CHAPTER 4: Recommendations for Reform
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Austin is at a strategic point in its growth. Without providing more housing at lower prices, Austin's middle class -- and soon, its businesses -- will move to more affordable areas in nearby cities or beyond. In order to help to overcome the key barriers to affordable housing -- the lack of public awareness, supply, access, and resources -- four goals were developed by the Community Action Network Working Group on Affordable Housing. Important first steps to achieve these goals are also included. These actions are neither exhaustive nor mutually exclusive nor do they need to be undertaken chronologically; these actions complement one another. The Working Group created a more extensive list of suggested actions that could be initiated to address Austin-Travis County's housing needs (See Appendix C.).
RECOMMENDED GOALS AND ACTIONS
GOAL 1: EDUCATE THE COMMUNITY ON THE REGIONAL HOUSING CRISIS.
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In order to educate residents and business and community leaders on the impacts of a lack of affordable housing and the difficulties facing area residents in finding affordable housing, the Community Action Network partners should:
Action1-A. Make housing a priority in decision-making processes throughout the region. Every policy decision made by community leaders should weigh the impact on the housing market.
Action1-B. Convene major employers and the universities and colleges to discuss the housing crisis, its impact on their business or institution, their impact on the housing market, and their responsibility to help improve conditions.
Action 1-C. Institute a public education campaign to educate residents, neighborhood associations, and employers on the impact of the affordable housing crisis on them. Raise awareness of substandard conditions in unregulated or poorly managed developments and the difficulties facing low-wage workers. Rising housing prices mean businesses will face more difficulties in recruiting and retaining workers, and Austin residents will face rising tax burdens as their middle income neighbors move to the suburbs.
GOAL 2: IMPROVE EXISTING FINANCING METHODS. Existing housing programs of government, lending institutions, and nonprofit organizations are largely ineffective, narrowly designed, and/or underfunded. The community must develop new ways of creating more housing opportunities for low and moderate-income residents of Travis County. To do so, the Community Action Network partners should:
Action 2-A. Encourage public officials to develop incentives for building more affordable housing through a variety of tools, such as rehabilitation of existing buildings, tax abatements, tax increment financing, fee waivers, density bonuses or transferable development rights.
Action 2-B. Facilitate a review of the current allocation of housing resources, e.g., federal and state funds, lending pools, and foundation/nonprofit support, to ensure they are operating efficiently to meet the needs of eligible residents.
Action 2-C. Challenge lenders to develop new and appropriate loan products to accommodate lower income borrowers and borrowers with less than perfect credit ratings.
GOAL 3: DEVELOP PROACTIVE POLICIES TO MEET COMMUNITY NEEDS. In order to ensure that the tax burden is equitably distributed, Austin-Travis County must attract and retain residents across the income spectrum. A citywide housing policy is essential to do so. Elements of the policy may vary, but critical issues should be addressed. The Community Action Network partners should:
Action 3-A. Encourage city and county officials to adopt a joint affordable housing policy that includes a comprehensive list of neighborhood impacts that all housing developments must address including traffic, school, long-term maintenance, crime and safety issues, and other issues to be identified. Developments that comply with this policy will be approved. Among other issues, the policy should:
Action3A-1. Promote efforts to make more land available at below market prices for affordable housing developers, such as convening taxing authorities to develop a vacant-lot foreclosure program, creating a land bank, or allowing appropriate entities the first right of refusal for surplus public lands.
Action 3A-2. Encourage public officials to review zoning ordinances to facilitate affordable multifamily developments and other group quarters, especially single-room occupancy units, similar to college dormitories.
Action 3A-3. Promote community and employer efforts to help consumers achieve their housing goals, such as credit counseling for both renters and homebuyers, homeownership counseling, and savings programs.
Action 3A-4. Highlight that any housing built with public subsidies must be accessible to disabled residents and encourage privately developed housing to be as well.
GOAL 4: INCREASE RESOURCES FOR HOUSING. The Working Group estimates that tens of thousands of households live in substandard housing; pay an excessive amount for their housing; and/or live in overcrowded conditions. The public sector cannot address these problems only with federal resources. Additional monies are necessary to address the current shortfall in affordable housing units. To raise supplemental funds for the community's housing needs, the Community Action Network partners should:
Action 4-A. Work with public and community leaders to create a housing trust fund with adequate, dedicated resources for affordable housing efforts by the year 2000.
Action 4-B. Engage the assistance of private and community institutions in collaborating with the public sector in providing more housing programs.
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