Safe & Affordable Housing
Everyone deserves a safe, healthy, affordable place to live near living-wage employment, quality transit, good schools, and well-maintained parks, with access to nutritious and affordable food.
UPDATES ON HOUSING ISSUES IN THE RICHMOND REGION
Read below for some updates on housing going on & take a look at our Affordable Housing Platform
Diamond District
The Diamond District is the vast swath of mostly public land in the heart of the city between Arthur Ashe Boulevard and Hermitage Road, and north of the railroad tracks. Redevelopment of the site into a mixed-use, walkable community is an incredible opportunity for the city, if we secure a good deal that includes much needed affordable housing and a range of community benefits. The city’s Richmond 300 Master Plan includes a vision of a walkable neighborhood, a stadium and athletic complex, public parks, and a range of housing for all income levels. The concept currently being proposed is illustrated here.
Public process and key questions:
While we are excited about the prospect of redevelopment and revitalization coming to the Diamond District, it is true that the public has not had a real say in reviewing the bids to the city, the winnowing down to the final bidder, or the terms of the agreement.
As was the case with Navy Hill, we want to ensure the proposal is fully explained to the public and is indeed a good deal. Foremost among the issues for us is affordable housing.
Affordable Housing: Public land offers the most financially advantageous opportunity to produce more affordable housing for city residents facing the greatest housing challenge. The city is asking for 20% of the residential units to be affordable, but this compares to Washington DC’s requirement that 30% of units be affordable, with many at lower income levels.
Specifically, the Diamond District proposal includes 1,134 apartments, 20 percent for lower-income residents, with 20 for public housing residents with Housing Choice vouchers, and 92 for-sale homes, 18 of which are to be affordable for lower-income residents.
Are enough units being set aside for public housing residents with vouchers? What will be the income eligibility levels for the remaining rental and for sale units and will it help those most in need? Will there be permanent supportive housing?
Financing: Also important is whether the city has secured a good financial deal. The deal is complex and best laid out recently in reporting by Jeremy Lazarus for the Richmond Free Press. The first payment for the land will be $16 million for one portion of the site, which will cover most of the city’s site preparation costs to date. Future payments will be made as each phase moves forward.
The city will also be using a Community Development Agreement, with the future tax revenues, including from real estate, admissions and business licensing taxes, as well as portions of meals tax and state sales tax, going to the stadium and infrastructure within the 67 acre site but not into the city’s general fund, which pays for schools and other citywide services.
Are we comfortable with future city tax revenues funding the stadium? Will it cost $85 million as advertised, or more? Most economists say publicly subsidized stadiums are usually a poor deal for cities, but perhaps this full mixed-use development has enough net community benefits.
Has there been an independent outside review of the entire financial package, and is it indeed a good deal for taxpayers and residents?
Jackson Ward & Gilpin Court
The City and the Richmond Redevelopment and Housing Authority are in the process of creating the Jackson Ward Community Plan, with a focus on people, housing, and community. We appreciate the city’s attention to investment and revitalization, but they must ensure current residents and community members are benefiting from this plan.
The Jackson Ward community plan includes replacing public housing with mixed income housing, improving work opportunities, and health services. However, within this plan we are looking for the following actions:
1-for-1 replacement of affordable and public housing. This is a standard practice in public housing redevelopment and should be a baseline expectation.
Ensuring residents can stay on site during redevelopment. Studies have shown that a significant majority of existing residents never make it back to live on the site when redevelopments like this occur. By phasing the redevelopment process, families could relocate within the site and thus minimize the number of times they need to move.
Specific numeric housing goals (i.e. area median income (AMI), length of affordability, bedroom count, homeownership) should be included throughout this study area. At the very least, there should be financial and land use tools in place to retain the current number of affordable housing units that currently exist within the plan area.
These actions will help ensure that current residents of the area can stay within their communities. Allowing residents to have a say in their future housing will lead to a better quality of life, where they are still connected to their communities and essential services.
Before COVID-19, Richmond had the second highest eviction rate in the country. As pandemic era eviction protections cease, Richmond is seeing a return to the unacceptably high number of evictions that existed pre-pandemic.
