A new report from the Tennessee Housing Development Agency provides an in-depth look at the age and physical condition of existing affordable housing properties in the state, along with other risk factors for loss of affordable units, such as HUD rental subsidy contract expirations.
The report also contains a county-by-county breakdown of the number of Section 8, public housing, and USDA units that are greater than 15 years old.
Seventy percent of affordable housing properties across the state are more than 15 years old, with most deeply subsidized properties, such as public housing and Section 8, built more than 30 years ago.
In Hamilton County, 65 percent of all affordable housing rental units are considered to be “aged,” which means they were built prior to 2000.
Region wide, the majority of tax-advantaged rental housing properties are over 30 years old. In East Tennessee alone, over 50 percent of all renters are living in properties over 35 years old, while nearly 70 percent of persons of low income are living in properties built before 1980.
At the same time that many Tennessee communities need to create new affordable units, existing affordable housing properties are increasingly in need of renovation or recapitalization. This presents a challenge to find adequate funding to finance both the preservation of the existing affordable housing stock and the construction of new affordable units.
Download the full report at https://s3.amazonaws.com/thda.org/Documents/Research-Planning/Preservation-Report-FINAL.pdf.
Source: THDA