How can anybody who makes less than AMI afford to upkeep a house? This is just subsidizing future blight when these houses go unmaintained and unrepaired. If you make that little, there a word called “rent”. 

Due to affordable housing subsidies, most of the time it may actually cost less on a monthly basis for a family to buy a home then to rent (without a section 8 voucher). The lower sale price and mortgage in turn allow more money for other aspects of life such as education, food, clothing, and even home maintenance.  

It’s better than PHA.

AMI is area median income.  50% of AMI is indeed low income – $28,550 for an individual, $40,750 for a family of 4… and that’s the UPPER limit, so people are going to be earning less than that to be qualify to buy the houses.  Most affordable housing to people earning below 50% of AMI is rental because it’s hard to actually make the homes affordable for people earning that little without massive subsidies.  These houses will also have to be priced low enough for people at that income level to qualify for mortgages.  Now it just means they have to be earning that much when they buy, it doesn’t mean their income can’t go up afterward, or an individual can’t get married and turn it into a two income household, etc.

80% of AMI on the other hand is much more common for homeownership – $45,500 for an individual, 52k for family of 2, 58.5k for 3, 65k for 4, and so on.  One could easily afford to maintain a home at that income level.

I don’t know anything about this project but if it’s receiving city funding, which it likely is, the the energy efficiency standards are going to be fairly high, so their utility bills should be reasonable, affording some room to set aside money for maintenance.  They’re going to have to go through housing counseling which educates buyers on all of the other costs and responsibilities of homeownership, but it’s impossible to predict how someone is going to act once they own their home.  Certainly less income makes setting aside money for preventive maintenance that much more difficult.

Thanks for clarifying. I mis-read it to be 80% BELOW AMI, not 80% of AMI. That’s a big difference, and everything you say makes sense. It actually makes me feel much better about these types of projects, as a result. That being said, I still don’t understand the taboo about rent. Maintaining a home is very very expensive…a drive through huge swathes of North and Southwest Philadelphia demonstrates that many don’t have the means or the will to properly maintain their homes. I would suspect it’s more the former than the latter, which makes me suspicious of all of these initiatives to get poor(er) people into home ownership programs. I guess, if they’re lucky, and buy into a project in an area that eventually becomes “hot”, like the former MLK homes in Hawthorne, then their increase in equity (if they sell) truly can pull them out of poverty and/or give them a nest egg they never dreamed of having.

I haven’t seen renderings for the homes, but is it safe to assume that they’ll have triangular roofs, vinyl siding, sizable lawns and driveways? Welcome to West Kensington, where suburban is the new urban.

Most of the really awful houses like that were done by PHA under Carl Greene. Not all affordable housing is done that way, and hopefully planning measures will prevent that from happening in the future.

ahem…who pocketed the millions NSCA made on the sale to the school district for the kensington capa land? not pointing fingers just wondering how this ca is legit and worthy of praise?

Will look forward to learning more about this project.  This area can certainly benefit from energy and growth.

Will look forward to learning more about this project.  This area can certainly benefit from energy and growth.

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