WHEDA Awards Breakdown

I decided to do a calculation of the 2011 awards.

• Elderly/Majority Elderly: 7 developments for 338 units with a total of $3,562,740 tax credits
• Family/Majority Family: 19 developments for 919 units with a total of $11,364,408 tax credits
• Mixed-Income Housing: 2 developments for 121 units with a total of $1,899,587 tax credits
• Supportive Housing: 1 development for 35 units with $232,947 tax credits.

Overall, I have to say I'm surprisingly pleased with the numbers; I actually thought there would be more elderly housing funded than there were.  I'm curious, though, about the mixed-income housing; in my belief, they should have market-rate units mixed in, but only one of two has any market rate units, and even so, only 11 out of 72.  I would prefer to see substantially more market-rate units.  The mixed-income development without any market-rate units is Bradley Crossing in the Village of Brown Deer which will be targeted entirely to persons with disabilities, so "mixed-income" in this sense likely means that the development also has subsidies for people with extremely low income who usually can't afford the typical tax-credit unit.

In Waukesha County the previous years' results (that is, awarded, but not necessarily built) were:

• 2011:  Three applicants for elderly housing; one received funding, all elderly housing.
• 2010: MSP Development had two awards (one family, one elderly) in New Berlin which has been fought off by New Berlin residents; lawsuit pending  There were two other unsuccessful applicants, both for family housing.
• 2009:  WHEDA had a large number of tax credits available thanks to the stimulus funding and Waukesha County awardees were Hampton Regency (Butler, 119 units) for elderly, Oak Hill Village (Waukesha, 158 LI units) for elderly.  Listed also as withdrawn was Buena Vista Senior Housing in Menomonee Falls (56 units Low-Income) which I suspect changed its name to Alta Mira which did receive tax credits in a later round.   Highlands at Meadowbrook (23 LI in Waukesha) for elderly is listed as "on hold" in case funding later becomes available. There were no other applicants that I can see. No family applications.
• 2008: No applicants for Waukesha County.
• 2007: No applicants for Waukesha County
• 2006: No applicants for Waukesha County

So in six years of LIHTC applications, there apparently were only three applications for family housing, unsuccessful for one reason or another (one supported, two opposed)  But numerous applications for elderly-only housing, even though HUD's Worst-Case Housing Needs consistently shows that other population groups also have a need for affordable housing.

If I had to theorize, I'd say that land costs made affordable housing in Waukesha County very difficult until 2009 when extra funding was available through stimulus funding, and then in 2010 and 2011 we had the economic crash which brought some properties into range for some developers.  But keep in mind that there are many developments that never got off the ground because of community opposition, and did not even appear on the lists of applications.