Preserving affordable housing  

       "KCCHA goes out of its way to save affordable housing. That's what I like about them. They find practical, financially sound ways to help real people with real needs."
- Ned Palmer, Bainbridge Island Housing Resources Board  

"You can't work for a fast-food restaurant and make enough money to get by. A single mother with child has to make a minimum of $14 an hour. But how many jobs pay $14 an hour? So there are more and more people who can't afford housing even though they are working."
-Don Chase, Housing Preservation Director, KCCHA  

For 25 years, a group of Bainbridge Island seniors and retail workers had affordable apartments - thanks to the generosity of the owner. But when the time came for her to sell, tenants feared they would be priced out of their homes.

"Everybody I know and love is here on the island," a long-time resident told the Bainbridge Island Review when the paper broke the story. "But there's no way I can stay on the island if there is a big rent increase."

Luckily, Bainbridge Island Mayor Dwight Sutton read the Review article and, together with the Bainbridge Island Housing Resources Board, called KCCHA. Then, with the help of Bank of America, the Authority got the financing to buy the building and keep rents affordable.

This story had a happy ending. But nationwide, over 200,000 units of affordable housing are lost each year as older apartments are made over into higher-priced housing or give way to commercial developments. KCCHA Housing Preservation Director Don Chase says that, in Kitsap County alone, at least 2,500 families, seniors and people with disabilities can't find safe affordable housing.

Building new apartments costs at least 70 percent more than preserving existing affordable units, so KCCHA uses a variety of methods to keep existing housing viable.

"If we're going to preserve affordable housing, we have to be flexible, so we use a variety of programs and methods to keep older housing on the market," explains Chase.

Through HUD's Mark to Market program, Chase evaluates and restructures federal subsidies and loans for privately owned affordable housing in five states, striking a balance between preserving the units and bringing down taxpayer costs. Often, he'll find that owners of these aging apartments are seniors themselves, no longer able to maintain or manage the units. In these cases, Chase finds financing for a nonprofit organization that can take over the units.