Nine foundations have pooled about $10 million to build a three-year public-advocacy campaign to ensure Americans have secure, affordable places to live.
The collaboration includes several foundations that haven’t previously concentrated on housing, such as the Annie E. Casey Foundation and Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
The new coalition, called Funders for Housing and Opportunity, today announced $4.9 million in three-year grants to four coalitions and projects, each of will mount public-awareness campaigns to call attention to housing issues.
The goal of the new fund is to help people who are “precariously housed” and live in fear of eviction, said Susan Thomas, senior program officer at the Melville Charitable Trust, which two years ago invited the other foundations to a series of meetings on the subject.
The group itself won’t put money toward new housing projects in certain cities. Nor will it provide upfront capital to shield commercial banks from investment risk when they put money toward housing projects. Instead, Thomas said, the group’s grants would be better spent rallying a movement to demonstrate the importance of housing to policy makers.
“The size of the population we want to support is humongous,” she said. “The scale is so large that we need a sea change in public and political will. Funding one or two projects is not going to get us there.”
Civil Rights, Education, and Health
Six grant makers contributed to the fund in addition to Casey, Gates, and Melville: the Conrad N. Hilton, Ford, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur, JPB, Kresge, and Oak foundations.
The group plans to make additional grants in each of the next two years, and at least two other foundations have expressed an interest in adding money to the fund, Thomas says.
The biggest grant, $2.7 million, went to the National Low Income Housing Coalition and other partners, including the National Alliance to End Homelessness, to bring together civil-rights leaders, health professionals, educators, and others to push for affordable housing nationally. Their campaign will be called Opportunity Starts at Home.
The other grants will go to:
- The National Housing Trust and Enterprise Community Partners, which will receive a combined $1 million to lead a community development coalition in 10 states.
- The Center for Community Change will receive $750,000 to build a housing policy movement nationally and to develop the skills of resident leaders in California and Washington.
- The Partnership for Children and Youth, will receive $400,000 to promote health and student achievement in housing developments.
Not all of the grant makers have made housing a primary focus. Annie E. Casey largely supports anti-poverty work aimed at strengthening families and improving the lives of children. The bulk of the Gates Foundation’s domestic grants go to education projects. By investing in housing, the foundations are taking a “systemic” approach by recognizing that a safe, affordable home is essential to providing other social benefits, Thomas said.
“Only a couple of us really focus on housing,” she added. “The rest had other priorities, but they need stable housing to move the outcomes they care about, whether it’s health, education, or economic stability.”
Steep Rents
Last year, about 550,000 people in the United States were homeless, a slight rise over 2016 and the first increase since 2009.
But those numbers don’t take into account the number of people with a job and a roof over their head who could find themselves at risk of eviction if they face just one unanticipated big expense, such as an injury or reduction in work hours, homeless advocates warn.
The problem is severe both in low-income neighborhoods and in wealthier neighborhoods where jobs are relatively plentiful but rents are steep. Recent policy changes, including a lower corporate tax rate that came as part of the 2017 tax overhaul, will provide a smaller tax incentive for banks to invest in new housing and rehabilitation projects for low-income residents, housing experts say.
Shifting Approaches
Philanthropy has taken a number of approaches to housing in the past few decades. Before the 2007-8 recession, some housing advocates say, grant makers saw homeownership as the key to both improving individuals’ lives and increasing the value of assets in poor communities. After the financial crisis and the turmoil in the housing industry, grant makers instead focused on making rents affordable.
Others worked to spur private investment in low-cost housing. For instance, in 2015, Kresge, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Goldman Sachs, and KeyBank set aside $70 million in the Strong Families Fund, which provided money to develop low-cost housing in Ypsilanti, Mich., and followed up with a set of “pay for performance” grants that were available if certain gains were made in residents’ health and education.
“There have been shifting priorities,” said Nan Roman, president of the National Alliance to End Homelessness.
The grant provided to Opportunity Starts at Home will help the coalition push for federal rental-assistance programs and expansion of the low-income housing tax credit and National Housing Trust Fund as well as housing programs at the state level.
Another big priority for the money: playing defense. Housing programs take a big hit in President Trump’s proposed federal budget, and with a ballooning deficit, lawmakers on Capitol Hill are under enormous pressure to cut spending. Roman said housing advocates will have to work extra hard to protect programs from being eviscerated.
“Affordable housing is not high on the national agenda,” she said. “We’re losing ground. We have not made a strong case, but now we have a lot of partners to help us.”
