have. And this program allows for flexibility in the use of funds, because – as demonstrated over time and experience – local agencies know where the real need is. RAD gives them the room to decide where the funds will be best spent.

Tampa Housing Authority has employed RAD conversion in ample ways, and we encourage all public housing agencies to explore this fruitful avenue.

HOME Program

The HOME Program is a large federal block grant intended to exclusively help state and local governments create more affordable housing. The federal government awards grants to these jurisdictions annually, and they have a galvanizing effect on fundraising in that they require the participating government entity to match 25 centers for every dollar awarded. 

While LIHTC primarily goes toward the construction of new housing developing, HOME funds can be used in flexible ways, which can help PHAs target the needs of their specific community. For instance, the HOME grant can go toward construction or rehabilitation of properties, as well as some forms of home-buying assistance. This empowers PHAs to funnel funds toward the avenues that will get more residents into higher quality housing at a greater rate.

Sustainability

To further think outside the box when approaching funding for your construction projects, is there an aspect of the building that could merit grants or other special financing? Sustainability is absolutely one of these untraditional elements that can garner additional funding for both new construction and renovation. 

PHAs can seek federal funding and loan authority through the Green and Resilient Retrofit Program (GRRP). This program provides both grants and low-cost loans for multifamily properties pursuing LEED certification standards. 

It provides these financing opportunities in tiers, so properties can receive some benefits even if they cannot become fully certified. Why would this partial-fulfillment be considered? Some older buildings may be difficult or impossible to completely overhaul for efficiency – or it would be unfeasible to do so without upending a large number of residents in already-pressed markets. 

In the lowest tier, these buildings can still receive GRRP benefits if they increase resiliency in smaller ways, like replacing appliances. The aid increases as buildings become LEED-certified and beyond, with comprehensive retrofitting and climate resilience upgrades.

Historic Preservation

In a similar vein to sustainability, public housing agencies can leverage aged properties to gain funds for renovation – and increase housing supply more quickly than new construction. 

Historic properties can draw funding in formal and informal ways. Formally, agencies can apply for Historic Tax Credits both federally and locally. Informally, agencies may be able to rally community organizations and individuals to support beloved and history-rich properties, as in the case of historic land in Eatonville, FL. 

Community Land Trusts & Other Land Options

Land comprises one of the most costly aspects of increasing housing supply. Getting at the root of this expense can foundationally reduce the cost of a housing project. Community land trusts and publicly-owned land are great options to facilitate this solution.

PHAs can partner with community land trusts in a variety of ways to benefit low-income residents. Sometimes this partnership results in stable, low-income rental housing on trust land. 

Community land trusts can also empower low-income residents to purchase homes on their land. These homes are significantly more affordable, because the residents are only buying the house structure; they are leasing the land underneath their house, usually for a long term, like 99 years. This situation helps create upward mobility, as low-income residents move out of subsidized rentals into their own permanent homes, freeing up units for new rental residents.

Publicly-owned land offers similar benefits. In many cities, properties owned by the local government often fall vacant, underused, or obsolete in regards to their former usage. In these cases, public housing agencies ought to initiate dialogue around repurposing this land. 

Often, they can negotiate development deals so that the city does not have to expressly pour their own budget into revitalizing the property. Public land repurposed to create affordable housing can result in beautiful win-win situations.

In Short: Search for Funding in Broad and Hyper-Local Ways

The financing for many affordable housing projects comes down to community partnerships, diversifying solutions, and the power of collaboration to secure resources. 

Much like a single person gathers perspective and help when they bring up a problem to multiple friends, organizations can stand to gain so much from talking to each other and sharing the resources that they have.

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Sustainable Building Practices in Affordable Housing: Balancing Cost and Efficiency

Addressing the affordable housing crisis is already a huge undertaking. Short-term thinkers might prioritize building new housing cheaply above all else. So why has building affordable housing in a sustainable way become a growing trend over the past decade? Why would public housing agencies and developers want to add dealing with the climate crisis on top of an existing housing crisis?

Because long-term research has shown that creating affordable housing at the cost of sustainability will not help the residents of developments or their neighborhoods over time. Rather, when one looks at the big picture, sustainable construction and affordable housing go hand in hand toward achieving common objectives – and solving systemic issues. Let us not forget that the low-income people who seek out affordable housing are the ones the most likely to be affected by climate change. 

So, how can housing authorities incorporate more sustainability into their housing development practices, while keeping them affordable? In this post, we’re going to look at a few key components that help make buildings better for the environment and the people living in them.

