The lack of affordable housing has exploded into one of the most challenging problems facing America's cities.

Mayors across the country are being pressured to address the lack of affordability in the housing and rental markets. For a number of reasons, that task is easier said than done.

According to home and apartment search engine Zillow, Tennessee rental prices in February averaged at $1,733 a month and inched up to $1,740 in March. That monthly cost is too burdensome for many families; remember that the average household income in Tennessee is a little more than $60,000, according to Census data.

According to city data, Chattanooga is expected to have a shortfall of 7,000 affordable units by 2030.

And between 2016 and 2021, one out of every four rental homes became unaffordable to households earning $35,000, according to data from the group Chattanoogans in Action for Love, Equality & Benevolence. Since 2021, the cost of rent has increased 30% — outpacing the 13% growth in household incomes.

In 2022, Hamilton County saw the largest annual rent increase in the past decade, the Chattanooga Times Free Press previously reported.

​Chattanooga officials have heard the demand for more affordable housing, and after months of work, have developed several strategies to incentivize development of these housing units.

Read more...

One of the tools Chattanooga officials use to encourage developers to build affordable housing may have broken down.

"Our current policy doesn't work especially well for anyone, neither the city, taxpayers nor private developers," Chattanooga City Council Vice Chair Jenny Hill, of North Chattanooga, said in a phone call. "It's a pretty inflexible program."

As is, housing developers in Chattanooga can receive a tax break from the city if they ensure at least half the units in a project are affordable for people making at most 80% of the area median income, which city officials estimate is nearly $51,000. Additionally, the total value of construction must be $5 million.

"It's really hard to make that work," Chief Housing Officer Nicole Heyman said in a phone call, which means few developers take advantage of it.

The incentive reduces the property taxes developers must pay on a new project for a period of time in exchange for them meeting those specific conditions.

Hoping to forgo the one-size-fits-all approach, the mayor's office is now proposing a new system under which tax breaks would be directly tied to the number of affordable units developers include in their projects. The Chattanooga City Council is set to vote on the changes in the coming weeks and heard a presentation of the plan Tuesday.

​Rather than requiring developers to meet strict prerequisites, the city would allow builders to receive a tax break based on the individual number of affordable units they want to include in a housing development. There would need to be at least 10 units in the building for it to qualify.

​The city would relieve at most $2 million in taxes per year across all projects. Additionally, property owners would be required to submit rents and income verification to the city annually, and Chattanooga would be able to conduct interior inspections of those units with violations resulting in a $5,000 fine per noncompliant apartment.

Read more...

Back in 2019, Caleb McCool, a lifelong resident of the Chattanooga area, rented a one-bedroom apartment in Red Bank for $650 a month, a rate he found affordable at his income.
Two years later, an out-of-state developer upped McCool's monthly rent to $1,000.
"It was bought out by somebody out West," said McCool, 25, in a phone interview. "They didn't even remodel it."

McCool's experience is far from unique. In 2022, Hamilton County saw the largest annual rent increase in the past decade, the Chattanooga Times Free Press reported.
Within Chattanooga, the annual median rent increased from $855 in 2010 to $1,300 in 2022, a 52% increase.
Chattanooga's rent problem is part of a national trend. According to a recent report from Harvard University, 22.4 million households spend more than 30% of their income on rent and 12.1 million spend more than 50%, The New York Times reported.

Read more here.

Housing advocacy gets its legs
Grassroots faith organization CALEB gathered at the steps of city hall on Thursday to unveil its housing proposal for Chattanooga.
In it, the group outlined what goals members hope city officials with pursue.
"We should dispel the myth that affordable housing is an issue exclusively for those on welfare or those receiving housing vouchers," CALEB said in the proposal found online. "It's affecting a substantial majority of us and growing every month. Addressing the housing crisis isn't a matter of charity; rather it is an investment in the cohesion and prosperity of our entire community."
CALEB putting a call to action to the city to act is needed; affordable housing is the issue of our time.
Between 2016 and 2021, one out of every four rental homes became unaffordable to households earning $35,000, according to data from CALEB. Since 2021, the cost of rent has increased 30% — outpacing the 13% growth in household incomes.
It's good to see grassroots community organizations demand that their voices — citizen voices — be heard on such a pervasive issue.

