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Timeline and challenges for extremely low-income affordable housing projects

0:52:03

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Acting Commissioner Tigani explains the increasing timeline for extremely low-income (ELI) affordable housing projects, citing factors such as rising costs, labor issues, and budget constraints. He notes that projects now take five years or longer to move through the pipeline.

Factors contributing to longer timelines: increasing costs, labor issues, lending environment, and budget constraints
Current estimate of five years or longer for projects to move through the pipeline
Discussion of funding sources, including city resources, federal low-income tax credits, and home funds
Emphasis on the need for federal partnership and mixed-income strategies to address housing needs

Ahmed Tigani

0:52:03

So over time due to increasing costs and many of the complications we talked about earlier, labor, the lending environment, and our own budget capacity constraints which have gotten better, but you know started from a place where we were dealing with backlogs and continue to deal with backlogs.

0:52:25

The time in the pipeline has gotten longer.

0:52:29

So our projects, and in particular you're probably referring to our Ella projects, extra low and low income housing.

0:52:37

Though I will point out that in most of our term sheets we are building housing for individuals who are the most vulnerable, who are in the lower end of the spectrum.

0:52:48

The timeline for that has certainly gotten longer, but we have seen different adjustments on each of our term sheets.

0:52:57

So at certain points we may be in a better position with funding for supportive housing or senior housing, and we'll have a shorter timeline for that.

0:53:08

But overall, we have seen it to a longer side.

0:53:13

That being said, we're at a point where we have more resources than we had before.

0:53:17

We have more staffing.

0:53:18

And we've been looking at process efficiencies to try to reduce that timeline.

0:53:22

We know that that's something we have to continue to work on and do better.

Alexa Áviles

0:53:25

So what is the timeline?

Ahmed Tigani

0:53:27

So right now we are telling developers who are in our pipeline it will be five years or longer depending on available resources and conditions at that time.

0:53:38

And there's a mix of things that we also have to consider.

0:53:40

So it's not only city resources, but it's also the availability of federal low income tax credits.

0:53:46

The availability of home funds, which is a funding source we use primarily for our senior projects.

0:53:51

And both of which have been the top of topic when we're talking about HUD funding and federal appropriations.

0:53:59

So as those funding sources become either more flexible, in the case of the low income tax credits where if we were to get legislative changes that made it more flexible to do more of that work, or with home funds where we saw the federal budget appropriate at a level that meets the need we've told them we can use if we have those funds, then the pipeline can get shorter.

0:54:19

There isn't a scenario given the cost, the increasing costs of these projects, and some of which are costs we're still considering as we think about tariffs or other federal legislation coming down the pipe.

0:54:31

Until we can't do this with city budget alone.

0:54:35

So we need the federal partner to assist us.

0:54:37

Additionally, in absence of that, this is what comes, this is why we come back to mixed income strategies.

0:54:44

So this is why we're trying to use non subsidy strategies to build large amounts of affordable units, especially for those extra low and low income families.

0:54:55

So the full answer I think is important, but directly to your question, we're saying five years or longer, but that can change based on the availability of resources.

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Addressing needs of extremely low-income households in affordable housing

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Inquiry into the number of extremely low-income projects in HPD's pipeline