New Research On Scattered Site Affordable Housing

I want to share a new report from Reinvestment Fund and May8 Consulting on the impact of different approaches to Low Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) development (i.e., single-site multi-family versus scattered-site single family) in Philadelphia. The report had a special focus on WPRE, a scattered site housing developer working in a variety of MVA market types in West Philadelphia. Since 1989, WPRE has been rehabilitating abandoned rowhome shells into affordable rental housing using LIHTC and private financing (Disclosure: Reinvestment Fund has financed WPRE and many other LIHTC projects– scattered site and multi-family–across our footprint).

The report compares the impact of different LIHTC development strategies on local property values using the MVA to control for neighborhood characteristics.

Our findings support the idea that neighborhood interventions should be tailored to the markets in which they are deployed. In West Philadelphia, WPRE’s scattered site strategy has helped stabilize marginal communities by reclaiming vacant homes on otherwise stable blocks. Using a scattered-site approach, WPRE is able to spread its investment impacts over a large area of the community in ways that would be impossible with large single site developments. Additionally, by creating affordable housing in otherwise high-opportunity areas, the strategy enhances the public policy objective of integrating affordable housing into areas that offer greater opportunity (e.g., access to jobs, natural resources, public transit).

Have a look: https://goo.gl/i20IPq