Housing GSO: HRA Greensboro Affordable Housing Plan

NEIGHBORHOOD REINVESTMENT

CONSOLIDATE REHABILITATION PROGRAMS | Overview

Key Partners • City of Greensboro – NDD • Program administrators • Neighborhood associations

The City should reform and streamline its rehab programs. Creating an easily navigable system so residents can more readily access the City’s resources will improve efforts to combat substandard housing and reinvest in neighborhoods.

Action Steps

The City of Greensboro currently operates a suite of programs that provide housing rehabilitation services to homeowners and landlords . Streamlining these programs will improve efficiency and service provision. This will require NDD to merge rehabilitation programs serving similar groups or functions (such as programs for homeowners, landlords, accessibility upgrades, or absentee owners). After this streamlining occurs, the City will be better able to deploy its federal, local, and non-profit funds to a core team of project partners, either across departments or in a centralized location. These reorganized rehabilitation services should be advertised and concentrated in NDD’s candidate neighborhoods for reinvestment. City rehab programs will be an essential form of public subsidy in these neighborhoods and will facilitate the removal of blight and restoration of deteriorating homes to start and build healthy, self-sustaining residential markets while also creating new opportunities for affordable homeownership. These reformed programs will support homeownership by helping existing residents struggling to afford maintenance and upgrades on their homes. By repairing homes before they become substandard or uninhabitable, the City will prevent foreclosures and evictions, while preserving naturally-occurring affordable housing. At the same time, these rehab interventions will help clear blighted and/or vacant properties, to open avenues for infill development of newly constructed affordable homes.

1. Identify rehab program outreach, administration, and management partners as well as financial sources

2. Set up integrated funding system

3. Deploy approach in candidate neighborhoods

Anticipated Cost to Implement:

~$4M Total rehabilitation costs per target neighborhood over a 5-year period

HR&A Advisors, Inc.

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