Mayor Muriel Bowser hosted a Faith-Based Housing Expo as part of her effort to produce and preserve affordable housing in the District. The event, which briefed religious leaders about the development process, connected them to financers, developers, and city leaders, and provided technical assistance, was held Dec. 5, at the House of Lebanon Senior Apartments in Northwest.
“Creating affordable housing means safer, stronger neighborhoods and allows our residents to share in the District’s prosperity,” said Bowser. “Religious leaders play a critical role in many communities throughout the District, and we want to engage and inform them in the development process so that they can continue to help move our city forward.”
Loretta Steele, a member of the 19th Street Baptist Church, said she attended the expo to get a clearer understanding of what ways she and other congregants could do to help alleviate the need for affordable housing. She noted that in D.C., middle class individuals making incomes around $50,000 need financial assistance to afford to stay in the District.
“This is not a new concept by any means, because the city has offered incentives in the past, under Marion Barry, to church leaders to help build and secure decent housing for working people,” Steele said. “Affordable housing is not about people on welfare who everyone thinks destroys things and breeds crime. There are respectable people in this city making livable wages – more than fifty thousand a year – who suddenly cannot afford to be here.”
In addition to providing safe, livable units at affordable prices, the goal of faith-based housing, where churches are either owners or managers of affordable income units, is to help support and anchor whatever social services residents may require.
Since taking office, Mayor Bowser has made affordable housing a major focus of her administration. Earlier this year, she committed a historic $100 million to the Housing Production Trust Fund (HPTF) to expand affordable housing opportunities and create more pathways to the middle class for District residents. To date, those funds have yielded over 1,300 affordable units. Mayor Bowser also created a Housing Preservation Strike Force, a team tasked with developing an action plan to preserve existing affordable housing in the District.
Faith-based development initiatives currently help to support more than 60 faith-based partners at various stages of the development process, providing more than $15 million in Enterprise grants, loans and tax credit equity including more than $1.5 million in loans and $13.8 million in Low-Income Housing Tax Credit equity.
