The agency behind a 10-year affordable housing plan for New Orleans is giving itself a D for 2018, admitting a year of โtremendous and sometimes unexpected success paired with crushing disappointment and swinging back to victory.โ
HousingNOLAโs latest report card released Sept. 20 cites some strides in forthcoming legislation, partnerships with financial institutions and smaller-but-crucial programs getting off the ground to help house formerly incarcerated people or people with special needs. And while there have been some gains in new units or housing assistance, the city has not kept pace with the need for affordable homes โ it has lost more affordable housing than it has created.
โAt this point in the plan, New Orleans should have seen approximately 4,500 new opportunities from the various agencies responsible for creating and subsidizing housing,โ according to the report. โWe should celebrate the fact that 1,754 families and individuals benefited from living in a home they can now afford, but we must always remember that the 8,336 who were not helped in the same time period.โ
The latest report card follows a progress report in which HousingNOLA admitted itโs โunlikelyโ the city will be able to meet a goal of 2,500 units by September. Onlyย 190 new affordable units were brought online in the first half of 2018.
Among the most significant pieces of the housing puzzle is the adoption of a "smart housing mix," which would mandate affordable units with new construction. The New Orleans City Planning Commission is studying the impact of a potential policy, and the New Orleans City Council could adopt those rules, pending recommendations from the CPC.
The city also is up against a deadline from Gov. John Bel Edwards, who vetoed a measure earlier this year that would have prevented municipalities from adopting their own โinclusionary zoningโ measures like the proposed smart housing mix. His veto came with the caveat that if New Orleans isnโt going to adopt those policies, he wonโt block similar legislation that hits his desk next year.
With a limited availability of federal funding, more cities are looking at local options to support affordable housing by leaning on legislati…
But the state legislature did successfully pass a measure to better protect tenants from landlords who illegally hold onto security deposits. The new law raises the maximum penalty that renters can recover from a landlord that illegally withheld a deposit to up to twice the amount of the deposit.
HousingNOLA wants to expand those tenant protections in 2019, among its goals to prevent further renter displacement.
โHousingNOLA calls for the creation of over 33,000 affordable housing opportunities end New Orleans affordable housing crisis,โ the report says. โThese are not simply new houses and apartments that will be built, these opportunities also represent housing that is already occupied and made affordable through policy and investments in the structure. Displacement has become a scourge here in New Orleans and it serves as further proof of our inherent inequity."
The report also counts the cityโs moratorium on most whole-home rentals โ as well as proposed restrictions from the CPC โ as a win on that front.
And though the City Council has indefinitely shelved the so-called โrental registryโ or โhealthy homesโ ordinance, HousingNOLA is hoping the new administration will reintroduce the policy. The proposal โ first introduced by then-District B Councilmember LaToya Cantrell before it was put on the back-burner โ would require landlords to register their property with the city and pass a checklist of basic health and safety requirements, which housing advocates argue would relieve cost-burdened renters from having to pay for repairs or moving costs, which often trap low-income renters in a cycle of substandard housing.
Roughly 63 percent of New Orleans renters spend a third of their income or more on rent and utilities, and 33 percent of homeowners are similarly cost-burdened, according to the report. Meanwhile, the waiting list for housing vouchers through the Housing Authority of New Orleans has remained largely stagnant through 2017 and 2018 at 24,197 people.
Also among HousingNOLAโs goals are landlord education programs and a program to help encourage landlords who are not currently participating in the voucher program. Itโs also working with the cityโs recently adopted Human Relations Commission Advisory Committee on a comprehensive housing plan and is exploring additional services for people experiencing homelessness or with mental health needs, as well as challenges faced by Spanish and Vietnamese speakers.
The organization also supports efforts toward sustainable design and infrastructure, including energy efficiency upgrades and stormwater management efforts, and is working on housing resources for people in the cultural economy.
The report card also highlights efforts from the Regional Transit Authority to center its efforts around housing as part of its 20-year Strategic Mobility Plan.
To take an RTA bus from Hollygrove to her old restaurant job in the Warehouse District, Amanda Soprano used to leave home an hour and a half b…