Integrated Design

While panels of sheetrock or window panes may jump to mind at the phrase “sustainable building,” the effort to make a sustainable housing project that is also affordable begins long before material decisions. It starts in the design process.

In standard construction, experts work on the project as needed, often splintered from each other’s input in decision-making. While this may cost less initially, it can lead to costly oversights down the road – rude awakenings that major components, like doors and windows, have to be moved partway through construction, or that a design has been executed in a thermally inefficient or even totally dysfunctional way, wasting power and water. When issues like this occur, residents ultimately foot the bill in utility cost or inconvenience when they are displaced to fix mistakes that could have been avoided in the first place.

This is why integrated design has been catching on – especially in the sustainable architecture space, where efficiency is pivotal to the success of a project. Simply put, integrated design gets all the key players who will be working on a project in conversation at the very start of that project: lead architects, structural engineers, landscape architects, and experts in HVAC systems, plumbing, insulation, windows, and doors. 

Involving the expertise of each person in the development of the building’s plan not only helps prevent disasters – it can also create innovative and elegant solutions, like art sculptures that double as playground equipment.

Adaptive Reuse & Reduction

In tandem with an integrated design approach is changing the construction process in terms of:

  • The buildings we choose to target in affordable housing projects
  • The efficiency of construction projects

For the former, adaptive reuse is about taking properties that are unused or underutilized and repurposing them into affordable housing units – often as an alternative to demolition. Even if the builder did not use any sustainable practices (though one hopes they do), these projects would avoid the carbon footprint of demolishing an old building, throwing away its destroyed materials, transporting new materials to the site, and constructing a new structure.

The latter – reduction – comprises a mindset shift for construction contractors, asking them to more thoughtfully examine their processes. Many construction projects work in inefficient ways – for instance, over-buying or undoing work that’s already done because of planing oversights. 

This wastes materials and energy, which inherently increases the greenhouse gas emissions of a project. Bringing in temporary environmental consultants or simply taking some time to communicate about inefficient practices can help “green up” construction, while saving time and money on materials and labor.

Increasing construction efficiency is taken to new heights in modular building, a construction process in which companies build a small home completely off-site and transport it to its final location. These homes constitute an upgrade to manufactured housing, because they are attached a permanent foundation, but are much less expensive and time-consuming to produce than traditional houses.

You will notice that none of these present a “silver bullet” to seal the green value of projects. Rather, they focus on the oft-neglected aspects of the “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle” triad: reuse and reduce.

LEED

With all this talk of sustainable building practices, one may wonder: “What is sustainable? How do we know if what we are doing works?” This is where green building certifications come into play. 

These certifications present clear standards so that architects and builders know when they are hitting the mark with their project. And the certification can be part of the building’s promotion, attracting residents and giving them assurance about their new home.

LEED is one of the most prominent of these certifications. It operates on a points-based system, with four different levels: Platinum, Gold, Silver, and Certified. The points system allows some flexibility for builders, who may not be able to fulfill every aspect that could make a building sustainable, depending on its circumstances. 

LEED has extensive lists of actions that constitute credits and points on its website. Builders can gain LEED points in a detailed variety of ways, including:

  • Highly efficient large appliances, like refrigerators and heat pumps
  • Water use reduction
  • Access to transit
  • Energy usage meters
  • Built-in recyclable collection
  • Raw materials from sustainable sources
  • Indoor air quality management
  • Low-emitting materials
  • Thermal comfort

PHAs can also garner additional funding for housing projects by adhering to LEED standards. This can help the projects qualify for sustainable or environmental grants at the local, state, or national level. 

In the long run, this sustainable certification centers on the experience of residents, who will get to live in a healthier, higher quality home, ideally with lower utility bills. 

Passive House Certification

Similar to LEED, Passive House Certification is another way to clarify and achieve the target goals of sustainable construction. Passive House Certification focuses on the thermal aspect of energy reduction, since significant energy waste comes from HVAC and other temperature-management systems. 

Put in simple terms, buildings with Passive House Certification are virtually “airtight,” making them incredibly temperature stable and greatly reducing their need for external input from air conditioners or heaters. This involves a concerted effort in the construction process. 

For example, buildings under this certification are tested for cracks in their structure with a smoke test – builders use a smoke machine and watch to see where smoke escapes to the outside, sealing gaps based on this feedback. Passive House Certified buildings often feature blown-in insulation and thick, multi-paned windows. 

The process is meticulous and painstaking, but the end result is a solid structure whose internal temperature does not easily fluctuate. The International Passive House Association recognizes that some older houses cannot meet these standards even with the best renovation, so they offer the EnerPHit Retrofit certification. In the long road of progress, one cannot let “perfect” be the enemy of “good.”

