New homeless facility receives tax credits; SRO construction slated to begin this fall

By Bridgett Lynn
Charlottesville Tomorrow
Tuesday, June 15, 2010

A project to provide housing for the homeless in downtown Charlottesville has moved one step closer to reality.

On Friday, officials with Virginia Supportive Housing (VSH) announced that a proposed 60 unit single room occupancy facility (SRO) has been awarded low-income housing tax credits by the Virginia Housing Development Authority (VHDA).

“It’s $529,000 [in tax credits] over ten years, so it’s really [over] $5 million in credits,” said Kathy Talley, deputy Executive Director of Virginia Supportive Housing. Talley's organization will be building and managing the facility which will be known as The Crossings at Fourth and Preston.

“[The tax credits] are a vehicle, probably the primary vehicle, by which affordable housing projects are funded not only here in the commonwealth of Virginia but throughout the country,” said Charlottesville Mayor Dave Norris.

The project has received significant support from the City of Charlottesville. VSH received $125,000 in start-up funds from City Council in 2009 to find a location to build the SRO facility somewhere within the City limits. Since then, Council has also given $1.6 million towards purchasing property from Region 10.

The approval from the Charlottesville Planning Commission last year to change the City’s zoning ordinance to allow for SRO facilities to be built within city limits has allowed the project to be located on 401 Fourth St. N.W. VSH is required to provide on-site security and support services.

“It will be a kind of permanent supportive housing that has a proven track record of reducing homelessness in communities that have built these kinds of facilities,” said Norris.

VSH said the tax credits will go a long way toward helping the organization raise the $6.3 million required to build the facility.

“The Virginia Community Development Corporation has agreed to be our syndicator,” said Talley. “They will syndicate the credits to translate the $500,000 plus of low income tax credits. That translates into over $4 million of hard cold cash,” said Talley. She added VSH is hoping to raise additional money through foundations, and is already having some success.

“We are thrilled to be able to announce today also a $250,000 grant from the Perry Foundation,” Talley said. “That’s a matching grant, so we have already applied to several sources in order to match those funds.”

Norris announced that the project is expected to open within the next eighteen months.

“There’s still a couple of other little regulatory issues that have to be addressed, but we very likely will be able to break ground this fall and start construction on this project,” said Norris.