Evictions
As of September, there have already been 4,148 evictions in the city during 2022, higher than any other locality in Virginia. These evictions traumatize families – financially and physically. RVA Eviction Lab research shows that evictions and eviction judgements are concentrated within Southside neighborhoods, further exacerbating long standing inequities within the city. For Richmond to aspire to be an equitable city, we need to address evictions.
PSG’s recommendations for addressing affordable housing for the Richmond region include:
Codify the principle of “no eviction without representation.”
Disburse $10 million to local legal aid organizations to hire housing attorneys to represent low-income tenants in eviction proceedings.
Discontinue local funding for evictions without comparable funding for legal representation for tenants.
Fund housing counselors to assist tenants facing housing instability by connecting them to rent stabilization resources, helping them find and apply for affordable housing, and negotiating with landlords on their behalf to resolve disputes before taking legal action.
While Richmond does have an eviction diversion program in place, it only is able to support a tiny number of the households in need. According to the U.S. Census survey, 58% of Virginia households are in fear of eviction within the next two months. Increased funding for legal eviction defense is drastically needed.
A Platform for Affordable Housing in Richmond
On Monday, March 29th, 2021, we presented a Platform for Affordable Housing in Richmond, a document constructed in coalition with these and other groups and advocates to address the housing crisis in Richmond. You can view a recording of the presentation by clicking on the image above, and the full platform can be found here.
Frequently Asked Questions
In an effort to answer some of the questions we have received regarding this policy platform, we have provided a number of common responses below:
Q: How was the public engaged in the development of this platform, and how do the recommendations provided serve to build resident power?
A: In developing this platform, we have held nearly 100 individual conversations with individuals from over 20 different organizations around the region that work in housing. These include housing advocates (both state and local), housing providers (both for- and non-profit), neighborhood groups, youth-led organizations, tenant-led groups, service providers, funders, resident groups, faith-based organizations, health equity focused organizations, housing attorneys, fair housing groups, and others. Owing to the depth and breadth of the housing advocacy community in the region, many organizations are focused solely on their particular community’s needs, and did not necessarily have the capacity or interest in working on city-wide policy change - something that is completely understandable.
One potential role for this coalition is helping to elevate these specific concerns of individual communities (ex. Public housing residents, people subject to eviction) into concrete policy and funding proposals for elected officials. It is in this manner that the policy platform we have released focuses its attention on the need for housing policies targeted at those with the fewest housing options and the lowest incomes, which as we know disproportionately includes people of color, Latino/a residents, seniors, people with disabilities, the formerly incarcerated, LGBT+, and unhoused individuals.
PSG does not have the funding or capacity to do full time community organizing. We have the capacity to listen, center resident voices and concerns, build trust, and identify funding to pay residents for their time and expertise. We are on a journey to improve our health equity centered process. We are here to learn.
Q: Why should Richmond take on more of the burden of funding affordable housing when the city is already home to the vast majority of the region’s affordable housing? How can the counties provide a more equitable share of affordable housing?
A: Illustrated not just in Richmond, but around the nation, housing challenges are regional in nature; this being the case, surrounding jurisdictions absolutely can and should be stepping forward with similar plans. As the region’s suburban jurisdictions have experienced job growth, the demand for affordable housing has similarly increased without commensurate efforts to meet this demand. Despite the regional nature of housing affordability issues, each municipality has the ability to create and preserve affordable housing within their jurisdictions, which is why we are particularly focused on a locality-by-locality approach.
Q: Where would you recommend cuts to be made from other city services in order to fund affordable housing programs?
A: We do not approach this conversation from a perspective based in scarcity. The question of funding for affordable housing programs and policies are a question of priorities for our political leaders. There are a number of ways the city could fund this work, including the diversion of existing funding streams, programs to raise more revenue, implementation of cost-saving measures for existing government functions, or even allocation of funds from the federal American Rescue Plan. At the end of the day, our leaders can find the funding for programs and policies that are sufficiently prioritized.