City Council is expected to take the next step toward funding the permanent supportive housing proposal for the Marshall Apartments in East Austin at its Thursday, Jan. 13, meeting. Moreover, an item from two council members seeks to facilitate broader understanding and awareness of the city’s supportive housing goals to avoid firestorms like the one that enveloped Marshall.
Adjourning as the City Council and doing business as the Austin Housing Finance Corporation, council members will conduct a public hearing and take comment on AHFC’s plans to issue as much as $6 million in housing revenue bonds to finance the Marshall Apartments initiative. This funding – up from an originally proposed $5 million – would follow $2.5 million in affordable housing bond dollars approved by the AHFC in December. That initial investment provoked heated exchanges between nearby residents and property owners who oppose the project and other East Austin residents in favor.
The Marshall proposal would rehab the entire 100-unit property, spread across two lots: one at 1401 E. 12th within the city’s urban renewal zone, the other at 1157 Salina, facing Kealing Middle School. Along with preserving the affordable Section 8 housing at the complex, it would also set aside 20 units for permanent supportive housing. PSH assists the homeless or individuals at risk of homelessness by offering them housing and holistic, wraparound social services such as case workers and job training. PSH also seeks to benefit the city by including “frequent users” of city services – jails, hospitals, and courts – as clients, in hope that once stabilized, they’ll become less of a drain on city resources. It’s largely this class of clients – and their perceived proximity to drugs in East Austin, among other issues – that led to protest from the Robertson Hill and Swede Hill neighborhood associations (see “The 12th of Never,” Dec. 17, 2010).
In the wake of the Marshall debacle, Council Members Laura Morrison and Sheryl Cole are sponsoring a resolution this week directing City Manager Marc Ott “to research best practices on engaging communities and building support for permanent supportive housing projects” and to report his results to council’s Comprehensive Planning and Transportation Subcommittee by March.
The resolution notes “a broad community dialogue that includes stakeholders from neighborhoods all across Austin is needed to establish successful approaches for integrating low-income housing throughout the city.” Morrison concedes the city’s outreach thus far has been “not so great” but hopes to improve the process.
“The city council, the city of Austin, and many organizations in town are committed to having geographic dispersion of low-income housing across the city,” she says. (Several complaints against the Marshall project posited East Austin would become a dumping ground for the city’s PSH units.) “We need to figure out how to be on the ground and make that happen,” something she hopes the resolution will accomplish with its proposed stakeholder discussion groups as soon as Ott’s recommendations are in place. It’s somewhat of a daunting task. For all the controversy attending Marshall’s 20 units, the city plans call for creating 350 units by 2014.
This article appears in January 14 • 2011.