Prince George’s housing challenges call for new leadership

Recently, the Coalition for Smarter Growth issued a call to the new county executive of Prince George’s: fix the Housing Department. It’s a tall order, but a vital one.

Nearly half of Prince George’s households spend more on housing than they can afford. That statistic becomes even more stark when we note that the county has returned millions of dollars in federal funding that could have helped. At the same time, there is little vision about how to assist households in the future.

This is both a challenge and an opportunity. The next County Executive has it within his power to make addressing residents’ housing needs a priority and create a more effective Housing Department.

In our latest report, Building Stronger Communities, we outlined both common sense solutions and innovative strategies to address this challenge, which we hope will inspire the new leaders in Prince George’s County. We released this report in conjunction with our partner, Partnership for Renewal in Southern and Central Maryland (PRISCM).

Rev. Dr. Michael C. Turner, Sr., president of PRISCM and Pastor of the Miracle Center of the Faith Missionary Baptist Church in Capitol Heights has seen these challenge first hand in his congregation.

“We need leadership from a new County Executive and a new Director of Housing. While the County gives back unspent money to the federal government, many of our congregants cannot find a decent apartment to rent or a home they can afford to buy. Now is the time to transform how we meet the housing needs of our community,” he said.

Our report, Building Stronger Communities, provides detailed findings and recommendations aimed at transforming the County’s housing programs. We encourage the adoption of national best practices to meet the needs of Prince George’s families struggling with high housing costs, poor housing conditions and other challenges. Despite the challenges highlighted in the assessment, the incoming administration offers hope for new leadership.

The Democratic nominee for County Executive, Rushern Baker, is running unopposed for the general election and the presumed County Executive-elect. During Baker’s campaign, he frequently spoke about the need to focus development around the county’s 15 largely undeveloped Metro stations and address residents’ need for affordable housing. This is a hopeful sign for a county with so much unrealized potential.

The report provides a detailed assessment of the data and key challenges to existing housing programs. While residents in all jurisdictions face major housing affordability challenges, the statistics for Prince George’s are stark:

• 46 percent of Prince George’s households pay more than 30 percent of their income in housing, which is considered unaffordable by US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), compared to the D.C. region’s average of 38 percent;
• By the end of 2009, the county counted 45,300 troubled home loans;
• Some 40 percent of renters cannot afford the median monthly rent of $1,131.

Boosting residents’ incomes with increased local employment growth, improved education and training are part of the equation to helping families avoid paying more than they can afford for housing. Making housing more affordable to struggling families is also an important part of the solution. The county, however, has been beset by poorly performing housing assistance programs and weak leadership. According to HUD and an independent auditor’s assessment, ineffective Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD) program management has plagued the County:

• In winter of 2010, the County returned over $2 million in unspent HOME grant money to HUD;
• The County’s FY 2010 allocation of HOME funds was already reduced by $2.2 million because of previous shortcomings within DHCD to spend allotted funds;
• Prince George’s County in the 17th percentile nationwide in program performance for HOME grant funds;
• In spring of 2010, the County almost lost $2.8 million in Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) funds and was warned by HUD that it had failed to spend down funds in time for three consecutive years.

The County does not provide any of its own resources to leverage federal and state housing assistance. Given the substantial need, and diminishing resources, residents are looking to the incoming County Executive to fix the troubled agency and make quality housing for moderate and low income Prince George’s families a higher priority.

Despite the poor record of DHCD, the County recently showed outstanding success. A one-time grant from the federal Neighborhood Stabilization Program (NSP) of $10.8 million was given to the County to address the home foreclosure crisis. The County’s NSP effort has been well administered and has met its goals of assisting over 600 households in purchasing foreclosed homes. NSP’s success demonstrates that the County has the talent to execute a federally-funded program successfully when the outcomes of the program are given enough priority.

Our report outlines ways to improve DHCD’s performance and more broadly address Prince George’s residents’ housing needs through new public policy actions:

1. Create a comprehensive strategy that identifies housing needs across a range of households (including income, size and composition), audits existing capacity to meet those housing needs, and strategizes with a diverse set of public and private sector stakeholders to make recommendations to fill gaps in capacity and resources.
2. Build capacity in the Department of Housing and Community Development to accomplish the County’s housing goals by cultivating agency leadership and staff that demonstrate expertise in housing finance, effectively administering federal and state housing resources, and aggressively managing the County’s interest in development deals.
3. Build capacity among small local nonprofits to help meet the County’s housing goals by establishing a mentoring program between these nonprofits and high capacity housing development organizations. These partnerships could produce County-supported demonstration projects that would improve the County’s housing stock while increasing the capacity of the smaller nonprofits.
4. Improve the existing housing stock by efficiently utilizing existing resources like HOME, CDBG, and state tax credits; establishing new, locally-funded resources like a housing trust fund and an acquisition fund; and using land use and zoning tools to promote mixed-income development.
5. Establish housing policies and processes that support development projects that fit the County’s larger goals, are competitively selected, meet stringent underwriting requirements and are a good investment given the time and resources required.
6. Demonstrate political willingness to support and invest in a diverse range of housing options by aggressively backing DHCD to meet the county’s housing needs and soliciting participation from industry investors, policy experts and non-profit developers through advisory committees and project review panels. Economic development and household wealth are built on the foundation of stable families and communities. The County has many opportunities to strengthen the economic base of moderate and low-income households who need quality housing that won’t place excessive strain on their family budgets. Leadership at the highest levels is needed to create a comprehensive vision, goals and effective administrative procedures to execute programs. Drawing in the contributions of stakeholders outside of government, the new administration has the opportunity to transform the County’ approach to addressing the housing needs of its residents and help more families enjoy the stability of decent, quality housing they can afford. Cheryl Cort is the Policy Director for the Coalition for Smarter Growth.