Dear Chair Garvey and Members of the County Board:
We are writing on behalf of the Alliance for Housing Solutions Board of Directors, along with the undersigned organizations and individuals, to provide comments on the County Manager’s revised budget for FY 2021.
First, we would like to thank you, your colleagues and the County staff for the hard work and dedication you have shown in the face of the current COVID-19 crisis. We understand that difficult decisions need to be made and that many valuable objectives will need to be compromised, at least temporarily, in order to meet our community’s most urgent needs. We also know that projecting budget needs and resources in the current environment is extremely difficult, and we support the County’s plan to revisit and update the budget periodically as the new fiscal year begins.
“We understand that difficult decisions need to be made and that many valuable objectives will need to be compromised, at least temporarily, in order to meet our community’s most urgent needs.””
With that in mind, we support the principles that guide the County Manager’s budget reformulation and many of the specific budget choices that flow from these principles, including:
Allocation of $16 million to the Affordable Housing Investment Fund, equivalent to the FY20 budget for AHIF. Although AHS had been advocating for an increase to $25 million for FY21, we understand that this level of increase may not be feasible in the current environment. We will be looking to future budget processes for opportunities to increase the funding for new development and preservation of affordable units that we know Arlington needs.
Fund Housing Grants at least at $10.1 million, with continued implementation of maximum allowable rent increases. As described below, however, we believe that the program could be expanded to fill some important gaps.
Increasing Permanent Supportive Housing funding to $2.5 million and supplementing staffing levels for the program.
Continuing support for Safety Net nonprofits such as homeless services and others whose services are in high demand.
Creating a COVID contingency of $10.2 million, of which $2.7 million will be a backstop for the housing and safety net system.
All of these programs and services are critical to support in any year, and even more so in this time of crisis. Given the difficulty of understanding the true level of need we are seeing in the County and whether these allocations are adequate to meet demand, we strongly recommend that additional steps be taken to ensure transparency in these and related programs.
We urge the county to release data on program applications and expenditures in sufficient detail and in a timely manner through an existing tool such as the County’s open data portal (data.ArlingtonVA.us). This kind of information will help all Arlington stakeholders assess and respond to our community’s needs during this crisis and throughout the recovery. As we know that budget resources and needs will become more clear in the coming months, we offer the following additional recommendations for changes if resources are available:
Expand eligibility and corresponding funding levels for Housing Grants to provide assistance to additional groups who are currently unable to receive assistance. We recommend that the County Board ask the Department of Human Services to consult with County commissions and other community stakeholders in order to develop a refined approach to expanding eligibility in a way that is sustainable for the program in the long run while filling important gaps. The categories we believe merit additional consideration include:
Working immigrant households otherwise ineligible for support
Transition-aged youth such as those emerging from foster care
Individuals who have not previously held a lease in their own name
Restore additional funding for the Housing Arlington initiative to support the highest priority analysis and engagement related to the review of the Affordable Housing Master Plan and the Missing Middle Study. These initiatives will help ensure that the County’s long-term objectives for increasing housing supply and affordability do not fall significantly behind.
Increase funding for the Lee Highway Alliance to keep this valuable resource in place especially as we continue working on policies that impact this area such as the Plan Lee Highway initiative, the Housing Conservation District, and the Missing Middle Study. We are particularly concerned about the disparity in funding levels between LHA and the other partnerships.
Provide support and incentives for multifamily property owners who are not eligible for other assistance but whose residents are at risk of displacement. These owners have been offered guidance and asked to take voluntary actions to support residents, but for some these actions may be putting them at risk of financial losses that would be difficult to sustain. The County could consider tools such as flexible short-term loans in exchange for providing residents with rent relief and flexibility.
In this time of tight money, it may be more important than ever to advance solutions to the affordable housing problem that are policy-, not funding-based, such as streamlining the permitting process for affordable housing providers and zoning changes that would enable greater mixed use density near main commuter roads, such as are being considered in the context of Lee Highway.
Thank you for providing us with the opportunity to comment on this difficult and unprecedented budget. We look forward to working with the County as the fiscal year approaches and additional adjustments become possible.
Sincerely,
Margaret Whipple, Chair, AHS Board of Directors
Michelle McDonough Winters, Executive Director, AHS
Additional signatories:
AHC, Inc.
Arlington Partnership for Affordable Housing
Bridges to Independence
Enterprise Community Partners, Mid-Atlantic
Latino Economic Development Corporation
Neighborhood Fundamentals, LLC
Wesley Housing Development Corporation
Naveed Easton
Alice Hogan
Dave Leibson
Kellen MacBeth
Mark Riley
Kathryn Scruggs