To see an example of Passive House Certification at work in affordable housing, check out The Finch in Cambridge, MA. This affordable housing development worked to create a thermally sound space for its residents, who often endure colder winters in the Northeast. 

The architects approached the structure with intentions for community bonding and access to nature, as well as sustainability. To this end, the developers of The Finch also incorporated Fitwel Certification, ensuring a building that supports the health and wellness of its residents – a truly inspiring case study all around.

Alternative Perspectives on Sustainability in Affordable Housing

As you can see, much of sustainable building is about perspective shift rather than simply having access to the most cutting-edge technology or resources. In many ways, it is about slowing down and using a more thoughtful method that employs the resources that are already available – buildings that already exist in a neighborhood or locally-sourced materials. 

This also leads to building longevity, as efficiency encourages low usage of major systems in buildings – like HVAC or refrigerant systems – leading to less waste of materials in the long run and more comfortable living spaces in which residents can thrive for decades.

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4 Important Ways Housing and Public Health are Intertwined

First, let it be said: research on the connection between housing and public health is still very much in progress. This is, in part, because the subject is complex, with particular causes and correlations related to individual housing and medical circumstances. This renders broad conclusions more difficult. 

We will discuss salient research in today’s article, but we also err on the side of common sense gathered from decades of work in public housing. Much like therapists try methods optimistically proven efficacious by their peers before formal research is finalized, we do not need more convincing that moving a family out of an apartment with mold in the ducts is better for their health than leaving them there. Moreover, we feel confident that stable, higher quality housing increases the chance of better outcomes in many regards, including public health, even if studies are ongoing.

What the Research Says about Housing and Public Health

In a comprehensive study compiled and analyzed by Carolyn B. Swope and Diana Hernandez, they broke down the intersection of housing and health into four dimensions, which they called “housing pillars”:

  • Cost – how does the cost of housing push out residents’ ability to afford other needs?
  • Conditions – what is the quality of housing in which people reside?
  • Consistency – are people able to live in the same place for a meaningful amount of time?
  • Context – are people residing in a safe and nurturing place?

We will go into these in more detail below.

Cost: Tough Financial Choices

The health aspect of housing cost reaches beyond populations that are considered housing unstable. For instance, when rent takes up more than 30% of a person’s income, they are considered “rent-burdened.” Starting in this rent-burdened bracket and below, people may be forced to choose between spending money on essential needs: Rent or food? Rent or a safer commute to work? Rent or usable health insurance?

A person struggling with housing affordability may similarly struggle with utility costs, leading to more extreme in-home thermal conditions – like excessive heat, cold, or dampness – which can increase every day stress and sometimes even cause acute illness like heat stroke or hypothermia.

Some folks may deal with housing cost burdens by sharing a space with more people. While there can be positive effects from a sense of community, the increased chance of chaos, conflict, and contagions also adversely affect health.

The outcomes here are not surprising. Meeting basic physical needs forms a person’s baseline physical health. If a rent-burdened person struggles to buy nutritious food or get enough sleep, and they must constantly adapt to chaotic or stressful situations, they understandably experience more frequent illness, fatigue, or chronic health disorders over time. 

Conditions: Exposure to Environmental Hazards 

Part of our goal at THA is to move people into not just more affordable housing but also higher quality housing. As you can imagine, a range of hazardous situations can arise from homes that are outdated, thermally inefficient, and/or not well-maintained.

Residents in poorer quality housing may experience negative health side effects from exposure to:

  • Lead in paint and other toxic substances in older housing materials
  • Contaminated drinking water
  • Secondhand smoke
  • Accidents and injuries

The above maladies might occur within the home, but residents in poorer quality housing also often contend with the environment of a lower income neighborhood. If the crime rate is higher in an area, residents not only suffer if they are the victim of a crime – generally, simply feeling unsafe can lead to higher levels of chronic stress and related mental health issues like depression and anxiety, reduced time spent outdoors (thus, missing the healing benefits of nature), and increased isolation.

Consistency: Housing Stability & Regular Healthcare

Research shows that people in lower SES brackets tend to move more frequently than their counterparts in higher SES brackets. One geographic mobility study cited the contrast based on moves per year, with the finding that 26% of families below the poverty line move each year, while only 12% of higher SES families tend to move that often.

Frequent relocation – especially unwilling displacement – has corresponded with poorer health outcomes. This is perhaps not surprising when displacement is viewed through a practical lens. 