Read more here.

The statistics paint a dire picture.

​Between 2016 and 2021, one out of every four rental homes became unaffordable to households earning $35,000, according to data from the group Chattanoogans in Action for Love, Equality & Benevolence. Since 2021, the cost of rent has increased 30% — outpacing the 13% growth in household incomes.

Now, community members are hoping city leaders can do something about it. Chanting "homes for all," members of CALEB stood on the steps of City Hall on Thursday evening to call on Chattanooga leaders to follow through with policy goals outlined in an affordable housing action plan released by Mayor Tim Kelly's office in August.

"I live in Highland Park just a few miles from here, where a lot of my neighbors who have lived in that neighborhood for decades, especially people of color, are being priced out," April Berends, the rector of Grace Episcopal Church, said during the news conference.

Specifically, they want the city to dedicate a consistent revenue stream for an affordable housing trust fund, form a local mortgage pool to expand access to homeownership and use public subsidies to increase citywide housing options. They're urging community members to speak in support of these measures at the upcoming City Council meeting at 3:30 p.m. Tuesday at 1000 Lindsay St. More information is available at calebcha.org/housing.

Read more...

Photo Gallery
Chattanoogans call for city action on affordable housing crisis

Eyeing construction of a new sports arena built partially with public funds in 2016, the Milkwaukee Bucks entered into a legally binding contract with the community: By 2023, the minimum wage for janitors, ushers, food service workers and others would be $15 an hour, which would continue to increase annually at a rate tied to inflation.

Additionally, a significant percentage of hires would come from ZIP codes with high unemployment or underemployment, a term that describes people working involuntarily part-time or earn a wage below the cost of living.

In 2018, when Major League Soccer expanded to Nashville, community groups insisted a new soccer stadium and the associated development come with a series of expectations. Stand Up Nashville negotiated a community benefits agreement with Nashville Soccer Holdings -- Tennessee's first -- that mandated 20% of all housing units to be reserved as affordable or workforce housing. It also required the company to pay stadium workers at least $15.50 an hour and to set aside square footage for child care, local artisans and small businesses.

​Now, as Chattanooga and Hamilton County officials hammer out a final deal to cover the cost increase for a new multiuse baseball stadium for the minor league Lookouts, an official with the team said he's hopeful the approximately 18-month negotiations on an associated community benefits agreement are nearing a resolution.

"I think we're extremely close," Jason Freier, CEO of Lookouts owner Hardball Capital, said in an interview.

The members of the South Broad Community Benefits Coalition:— South Chattanooga Community Association.

• Community Association of Historic St. Elmo.
• Mary Walker Towers resident council.
• The Bethlehem Center.
• Chattanooga Building Trades.
• Chattanooga Area Labor Council.
• International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 175.
• Iron Workers Local 704.
• Green Spaces.
• Service Employees International Union Local 205.
• Chattanoogans in Action for Love, Equality and Benevolence.

Geoffrey Meldahl, a member of the community group Chattanoogans in Action for Love, Equality and Benevolence, said negotiators have been forthright that they are not interested in this deal being window dressing.

"This has to be a substantial agreement that makes a real material difference in the lives of Chattanoogans or nothing at all," Meldahl said in an email.

​Read more...

CALEB members and supporters  are showing up to push for clear legislation on tax incentives for private companies. From the Sunday edition of the Chattanooga Times Free Press:

Helen Burns Sharp, who founded the local group Accountability for Taxpayer Money after winning a lawsuit against the city for violating public meetings laws in a 2012 economic development deal, was included and thrilled when PILOT policies first appeared on the October 2022 IDB agenda, having advocated clear and open guidelines for more than a decade.

The 2022 draft policy shared last fall included no mention of limiting the traditional legislative consideration over each PILOT, but the newest draft submitted to the IDB in June read differently.
"I assumed we wanted to become more strategic in granting PILOTs, given that we are currently not collecting over $25 million in property taxes each year due to PILOTs," Sharp said in an email. "I now wonder if the primary result of these draft policies would be to make getting a PILOT easier and reduce the voice of the City Council and County Commission in the review process."

