Selectmen Approve $100,000 For Two Housing Assistance Programs

by William F. Galvin

            HARWICH – Two new housing assistance programs will be put in place by the housing authority with the assistance of the board of selectmen, which on Monday night approved use of $100,000 from the town’s affordable housing fund.

            A mortgage assistance program is designed to help residents who are struggling short-term to make mortgage payments and who, with the assistance of no more than two months payments, would land back on their feet.

            The second program, a rental assistance program, seeks to make more rental units available at affordable rates by buying down the cost of a rental unit. The sources of money will allow the housing authority to act quickly to assist people in need, Valerie Foster, Executive Director of the Harwich Housing Authority, told selectmen Monday night.

            The request to use the affordable housing fund to infuse $50,000 in each program has the support of the housing authority and the housing committee. Housing Committee Chairman Gerry Loftus urged action on the funding as soon as possible.

Foster told selectmen it is important to get the programs up and running to keep people in their homes. Citing the mortgage assistance program, Foster said there are five families in town which could use the assistance right now.

The $50,000 would assist up to 20 families who are in jeopardy of losing their homes because they cannot pay one to two months of their mortgage. The program would provide no more than two months of mortgage payments with a maximum of $2,500 to ensure a family does not lose their home to foreclosure.

There are restrictions and parameters a family would have to meet to have the request approved. A family would have to show they can maintain the monthly mortgage commitment after they have received assistance, Foster said, adding they would only be permitted to make a request for funds once.

The rental assistance program will be a three-year pilot program with a budget of $246,220. The hope is town meeting will approve $130,000 recommended by the community preservation committee for the program out of Community Preservation Act funds, to use $60,000 in CPA funds already approved for affordable housing, and to add $6,220 in in-kind funding from the housing authority.

The $50,000 approved by selectmen from town fund will allow the rental program to get off the ground. Through the rental assistance program, funds would be used to “buy down” less affordable rentals through a monthly contribution to the landlord to make the rentals affordable to tenants who meet income standards of 60 percent or less of the median income in Barnstable County. The program is projected to create 18 affordable rentals in each of the three years.

The benefits to the community identified in the program include increased availability of affordable rentals using existing rental stock that is on the open market. It also assists landlords by widening the potential pool of renters. The program scatters housing throughout the seven villages as any rental that meets housing quality standards is eligible for the program. It further enables families who work in Harwich to live in town.          

 The housing authority assessment of need cited the town’s housing needs assessment of October 2008, which cites a substantial rental unit gap. The report pointed to the number one priority in the needs assessment as more subsidized rental housing, given the high cost of housing, to make living in Harwich more affordable, particularly for those with very limited financial means.

The housing authority projects a monthly subsidy should not be more than $300 to $350  to take a market rate rental unit and make it affordable, in some cases much less. It recommends the monthly subsidy not be more than 33 percent of the rental rate. Payments from the program would be made directly to the landlord.

Harwich presently has 278 units of affordable housing, 4.7 percent of the state goal of 10 percent, or 586 units. The state department of housing and community development does not recognize rental assistance as a contribution toward that goal, but the housing authority plans to seek a change in that policy to have rental buy-down units treated in the same manner as accessory apartments.         

The plan is to have the rental buy-down program in place by July of this year.

1/28/10