When a person willingly moves, they often have to find a new primary physician and other specialists; they may have to get new health insurance depending on how far they move; and they likely spend time and money getting settled in a new place, instead of pouring that time and money into health prevention or goals. Add scarcity of resources to this equation, and it makes sense that persistently uprooted populations experience poorer self-reported feelings of health, healthcare access, and mental health. 

There is also the social loss that accompanies frequent moves. As discussed in previous posts about mixed-income housing, place of residence can determine upward social mobility as people build bonds with neighbors of differing income, education, and resource levels. Staying in one city or neighborhood for years can help a person build up a supportive network, both socially and economically, increasing their resilience to life’s ups and downs. 

When a person is perpetually the new person in town, neighbors are less likely to lend a hand to an unfamiliar face. They may find themselves blocked from access to better housing and employment, as the bonds of community trust have not been built yet. It follows that they may struggle to build up the resources necessary to thrive. 

This uprooted cycle has been compounded over the years by systemic and person-to-person racism for people of color; historically in more well-off, predominantly white areas, both laws and social attitudes have conveyed the message “You don’t belong here” – with an accompanying lack of social benefits and even deleterious consequences.

Context: Regional Stressors

Neighborhood crime and perception of safety have already been mentioned. However, there is more to say about a lower-income housing resident’s geographic setting. Depending on the neighborhood in which a person resides, they may be more likely to deal with:

It is clear that solutions on multiple fronts will have to address these more extreme environmental stressors. However, housing is one piece of the puzzle that can provide a solution for individuals or families acutely affected by these problems.

Motivation to Address Housing Affordability & Access

For those of us who work in public housing, the sheer demand for affordable homes may be enough to sustain us in our purposes. However, when you begin to draw the lines between housing and health, it becomes clear that housing is just as much a public health issue – with larger social and economic repercussions. If a person struggling to pay rent ends up in the ER and cannot afford to pay their bill in a timely manner, the burden of that cost shifts to multiple other organizations and individuals. Could that cost have been absorbed into a more preventive stance instead, one in which that person could afford their healthcare – and perhaps even live in a safer environment to start? At THA, we certainly see the merit of pursuing these interconnected solutions between affordable, high-quality housing and greater public health.

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Public Housing Agencies: Myth vs. Reality

Public housing does not exist in a vacuum. Rather, it is integrated with its surrounding community through the combined efforts of government organizations, non-profits, private companies, and individual citizens. The most successful public housing efforts have the full participation of this entire list. 

In order to gain that participation, the businesses and people in a community must buy into the belief that public housing works more often than not. This is where perception of public housing agencies (PHAs) matters – and where public housing myths can block the meaningful interaction that drives stable housing progress.

In this piece, we’ll look at some commonly held public housing agency myths and compare them to the reality of how public housing in American currently functions. 

High Rises and Low Ambitions

Understandably, many social improvement issues vie for the attention of city and state residents: healthcare, education, poverty, crime, roads and transportation… Because housing is just one piece of the puzzle, many people harbor only a glancing comprehension of how public housing works in their locale. They hear the phrase “public housing,” and the worst stereotypes can jump to mind: bleak towers riddled with gangs, drugs, and crime, in which people who live on welfare spend their days not working on the government’s dime. 

However, very little of this picture matches reality now – or even in the past. When this did become true for certain housing developments, the circumstances came with an entire socioeconomic context and history that led to poor living conditions.

You may feel guilty if this is what you imagined at first, but the myth is highly prevalent, even among fairly educated people. Keep reading to learn more about what “public housing” really means and how it works.

Myth #1: Public Housing = Urban Tower Projects

Both parts of this myth are untrue: that all public housing is urban, and that people using vouchers live in homogenous high rises. The truth is that a wide variety of successful public housing efforts exist. It is just as likely to be a single family home in the suburbs as a large apartment complex in the city.

Why would it differ so much? Because the majority of people who obtain the help of public housing agencies do not live in buildings owned by the government. They choose from the same private rental market as people who do not employ public housing agencies. As long as a landlord accepts their housing voucher, they can rent a place. Some private landlords also enter into government contracts to make their properties “Section 8,” which translates to a wider variety of housing structures than you might expect. 

Now, some families do live in public housing owned by the government – but those families only make up around 23% of the total population who receive government assistance for housing.

Myth #2: Public Housing Agencies Only Serve the Most Poverty-Stricken People

One often overlooked aspect of applying for housing assistance: the median income of a region. A person qualifies for help based on how their income compares to the people and housing costs surrounding them. Assistance is based on context, not a flat dollar amount of income.

This means that, in more expensive regions like NYC, LA, or the Bay Area, people with stable jobs that pay more modestly – like teachers, food workers, or public servants – could still be part of successful public housing efforts. Even in less pricey areas, people who work steady minimum wage jobs qualify for some housing programs. That is quite a different portrait from the myth of the “unemployed public housing resident.”

