Community-Supported Housing Because NCR is a nonprofit, the type of affordable housing projects it develops is different than the for-profit sector. It specializes in a niche in the affordable housing market – mission-driven, service-enriched, community-supported housing.
“If you came to me from Yardley, Pa., and said, ‘the town needs multifamily housing,’ well, that’s not us. If you came to me and said, ‘Yardley needs affordable housing,’ that may not necessarily be us either,” explains Slemmer. “However, if you came to me and said, ‘this community is really behind something very difficult for anybody to do. It really wants to develop workforce housing and there are all these barriers,’ that’s probably something that we’d work with because we are experts at getting to the soft money sources for affordable housing.”
For instance, in 1998 at a 100-unit affordable housing senior facility in Pacifica, Calif., when eviction notices were posted in the middle of the night because the owner of the community wanted to convert the property to market-rate housing, the city contacted NCR to help keep the project affordable, says David N. Carmany, city manager.
“The entire community was alarmed about the loss of this housing,” says Slemmer. “And, in California, if you lose affordable housing there’s no opportunities for new housing within 60 miles.”
The city council spent $300,000 on the taking of the property through eminent domain. It then transferred the property to NCR, which was charged with preserving its affordability. “We were able to put together a financing plan that preserved it as affordable housing,” says Slemmer. NCR assembled the financing for the purchase of Ocean View Senior Apartments, and then actually purchased the building from the owners after the city had stopped the eviction process. “They helped us figure out the transaction and financing, and got it together in an incredibly short period of time,” says Carmany. “We turned to NCR because we knew the company could get the job done.”
The city of Columbus, Ohio, also has been impressed with the projects that NCR has contributed to the community. The most recent project is The Commons at Grant, a supportive housing community for the previously homeless in the downtown area that will be completed in late spring of 2003. The project will offer rents and service packages to both formerly homeless individuals, as well as low-income wage earners – those with annual incomes of less than $24,000 per year. NCR combined tax credits; city, county and state financing; and private fund-raising efforts to develop the apartment complex debt free. As a result, it will be able to offer very affordable rents and service packages to residents.
“Anytime you’re dealing with homeless issues, you end up with controversy with the neighborhood,” explains Slemmer. But, he realizes that you can’t make everybody happy.