Sharp said she believes all PILOTs should continue to be reviewed by the council and commission.

"They are elected officials and thus accountable," she added. "They vote on budgets and PILOTs involve the budget in that they result in reduced revenues."

Members of the economic mobility task force of Chattanoogans in Action for Love, Equality and Benevolence, a coalition of churches, labor unions, nonprofits and community leaders -- who have also been in conversations with city and chamber leaders over the past two years about developing PILOT policies -- say they are eager to discuss the most recent version and determined to remain engaged with the process.

Development policies powerfully impact work opportunities and life circumstances, Joe Paden, a member of CALEB's economic mobility task force, said in an email.

"We need a transparent process and meaningful standards for evaluating PILOT applications so the public and their representatives have a clear picture of whether or not a proposal will be a good investment to their short and long term economic circumstances in the form of job and training opportunities, good wages, community benefits and corporate accountability," he said.

Read the full article at www.timesfreepress.com/news/2023/aug/05/proposed-policy-may-speed-tax-tfp/#/questions/.

As part of CALEB's effort to to support a more effective pretrial process that ends wealth-based detention and invests in community support rather than supervision, we've finalized a policy brief on the numerous benefits of a court attendance notification system (CANS). Timely court notifications can do better than cash bond at promoting better attendance. See more at www.calebcha.org/notifications.

[The Times Free Press] recently reported that the Whitfield County magistrate judge is no longer requiring cash bail of most people charged with misdemeanors. We believe this is a smart thing to do and benefits everyone in the community. Not only is it more fair for defendants, it also saves taxpayers a large amount of money.

In our current system two people who have the SAME charge can have totally different outcomes, depending on their finances. One can pay for their release and later return to court, while the one without financial means stays in jail. We know that staying in jail makes it less likely that they will have charges dropped or will be found not guilty. Is it justice to penalize people simply because they are poor?

Critics of bail reform often say: "They did the crime. Let them stay in jail." This belief assumes that only guilty people are put in jail. We know this isn't true. Legally, all individuals are innocent unless proven guilty.

Critics say: "What about public safety?" The law says bond is supposed to be denied when a person poses a risk to public safety. We hear an uproar when someone is released without bail and goes on to commit a violent crime. However, these cases are exceedingly rare - that is why they tend to make the news. The vast majority of people who are released without bail do comply with their conditions of release. We know that people released on cash bail also sometimes commit violent crimes, so we see that cash bail alone does not ensure public safety. It simply punishes those who lack the money to pay bail.

There is considerable evidence showing that even a few days in jail can cause a person's life to unravel. An individual may have to drop out of school or lose their job, housing, car or even the custody of children. This disruption can lead people to take a guilty plea just to get back to their lives. As a result of the guilty plea, they now have a criminal record that causes all kinds of future consequences. Money paid for bail is never refunded, even if a case is dismissed or a person is judged innocent.

Critics say: "People need to have skin in the game. They won't come to court if they don't pay money bail." In fact, jurisdictions across the nation have already proven court appearance rates are significantly higher when people simply receive reminder texts about their court date. Non-profit bail funds like the Hamilton County Community Bail Fund have also demonstrated that court date reminders and community support, like transportation, improve the likelihood that people will return to court to resolve their case.

Critics say: "That won't work here." It has already worked. In early 2020, the Hamilton County court system released about 200 individuals charged with non-violent offenses during the pandemic. During that time, there was no increase in crime.

Tennessee law mandates that judges use cash bail only as a last resort and it should be imposed "only if other less restrictive conditions are deemed insufficient to ensure someone appears for their trial." Furthermore, the U.S. Constitution prohibits excessive bail.

As in Whitfield County, Hamilton County has plenty of opportunities for action at a local level. Bail hearings being implemented in other parts of the state provide a method for increased release without restrictions, as well as protecting defendants' constitutional right to affordable bail. The Sheriff's Department can implement measures to reduce time in custody immediately after arrest. Pretrial data can be coordinated between court clerks and magistrates to examine the effectiveness of pretrial decisions. The County Commission can invest in a system for court notifications (currently nonexistent).

Let's start a comprehensive program of bail reform today. Learn more at www.calebcha.org/endcashbail.