Myth #3: Public Housing Breeds Crime and Lowers Property Value

Public housing does not cause higher crime rates or lower property values. Rather, these are corollary circumstances based on systemic racism, segregation, and isolating lower income people historically in America. 

For instance, many Black Americans left to reside in cities after “white flight” in the 1950s/1960s faced property values that were already sinking and crime rates that were already rising because of the drastic population and industry redistribution. Coupled with practices like redlining, in which loans were denied based on race, these populations had little choice but to make things work in a poorer area – a far cry from being the culprit for the social problems of poverty.

Myth #4: Only Renters Receive Housing Assistance, Not Homeowners

While PHAs very visibly provide assistance to renters, the reality is that homeowners receive even more financial support from the government in a less visible way: the tax form. Homeowners can claim a large tax deduction for their mortgages through the mortgage interest deduction, among others. A 2014 study showed that federal spending on this mortgage subsidy outweighed all the public housing assistance programs combined.

This is not a game of “Who deserves help more” – rather, we are simply dispelling the myth that homeowners do not receive any financial support while Section 8 renters sponge up federal dollars. Anybody renting or buying in America is likely subsidized by the government in some fashion.

Shifting Attitudes Toward Public Housing

Why is it so important to dispel these myths in the first place? When people harbor some of the more negative but untrue beliefs about public housing, they can assume a “Not in My Backyard” attitude. This can translate to very real consequences: voting down public housing laws, blocking supportive zoning or construction, and paradoxically enlivening the myth by cordoning public housing renters in the same areas. 

Besides that, we have not mentioned the social and emotional bonds that break down when these judgments exist within a community. There are many merits to de-stigmatizing PHAs and all that they do. Looking beyond your assumptions to understand your neighbors and how they arrived where they are can help build bridges and help to lift all of us up.

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How Does the Fair Housing Act of 1968 Affect Us Today?

For anyone who has worked in, lived in, or supported affordable housing, it is essential to understand the origins of HUD’s fair housing standards today. While the road to legislation that promotes affordable housing has been long and varied – and is still a work in progress – the Fair Housing Act of 1968 is a historical landmark in turning the tide of housing demographics in America. 

Where has the Act brought us today? And what work remains to be done?

Why Was the Fair Housing Act Necessary?

The answer to this question may seem obvious to anybody working in affordable housing advocacy, but we will take a moment to review the historical trends to which the Fair Housing Act was responding. It is helpful to remind ourselves that different populations in America are not starting from a level playing field when it comes to home ownership or renting. 

In fact, overtly racist housing policies purposefully distributed the population of America between the suburbs and cities – or more desirable places to live and less desirable places to live – roughly drawn along the lines of race. 

For instance, redlining was a practice that prevented people of color from obtaining home mortgages, blocking their access to home ownership in areas of upward social mobility. This actively contributed to the creation of racially segregated cities, suburbs, and neighborhoods. 

The problems that arose from areas of poorer housing rippled out from their places of origin – in other words, it is in everyone’s vested interest to stabilize housing across the nation.

Still, all of these demonstrated trends were not enough to sway some leaders politically to support the Fair Housing Act – until the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. For MLK, housing equality was a major protest point, since housing forms the root of so many other aspects of social equality. President Lyndon B. Johnson leveraged MLK’s assassination to persuade Congress and the Senate of the dire need to take action to correct the scales of America’s social fabric. 

The Passage of the Fair Housing Act

What is known as the Fair Housing Act is legally called the Civil Rights Act of 1968. Like its predecessors that addressed other aspects of citizen life, it formally prohibits discrimination, this time in the realm of housing – in its sale, rental, or financing – based on race, color, national origin, religion, sex, familial status, and disability. Its intention was to both set a new course for the future and to undo the long-term effects of historical discrimination. 

That brings us to the present. What has been accomplished in the decades since the Act’s passage?

What the Fair Housing Act Has Enabled

Substantial Court Cases & Adjoining Laws

When the Fair Housing Act came into law, it empowered several federal court cases that challenged housing discrimination, further illuminating problematic laws and codifying anti-segregationist ones. Some examples of notable cases include:

These are just a handful of cases that gained prominence thanks to the clear boundaries that the Fair Housing Act set regarding discrimination. Quite simply, its standard empowered those who felt discrimination to take federal action against it.

