Council-Approved $29m Affordable Housing Bonds Open for Business

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SEATTLE – Councilmember Lisa Herbold (District 1, West Seattle & South Park) expressed her appreciation to the Office of Housing today that some of the funds from the Council-approved $29 million in bonds for affordable housing will be available this Fall via the Office of Housing’s (OH) annual competitive funding process. The bond funding will be in addition to dollars from the Seattle Housing Levy, Mandatory Housing Affordability (MHA) programs and federal funds that will be available as part the competitive process this Fall. Successful applicants will be announced by the end of the year.

Last autumn Council authorized $29 million for affordable housing, funded by utilizing the City’s existing bonding capacity which is to be paid off over a 30 year term. Councilmember Herbold said, “We’ve already seen strong demand for affordable housing production and preservation dollars.  Over a dozen non-profit developers have stated their intent to bid.   If the City were somehow able to provide all the money they asked for, we’d see over 2,000 new affordable units come online. We can’t do that, but nevertheless, I truly appreciate that we can provide more funds this cycle because of these new Housing Bond resources.  Our partners in non-profit housing development are ready to meet the need.  I thank OH Director Steve Walker for letting me know of his intent to commit all or most of these funds in 2017.”

A portion of the bond funds may also be available later in the year for nonprofit housing developers to rehabilitate existing buildings that are aging to extend their use as affordable housing for the long-term. Further, there may be several requests for proposals (RFP) issued using Housing Bond funds for publicly owned surplus properties in the next few month to create affordable housing.