Arizona puts feds' money to work building homes

[one...two...tree 2,762]

by Catherine Reagor -

The Arizona Republic

Arizona is receiving $66 million from the federal stimulus package to revive more than 30 stalled affordable-housing projects for families, seniors and the disabled.

The developments are expected to create at least a thousand homes for residents who cannot find housing they can afford, as well as at least 2,000 construction, government and service jobs.

The low-income residential projects range from the Catherine Arms apartments for Native Americans in downtown Phoenix to the Santa Fe Springs subdivision for families in Sierra Vista.

The Arizona Housing Department applied for the funds shortly after the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act was approved by Congress in February and is now beginning to receive the money, which must be spent by early 2012.

"We have never needed more affordable housing than now," said Michael Trailor, the department's director. "So many Arizonans are struggling to provide a decent home for their families, and they have too few options."

With the state in a foreclosure crisis and unemployment soaring, Arizona's homeless population is at a record high.

About $32 million of Arizona's stimulus funds for housing will be spent to restart at least 20 projects.

The housing projects began under a tax-credit program also funded by the federal government. Since the late 1980s, the government has offered tax credits for building low-income housing. In return, project backers have to keep rents below market rates for at least 15 years.

Many investors put money into the projects to take advantage of the tax break. Fannie Mae was one of the nation's biggest tax-credit investors before last year.

When financial markets collapsed last fall, many of those investors ran out of money or backed out of deals.

The new stimulus money, called the Tax Credit Assistance Program or TCAP, is a short-term fix to fill in financing gaps in these tax-credit projects. The Housing Department distributes the money to help complete projects closest to being ready.

"Without TCAP, we don't know when we could finish Catherine Arms, and we knew the need for it was growing," said Diana Yazzie Divine of Native American Connections. "Now, we plan to open by December."

Construction stopped last fall on Catherine Arms but restarted recently. Rents at the redevelopment project for Native Americans will start below $500 a month.

The project is receiving almost $528,000 from Arizona's TCAP funding to fill the gap in its tax credit financing left by investors who backed out of deals.

So far, 11 Arizona projects have received approval for TCAP funding. The Housing Department is working on contracts to give at least another 10 affordable housing developments TCAP funding.

In normal economic times, developers obtained the tax credits, then gave them to investors in exchange for cash to fund construction. But now developers, who have projects ready to build, cannot find investors interested in the tax credits.

The Housing Department will put its other $34 million in stimulus money toward a program that essentially buys back these tax credits. The developer hands over the credit, and the state provides stimulus money to fund the pending construction. The state hopes to fund at least 10 projects; contracts for five are now under review.

This tax-credit exchange program is more difficult because it puts the Housing Department in the position of running or directly investing in developments, something it does not normally do.

But the stimulus money must be spent quickly. And unlike stimulus funds for transportation or education, the money to help these housing projects has been spent slowly because these programs had to be created from scratch.

The exact number of jobs created and people helped must be tracked for each of Arizona's housing stimulus programs and reported to the federal government.

"Arizona is ahead of most states in its use of the TCAP funding," said Ron Sims, an assistant director of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, which is administering the federal stimulus programs. "The money is meant to be spent fast to help as many people as possible."

http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/n...redits0921.html

[NickD 203]

Do we really need more homes? realtor.com has zillions of homes for sale, in some communities where a major industry has left for China, 30% of the homes are on the market. Even found plenty of homes in Detroit for sale for a buck, but closing costs were high. In nice communities like Brookfield, WI, 20% of the homes are for sale as people can no longer afford to pay their property taxes. Practically all the homes on Lake Michigan shores are for sale due to a reassessment, just about tripled their property taxes. Then all of the foreclosures.

Thousands of homes are for sale with the cities on the shores of Lake Michigan where ship building was plenty busy, all that is in Korea now, they are super busy. Also resulting in the closure of many stores.

Our once famous shopping mall that would attract people from as far away as 60 miles is now 65% vacant. Can buy some homes for 30 cents on the buck, but what will we do if we go there, go on welfare?

Still feel we should send our money to Iraq and Afghanistan to build their infrastructure and spread democracy. Spreading freedom is the most important thing, the hell with ours. Still miss my buddies that were killed in Viet Nam, but what the heck, VN is free now.

[Dr. Obvious 49]

Do we really need more homes?

The questions really are "Do we really need to keep ignoring the working poor and lower middle class in order to keep up appearances? To hope that the housing pink pony will come galloping back in absence of all indicators to the contrary and we wouldn't have wasted our oversupply on those people when all the new money comes screaming in?"

I mean, that is what this city-council wants to stick its head in the sand about and believe. In three years or so, all of the demand will be back and everything will be 2005 again. Shouldn't waste time housing the poor with our oversupply.

Edited September 21, 2009 by Wacken

[natty bumppo 297]

by Catherine Reagor -

The Arizona Republic

Arizona is receiving $66 million from the federal stimulus package to revive more than 30 stalled affordable-housing projects for families, seniors and the disabled.

The developments are expected to create at least a thousand homes for residents who cannot find housing they can afford, as well as at least 2,000 construction, government and service jobs.

wonder how many of these construction jobs will be filled by persons of illegal alien status?