Invitation for Further Anti-Segregationist Policies

While the Fair Housing Act set a broad current for lower lawmakers and courts to follow, federal leaders down the line realized that more definition would be needed to truly bring these values of equality into practice. A few boosts to the Fair Housing Act have occurred since 1968:

  • Fair Housing Amendments Act of 1988 – this amendment expanded the scope of the original 1968 Act by adding families with children and any person with physical or mental disabilities. Importantly, it also solved the constitutional of question of who should enforce the Fair Housing Act and how. 
  • Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing rule – in 2015, the Obama administration initiated this rule, which strengthens and expands the specific implementation of equitable housing in cities across the country. It requires state and local governments to proactively work to undo segregationist laws and inequitable housing situations in their jurisdiction. The plan was to gradually phase in the new rule, but this met some challenges when the presidency changed in 2016. The Biden administration reinstated AFFH and added a new rule in 2021, which essentially calls out “neutral” housing policies that encourage de facto discrimination.

A Bar Set – But Progress To Be Made

With the above measures – the Fair Housing Act of 1968, the Amendment of 1988, AFFH and its accompanying policy rule – a federal foundation for equitable housing aspiration does exist. Yet, it is clear that more concrete advancements remain to be taken. This is where public housing associations can step in and work with local, state, and federal government to encourage further progress in affordable, fair, and abundant housing for all. 

One major goal with which PHAs can assist: closing the observed wealth gap between different demographics through home ownership. Creating the right circumstances for home ownership not only changes a family’s life – it creates a culture of accumulating material wealth, which can lead to better outcomes in long-term education, career, and health.

Even before home ownership is possible for some people, PHAs can work with the government to improve the availability, location, and safety of public housing and affordable rental properties. We have a long way to go, but every step forward we take is one step closer to true equitable housing for all.

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Getting to Know the CEO Behind Our Unique Public Housing Strategy

Behind the doors of every public agency, there is a group of passionate and dedicated individuals working together to make things happen. At the most effective agencies, you often find strong leaders at the front of that pack, steering the ethos, voice, and actions of the organization. 

Tampa Housing Authority is no exception. President and CEO Jerome Ryans would be the first deflect praise, instead crediting his agency’s success to his team and his community – and this is exactly the quality that makes him a stellar leader. We value the time and energy he has put into revitalizing this agency and community.

In today’s post, as Ryans’ retirement looms on the horizon, we take a retrospective look at Ryans’ career at Tampa Housing Authority and what led him here. We focus on lessons learned and the components of effective public agency leadership, especially in the public housing space. Our hope is to educate and inspire future leaders – both at Tampa Housing Authority and elsewhere.

Early Roots in Community Action & Public Housing

Ryans is not a native Floridian, although he has uniformly served communities in the south, and is approaching a over-25-year tenure at Tampa Housing Authority. Born and raised in the Memphis, Tennessee area, Ryans grew up in public housing. 

As he puts it, “We lived in a few shotgun places – we had to go make our own fires in the morning, no central heat or air before we moved into public housing.” He adds with positive resoluteness, “My family benefited from public housing. We never thought we were poor. We had a positive experience. Roof over our head, food on the table. You’d be surprised at the people who didn’t live in public housing who wanted to move in. I always knew that people lived better than we did, but I felt like my essentials were met.”

As a young adult, Ryans got involved in his community right away. He was the first Black administrative staff member of the Memphis city council. This is how he first came into contact with public housing as a profession. 

“When I was staff admin for the city council, I got a call from Jarrell Patterson Jr. (chairman of the city council) running the Community Action Agency in Memphis at the time, about the job being available at the housing authority. I grew up in public housing, but I didn’t feel like I knew enough to be the executive director.” 

The plan was for Ryans to assume the role of deputy executive director, presumably to learn from the mentorship of the executive director. However, as they say, “Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.” Something went amiss with the hiring of the original choice for executive director and, “Next thing I knew, I was being named as the executive director.”

Ryans is unabashed about his nascent beginnings; he does not pretend to have immediately soared as a new public housing director. Instead, he says, he threw himself into studying the foundations of his new profession. 

In his words, “It’s alphabet soup – housing authorities are full of them. I spent late nights learning the business. I wanted to make sure that I knew what I was doing.” And he admits, “Of course I made a lot of mistakes. It’s not unusual to make mistakes, I later learned. I was fortunate enough to become the executive director of Memphis HA. I stayed there several years. I got a chance to learn and travel a lot – spent time with other HA professionals.”

Ryans credits his early managerial experience as a point of reference for his leadership at the Memphis Housing Authority, which helped him reorganize and lead his team to transform. “I faced the challenge of walking into an organization that was troubled, but I was fortunate to be surrounded by good people at the time.” He also nods to the fact that this first experience gave him the chance to travel and talk to other housing authority professionals, seeing how agencies operate in other places.

