The Gainesville Housing Authority (GHA) and Collaborative Housing Solutions completed a substantial rehabilitation of 200 former public housing units in Gainesville, Georgia (the Project).  The units are located on six sites within one mile of each other, ranging from 6 to 114 units on each site.  The Project was financed under one bond issuance in order to redevelop GHA’s smaller sites which would not otherwise be feasible to rehabilitate individually.  All 200 units converted to Section 8 Project-Based Rental Assistance through the HUD Rental Assistance Demonstration program (RAD).  The properties used 4% LIHTCs, tax-exempt bonds and subordinate financing to transform the properties.  The $44.5 million redevelopment provides residents with significant physical upgrades, including central air conditioning for the first time and green-building features that have improved their physical health.

The Project serves as a model to other projects statewide and nationally by using innovative financing techniques at the time.  It was the first in Georgia to combine NHTFs with LIHTCs.  The development team worked collaboratively with DCA through the underwriting and closing process, creating a model for other LIHTC/NHTF projects in Georgia to follow.  The Project was one of the very first nationally to utilize an innovative new tool in the RAD program, allowing projects in Opportunity Zones to increase their RAD rents.  The new policy facilitated a $74 per unit per month rent boost, allowing a larger first mortgage to undertake the robust rehabilitation work scope that the properties needed.  The development team collaborated with HUD as it created underwriting criteria, forging a path for future RAD projects.

A new community building was built which serves as the hub for myriad on-site services.  The Project’s Resident Services Coordinator provides direct case management to residents and nurtures partnerships with

35 community service agencies that increase educational outcomes for its youth, foster economic self-sufficiency for its adults, and improve life for its seniors to age in place.  On-site services include tutoring, counseling, summer programs, mentoring, mothers’ and children’s reading programs, parenting programs, life skills training, senior programs, and health services.  These services have helped resident students graduate from high school, broadened children’s experiences through after-school and summer activities, engaged isolated seniors into community activities, and connected residents with needed medical services, food, and supplies.

The Project created a public arts initiative, aimed to increase arts education and appreciation among its residents, who have historically faced a lack of access to the arts.  Three outdoor sculptures by local artists greet residents on the largest property, Melrose Homes.  The other five properties will have sculptures on a rotating basis created by graduate students in the Visual Arts Department of the University of North Georgia.  Large outdoor murals have been designed and painted by resident children and community volunteers, enhancing relationships among project residents and the Gainesville community. The Project’s community building, the Melrose Art and Activity Center (the MAC), serves as the hub for arts classes and programs.  It has a dedicated arts and crafts room filled with arts supplies for classes and a lending library of children’s books for residents.  The development team purchased artwork from local artists that fills the walls of the MAC, which provides inspiration and arts appreciation.  In the future, the MAC will host guest lectures and classes by local artists.  This initiative compliments the activities sponsored by the Public Arts Committee of “Vision 2030,” a community-based initiative of the Greater Hall County Chamber of Commerce to improve the quality of life in Gainesville and Hall County through collaboration with the public, private, and non-profit sectors.

Through substantial improvements to the properties’ facades, significant landscape additions, public art pieces, and re-naming/re-branding the Project, the development team aimed to change community stereotypes of what affordable LIHTC- and HUD-assisted housing looks like.  Midtown Villages provides quality affordable housing which the Gainesville community can be proud of and serves as a national role model.

https://www.gainesvillehousing.org/housing/midtown-villages

West Point Village is a two-phase master-planned new construction project as the first stage of the redevelopment of the Housing Authority of the City of West Point, Georgia (WPHA)'s public housing portfolio.  Collaborative Housing Solutions is collaborating with WPHA and Pennrose LLC as co-owners and co-developers.  West Point Village Phase I will be a newly constructed 72-unit family property on a site that the WPHA purchased to deconcentrate the city’s very-low-income residents into a more mixed-income community.

The project will have amenities that include community/activity room, community garden and an external gathering area.  The first phase consists of 42 LIHTC units with no rental assistance and 30 LIHTC units subsidized through the HUD Rental Assistance Demonstration (RAD) program.

The second phase consists of 72 units with 40 non-assisted LIHTC units and 32 RAD units.  WPHA public housing residents from its existing public housing sites will be relocated to these new projects.  This two-phased, master-planned project is located in the 10th Street Redevelopment Plan and is playing an important role in the revitalization efforts occurring in the surrounding area which is ready for renewed investment.

Each phase of development is approximately $20 million; the first phase has secured its 9% LIHTCs and is in the closing of financing process and the second phase is under review for 9% LIHTCs.