Parkside Terrace with 318 units and Mayfair Mansions with 570 units are two affordable housing projects the not-for-profit Community Preservation and Development Corporation (CDPC) is renovating and rehabilitating with funding from the District government.

Projects like these, which preserve affordable housing, should be the most important element of the city’s development strategy, said Alice Rivlin, co-chair of the Comprehensive Housing Strategy Task Force.

With traditional developers not stepping up to build an ample amount of affordable housing, nonprofits like CDPC are getting involved and, despite many challenges, are leading the way in responding to the Task Force’s call to build 19,000 new units of affordable housing by 2020.

This goal was outlined in a recently released report called “Homes for an Inclusive City,” which recommends doubling the funding for preservation and new development of affordable housing in the District, from $2 million a year to $4 million a year for the next 15 years.

Michael Pitchford, president of CDPC, said that nonprofit developers who are engaged in rehabilitating deserve to receive more funding for these projects, in light of the larger profits made by mainstream developers on high-end developments.

“The challenge to preserving affordable housing is mainly that the demand for condos has driven up the cost of buying units. There have been run-ups in sales prices. Condo converters can make a nice profit. As those units go condo, we lose them in the affordable housing area.”

For nonprofit developers like So Others Might Eat, Inc. (SOME), finding good sites is another major challenge, said Ken Ellison, its housing development director. SOME undertakes new development only of affordable housing and has pledged to build 1,000 new affordable housing units in the next seven years. Therefore this organization is constantly searching for empty buildings or land.

For land owned by the city, SOME must compete with other projects that want to use it in ways that may generate more revenue for the city. In other cases, people who have empty buildings may be holding on to them in the hope that prices will rise, Ellison said, adding that “some properties never go on the market, but are sold to those willing to pay a premium.”

SOME has about 230 units of housing currently, with 23 units in the pipeline, for extremely low-income households, defined as households at 30% of median income.

Because of the land shortage Ellison said SOME is now interested in working with churches. “We commit to 40-year projects with the city, and we could do a 40-year lease with a church.” Adding another option, Ellison said that if people in a community do not want to sell a site but are still interested in having it developed, SOME is open to a joint venture.

The Task Force’s Rivlin noted that although the housing boom is raising prices for land and empty buildings as well as new housing units, “it is also creating opportunities because it is bringing in more resources.” To capitalize on these opportunities, the Task Force report recommends increasing the deed recordation and transfer tax and dedicating real estate tax revenue from new residents to affordable housing.

Besides building new housing, the Task Force wants to preserve affordable housing by rehabilitating about 1,600 units a year and subsidizing rent for 25,000 units. Between 2000 and 2004, D.C. lost 7,500 units with rent levels under $500 and 9,400 homes valued at or below $150,000.

Ellison said that he welcomes the Task Force’s recommended increase in rent subsidies. SOME finds that while capital funds are accessible for site acquisition, there is a shortage of both rent subsidies for tenants and subsidies that complement housing development. SOME housing provides not only shelter, but also an array of support services such as counseling and after-school programs.

The Task Force’s recommendations are based on the Mayor’s goal that the city will grow by 100,000 residents over the next 15 years. In 1970, D.C. had 756,000 residents, but by 2000 the population had dropped to 572,000. A growing population should make the city more prosperous, generate jobs, and increase the tax base, which in turn should improve public services.

A growing middle class is key to the city’s future vitality, says the Task Force report. CDPC’s Pitchford agrees. “That single mom [in affordable housing] has a job that is vital to the city—like a teaching assistant, or in the police or fire department. There are economic reasons, not just social reasons, for having affordable housing,” he said. The Task Force report defines income levels, based on metropolitan-area incomes, as follows:

Over the long run, efforts to increase affordable housing should help homeless people. “When there is an increase in the stock of affordable housing, there is a reduction in the number of homeless people. Every element of this plan, even though it does not directly address homelessness, indirectly it does,” Pitchford said.

However, neither homelessness nor the problem of unaffordable housing can be solved just from the housing side, Rivlin pointed out. “The city is committed to both temporary solutions like shelters, and more permanent solutions like affordable housing,” she said. “But anything you do about housing has to be coordinated with training and jobs—not our beat [of the Task Force], so to speak. But the Task Force emphasizes that the problem is not just housing, it’s higher income.”

Other Affordable Housing Initiatives From Nonprofits

Community of Hope. Manages Hope Apartments in Congress Heights, with 10 units for very low-income households with members in the early stages of substance recovery.

Community Preservation and Development Corporation. Runs 1,500 units in the District now, with two new projects under way with another 800 units. Residents are very often families with children, headed by a woman, on income of $10,000–30,000 per year.

Cultural Development Corporation. Partnered with a private developer to facilitate the sale of 12 affordable condominium units in Mather Studios for artists, and recently unveiled plans for 80 units in Northeast Washington, Ward 5 and Ward 7.

Mi Casa. Helped 250 people achieve quality single-family homeownership for the first time, 450 tenants purchase and rehabilitate their own buildings, and 15 challenged individuals renovate home units.

St. Martin’s Catholic Church and Catholic Community Services. Teamed up to build a 184-unit development at T and Summit Streets, N.E., for Ward 5 residents in diverse income levels. Units range from junior 1-bedrooms to 2-bedrooms; the development will include parking and community space.