MARK WINKELLER
‘Thrilled’ by support
A Boston bakery that has been vacant for 30 years and a shuttered nursing home in Melrose are poised to become new affordable housing thanks to grants that were awarded to nonprofit developers.
The projects are just two examples of housing that will be created because of grants that the Massachusetts Housing Partnership is providing to 32 nonprofit and community development groups.
The Massachusetts Housing Partnership recently announced that it had awarded $2.4 million to the groups as part of the $18 million in grant funds committed by Bank of America last year after the latter’s acquisition of FleetBoston Financial Corp. Twenty-six groups will receive production capacity grants ranging from $60,000 to $100,000. The money will help groups get as many as 3,000 housing units off the ground.
Another six organizations will receive organizational grants designed to assist them in strengthening their capacity to develop affordable housing.
“There’s so little these days in the way of grant support for housing that this is really a great opportunity for us and helps to stimulate a lot more economic development,” said Evelyn Friedman, executive director of Nuestra Comunidad, a community development corporation that serves the Roxbury, Mattapan and Dorchester neighborhoods of Boston.
Nuestra Comunidad, which received a three-year grant totaling $90,000, plans to use the money to support staff that will help preserve affordable housing in Roxbury and also oversee development projects in Roxbury and Mattapan.
The organization already has started some design work to convert the former Kasanof Bakery – which is located on a three-acre site on Blue Hill Avenue in Roxbury and has been vacant for about three decades – into 45 to 50 rental units. The units are slated to be affordable to those earning 60 percent or less of the area median income. In addition, Nuestra wants to build another 25 units for homeowners on the site, which would be affordable to buyers earning up to 80 percent of the area median income.
Friedman said Nuestra, which acquired the bakery property about a year ago, is currently in the process of holding community meetings to discuss the project.
“We’re really excited about it,” she said.
West of Boston, the South Worcester Neighborhood Improvement Corp. is looking to build new housing on vacant lots in the community, transform old industrial buildings into residences and substantially rehabilitate abandoned and dilapidated commercial and residential property.
South Worcester has been plagued by vacant, trash-strewn lots and empty buildings that have fallen into disrepair and have attracted criminal activity. A neighborhood study conducted by the South Worcester Neighborhood Improvement Corp. last year revealed that the homeownership rate in South Worcester was 25 percent while the poverty rate stood at 31 percent, according to Marshalee Ellis-Kehlhem, the group’s development director.
The study also showed that at least 5 percent of the housing units in that part of the city had been demolished.
The organization already has identified buildings in South Worcester that are ripe for redevelopment. The $60,000 grant that MHP is providing will be used to help pay for staff that will ensure the projects are started and completed. The goal is to increase the homeownership rate by 2 percent to 3 percent over the next three years, said Ellis-Kehlhem.
The grants from MHP are critical because while state and federal funding to support “the bricks and mortar” development exists, says Ellis-Kehlhem, there is very little support for operational funding.
“I don’t think we would be able to approach housing production as progressively as we are without the help we’ve gotten from MHP, so we’re really thankful for it,” she said.
Another recipient serving the Worcester and MetroWest region, the South Middlesex Opportunity Council, plans to hire a project manager to oversee the creation and preservation of single-room occupancy units, or SROs.
SRO properties, commonly referred to as rooming houses, are designed for low-income individuals who are working but are at risk of becoming homeless or have been homeless at some point in their lives.
In addition to owning and managing SROs, SMOC operates shelter programs in Framingham, Worcester and other MetroWest communities. SMOC Executive Director James T. Cuddy said that by preserving and creating new SRO units, the council hopes is to reduce the number of people who use the shelters.
SMOC already has four properties under site control and recently acquired another. SMOC officials hope to use the $95,000, three-year grant from MHP to hire a manager to oversee the conversion process of those properties.
“The predevelopment process is very involved,” said Charles Gagnon, SMOC’s chief operating officer, noting that multiple lenders are usually involved in the entire design process.
“[The grant] will allow us to boost our development team capacity significantly,” he added.
Another organization that owns and manages SRO units, Braintree-based Caritas Communities, also received a three-year grant totaling $95,000.
Caritas applied for funding to get help with identifying opportunities for the development of new SROs, including nonresidential properties that could be converted or sites that could accommodate 20 to 30 units.
Caritas already has submitted an offer to purchase a closed nursing home in Melrose for the purpose of SRO housing. The organization currently has properties in Wakefield, Arlington, Medford and Everett, making Melrose “an absolute natural” community to expand to, said Mark Winkeller, Caritas Communities’ executive director.
Winkeller said identifying properties for SRO housing takes time. The grant will help pay for a consultant to seek out new sites.
“We’re thrilled to be supported,” he said. “[MHP] has always been very committed to affordable housing and to working with nonprofit sponsors [of such housing].”
More than 60 nonprofit development and community development corporations applied for the grants, according to MHP.
Applicants were asked to “detail how the additional funding could and would be used to increase the level of housing produced,” said MHP Executive Director Clark Ziegler. The awards are tied to production progress and recipients will be evaluated each year on their progress.
Ziegler said the grants were provided to organizations that had a good track record and were positioned to make a difference.
In the past, MHP received grants as part of the bank’s loan obligation, and funds were primarily used as deferred payment zero percent interest second-mortgage subsidies. But since many banks and agencies are offering development financing, MHP felt there was a need “to queue up more projects,” said Ziegler, by helping nonprofits that are struggling to keep projects going as they navigate through lengthy predevelopment phases.
“This is really about getting housing produced,” he said.
