Stimulus funds to jump-start state housing projects

By M. Scott Carter

 

OKLAHOMA CITY – The Oklahoma Housing Finance Authority will pump $76 million of federal stimulus money into 26 state housing projects, officials from the authority announced recently.

  

The funds, authorized by Congress in the federal American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, will jump-start 26 housing developments that were stalled because of the lack of equity available in the low-income housing tax credit market, OHFA Executive Director Dennis Shockley said.

  

“These funds were designed to move rental developments forward so that Oklahomans will have more affordable places to live,” he said.

  

Shockley said the developments, scattered throughout the state, should create more than 1,300 units of affordable housing for Oklahoma families.

  

In Oklahoma City, the funds will be used for two projects: $1.8 million for renovation of the Southwoods Apartments, a multifamily 100-unit complex that serves the elderly at 3308 SW 44th St., and $321,851 for construction of the Village at Oakwood development, a 90-unit assisted-living facility at 817 SW 59th St.

 

 The projects are targeted at families who make between 50 to 60 percent of the area’s median income of about $33,000.

 

 Shockley said the funds would be used for construction of new multifamily housing units and for rehabilitation of some existing units.

  

“In some cases the funds are being used for acquisition and rehabilitation,” he said. “The facility is purchased by someone other than the current owner and then being rehabilitated.”

  

The Southwoods Apartments will be rehabbed.

  

Kevin White, development director for Volunteers of America, an Alexandra, Va.-based nonprofit agency that provides human service programs to the elderly, homeless and other disadvantaged groups, said the Southwoods property was originally built in the early 1980s and needs to be refurbished.

  

White said Volunteers of America originally developed the project.

 

 “It was designated for the elderly,” White said. “And we’ve operated it there since the initial development in the early 1980s.” 

White said his organization, which develops and manages low- to moderate-income housing projects, would spend about $2.7 million to make exterior and interior improvements. Some of those changes include additional parking and landscaping.

  

“We’re going to make masonry wall repairs, add new windows, new exterior doors and make improvements to the building’s entry and commons area,” he said.

 

Additionally, the facility’s handicapped units would be upgraded for improved accessibility while individual units would receive updated bathrooms and new appliances, countertops, vanities, carpet and tile.

  

White said the agency expects to finalize the project’s financing by December, with construction completed sometime in the winter of 2010.

  

And while the area’s rental market continues to fluctuate, both White and Shockley agree that additional sources of housing will benefit many families in the metro area.

  

“For rental housing it’s certainly putting new units into the market that weren’t there before,” Shockley said. “And in the case of Southwoods, it’s saving those units. In a small way, I guess you could say it’s helping stabilize the rental housing market.”