Housing GSO: HRA Greensboro Affordable Housing Plan

AFFORDABLE RENTAL HOMES

PARTNER ON HOUSING AUTHORITY REDEVELOPMENT | Overview

Key Partners • City of Greensboro – NDD, City Manager’s Office, Field Operations, Water Resources • Greensboro Housing Authority

Greensboro’s public housing is its most powerful tool to serve its lowest-income residents. However, as public housing ages and becomes obsolete, public housing authorities around the country are utilizing the Rental Assistance Demonstration (RAD) program to transform public housing developments into project- based voucher communities, making it easier to finance needed repairs. In Greensboro, Smith Homes needs redevelopment with large-scale infrastructure improvements to improve housing quality. Redeveloping Smith Homes and similar public housing developments through RAD is critical to ensure extremely low-income residents have safe and dignified housing options. Greensboro should establish a formalized partnership with GHA to guide public housing redevelopment, with the larger goal of working together to maintain strong, healthy communities. Beginning with the multi-phased Smith Homes redevelopment, the City should commit to funding required infrastructure updates at the Smith Homes site, while GHA should commit to providing greater resident- focused support. The City and GHA should establish an MOU to formalize agreements about City investments and GHA support. Together, the City and GHA combine powerful resources for serving Greensboro’s lowest-income earners. Both must work together to build and maintain healthy housing supported by adequate infrastructure. In addition to the MOU for Smith Homes, the City and GHA should develop a strategy for supporting new affordable housing development on other GHA-owned land that becomes available for development in the next ten years. The City and GHA should meet regularly to communicate around opportunities to leverage GHA’s bonding capacity, partner on executing the pipeline of projects, housing choice voucher utilization, and potential land swaps. The City and the Greensboro Housing Authority (GHA) should establish a partnership for public housing redevelopment, including the Smith Homes site, designed to address housing development infrastructure needs. Redevelopment is necessary as public housing ages and becomes obsolete and the process must be carefully managed with coordinated support from the City and GHA.

Action Steps

Anticipated Cost to Implement: ~$5M For infrastructure and site costs over four phases of redevelopment for Smith Homes 1. Work with GHA to establish resident- focused goals and priorities throughout redevelopment 2. Establish a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with GHA outlining agreed investments and support for Smith Homes 3. Dedicate funding to support infrastructure improvements that fall within the purview of Smith Homes

HR&A Advisors, Inc.

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