At the time, Ryans was early in his career, and he wondered if public housing was the right field for him. He tried a couple other adjacent roles at other organizations. He was the Executive Director at Free the Children in Memphis, which examined the origins of poverty through census tracks – with the goal to develop responsive solutions to poverty in communities. Then he was pulled from that to become the Regional Director of Action for George W. Bush’s Thousand Points of Light; this was a multi-state and multi-organization program. Ryans still reflects on the connections and people power he grew there.

Yet Ryans eventually found himself drawn back to his first calling: public housing. He gave life a try in Birmingham, AL, at their housing authority, then returned to his old territory of Memphis to help lead them out of another trouble spot. But Ryans still wanted to find a housing authority and city where he could put down roots and make a larger difference.

Moving to THA

When an opportunity opened at THA, he decided to interview for it. “I have always loved Florida,” he smiles. “And the experiences that I accumulated before Tampa Housing Authority helped prepare me.” He is now counting year 26, and he is still here.

Right away, Ryans realized he would need to make some major changes to help improve the lives of Tampa Housing residents – and the working conditions of his staff, so they could help residents. 

He first focused on hiring a team that would last. “Longevity means a lot in this business,” Ryans notes with gravity. “Most of my executive staff have been here 14-15 years. My COO, Leon Moore, has been here as long as me.”

Next, Ryans and his team had to make a decision about what to do with the major public housing developments in Tampa. “It didn’t make sense to invest in old units anymore,” Ryans explains. “So we torn down most of the major developments in this city and replaced them with mixed-income neighborhoods.” 

This led to a new style of public housing that acknowledged research and case studies finding that grouping people of the same income stifles social mobility, while mixing incomes helps create an upward spiral of mobility. 

Additionally, Ryans is quick to note: “We’ve dropped the language of ‘the projects.’ It’s all community.” He even wishes that they could do away with the phrase “public housing,” only because it carries such stigma that is difficult to shake. “The people who live in our communities work every day and pay taxes.”

Ryans also saw a new direction for the housing authority to go. Instead of operating like a non-profit, he says, “We decided to get into the real estate development business.” This meant leading his agency to become more agile and to form alliances not just with HUD, but with the state, city, and county to work out new developments – ones that can house residents of many different income levels, from Section 8 to market rate. 

Many of the new developments also involve a mixture of retail and residential establishments, creating a pleasant, walking oasis for those who live there. “It doesn’t make sense to build housing in the same way as the past. People ought to live together and support each other,” Ryans opines. Though he acknowledges, “We haven’t won everybody over – but we have won over the vast majority.” 

“Activist groups didn’t want us to tear down public housing at first,” he remarks. “But then they became our friends after they saw what we were doing.” He also gives a nod to the city leadership and the agency’s board leadership before listing a just a few of the many local organizations that have come to support Tampa Housing Authority. 

“We have a lot of social programs that we provide,” he continues. “We strive to make those connections between housing, social services, education, and those sorts of practical services. You can’t build a community without including those agencies and the individuals in the community.”

He goes on to describe his agency’s novel approach under his tenure. “We don’t get a lot of money from HUD, but we take the money we do get and spread it out. We’ll completely redevelop one scatter site, then another.” 

He affirms that this approach is working, as evidenced by the quality of life in the agency’s buildings. “Most people who used to live in public housing are surprised at what they see here. I used to see one resident around, and he would tell me “From the ‘hood to Hollywood, ” he smiles with pride. “I knew exactly what he was saying, so that meant a lot to me.”

However much Ryans celebrates Tampa Housing Authority’s success, though, he is not resting on his laurels. He acknowledges there is still much work left to do. “It has taken us about 25 years to get to this point, and we’re not finished yet. Housing still a huge issue, here and nationwide. We still have people on the waiting list,” he says. “We’re about two-thirds up the mountain. We’re working on our last major redevelopment right now.”

Ryans also guides his agency with a simple, empathetic, and grounded philosophy: “I made a point of this early on: if you’re not willing to move your family into one of your units, why would you move somebody else there? If I’m critical of that unit, why would I want to entertain somebody else moving there? It’s not right. It’s not the way to look at things. For us to be successful, we have to be willing to take on that responsibility.”

Beacons of Hope: Encore & West River

The Encore and West River communities were redeveloped from dilapidated stereotypes of “the projects” to green-certified buildings and models of forward-thinking public housing. 

“If I didn’t tell you ‘this is public housing,’ you wouldn’t know,” Ryans proclaims. “These buildings house mixed-income residents and retail spots. It’s a vibrant community that is safe.”

