Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Funding for persons with disabilities

[Sharon Villines (sharon]

On Apr 8, 2010, at 9:25 AM, false wrote:

>  built with any Community Development funding, a percentage of the  
> units must be available to low income families/persons at a  
> significantly reduced cost.

The key is "community development funding," which is almost always  
government money. It would be unlikely that government money would not  
come with strings attached in terms of both affordability and  
accessibility.

There are at least two definitions of affordable, one based on home  
prices in the area and one based on the household income.

Affordable as defined by the housing subsidy programs I know about,  
are not what most of us would call low-income -- "affordable" is  
defined by a percentage of the house price based on the average home  
price in the area. This formula varies by state and is a nightmare to  
figure out. In Florida we had lawyers working on it and didn't know.  
It was something like houses priced within 30-70% of the house price  
in the area. A very expensive area, therefore would qualify for a  
larger subsidy. There might have been a cap -- I don't remember.

As a cohousing community helping a household apply for these funds, we  
wouldn't have known if a household qualified until we had home prices  
and contracts, and the person applied for the money. By this time the  
cohousing group would have been very anxious because we would be  
holding a unit for someone who might be excluded from the group. Or  
for a household that qualified but that we had never heard of.

Affordable based on income usually means total housing costs in the  
range of ~30% of their income. This article from Wikipedia explains  
the concept based on income rather than the price of the house,  
internationally:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affordable_housing

It was taking more time than I have to look up a sample subsidy  
program based on average  price of housing. Searches are bringing up  
programs for buying foreclosed and abandoned homes and buildings. Lots  
of help for that.

We also discussed this recently so check the archives.

Sharon
----
Sharon Villines in Washington DC
Where all roads lead to Casablanca