Encore

The Encore redevelopment is composed of several different communities: 

There are also several proposed private developments in the works. 

Ella, the Encore senior community playfully named after Ella Fiztgerald, is a special point of pride for Ryans and his team. “Seniors live in a building with a nice pool, nice covered parking, a business room where they can go get their docs from time to time, a relaxation area, computer center, theater area. We’re happy to have created such a nice place for them.” He adds with a laugh, “Our director of communications wants to retire there.”

At The Reed, residents enjoy a lobby art gallery, their own movie theater, a community garden, and park-like courtyards. The Tempo features a whole host of amazing benefits, including an exhibit space, music rehearsal rooms, an internet cafe with Wi-Fi access and computers to use, a fitness center, and a pool with an outdoor theater. And The Trio offers many of those same amenities in addition to a resident library and billiard room.

Rose Lugo, Tampa Housing Authority’s Director of Public Relations & Strategic Communications, commented, “His leadership has really set the bar for pub housing nationwide. Housing authorities come here regularly to see what we’ve done and how we’ve done to see how they can replicate it. Somebody from Hawaii, after visiting one of our senior communities at Encore, she was crying. She wished she could provide that level of living to seniors in her community.” 

West River

THA’s West River redevelopment encompasses a broad range of towers, apartment buildings, and engaging retail spaces: 

Robles Park

To be relocated near downtown Tampa and the Old Seminole historic district, the rebuilding of Robles Park is the redevelopment project that will culminate the long-range plan that THA has been executing since Ryans started. 

While THA works on construction for the new Robles Park, the agency relocation team will be hard at work getting current Robles Park residents into new housing, whether that is vacant units via Section 8 vouchers or assisting them with moving out of the Housing Authority completely. Ryans and the team have been pleased to see that quite a few landlords are willing to take in their residents.

The goal is to transform and expand Robles Park from 150 to more than 400 units of public housing with a variety of floorplans. The master plan also includes a vibrant community hub with modern services for residents and attractive retail spots. They are also striving to connect the Robles Park community to other parts of the city in a more walkable way. They agency is operating on a 10-year timeline for this large-scale construction project.

A New Building for THA

One action that evoked some criticism of Ryans in years past was the purchase of a new office building for Tampa Housing Authority. Yet Ryans stands by his decision, because “I felt I owed a comfortable environment to my employees and the residents who visited our office.” His peers seem to agree – the old building leaked when it rained and had no parking on-site, and it felt crowded and unsafe to those who frequented it.

The agency watched the real estate market and decided to acquire the building in 2008 during a downturn. This helped make the purchase on a tight budget, even with some renovations. The current agency office offers comfort, safety, and plenty of parking, and it resides in the thriving West Shore neighborhood near a large shopping center. It is also near the airport, which helps facilitate visits from other housing agency and government colleagues. Though the agency initially faced negative press for a few years after the purchase, it is now seen as a move that elevated the Tampa Housing Authority.

Lessons Learned Over the Years

While there are many lessons that Ryans could extol from his long career at THA, he boils down his agency culture to a few core philosophies.

Entrepreneurial

THA operates in an innovatively profitable fashion, enabling the agency to go above and beyond in their efforts to increase housing supply in Tampa. This goes directly to a core issue of affordable housing, supply and demand.

Community Engagement

Ryans and his team work to build relationships in the Tampa community, because not all capital comes down to dollars. Our strongest resource is our community, and we see this unfolding in gifts of land, tax support, and private collaborators.

Home Ownership

THA strives to open the door to affordable home ownership, not just affordable rentals. Our agency understands the true rootedness and sense of community that expands from owning property rather than renting it.

Retirement on the Horizon – But Not Slowing Down

As mentioned above, Ryans will be retiring soon from his position at the Tampa Housing Authority. He hopes to leave a legacy of innovation combined with a work ethic based on the “HIP Theory,” as he likes to call it. In Ryans words, “That stands for Honesty, Integrity, and Being Principled. If you embrace those 3 factors, you can go anywhere in this country.” He goes on, “I’ve operated on these principles all my life, and I’ve received so many benefits from them. And if you work for me, you operate on these principles.”

Retirement does not mean that Ryans will be slowing down or abandoning his mission to improve the housing situation for all Tampa residents, although he does plan to take some time to be with the loved ones in his life.

Whatever the future holds for Ryans, Tampa Housing Authority will miss him. But his principles, leadership, and goals will live on in the organization’s mission. We can only strive to make the next 25 years at the Tampa Housing Authority as forward-thinking and transformational as the last 25 years.

Angela Greco
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