Last year, the City of Greenville released the results of its Affordable Housing Assessment, conducted by czb, LLC with the support of a committee of local stakeholders. The assessment pointed to pressures affecting the availability of affordable housing in the City of Greenville and pointed to high-level strategies to increase housing stock.
For the next phase of the work to increase affordable housing, the City of Greenville (represented by Ginny Stroud), the Graham Foundation (represented by Eleanor Dunlap) and the Hollingsworth Funds (represented by Gage Weekes) have partnered to bring czb, LLC back to help operationalize a housing trust by the end of 2017 and evaluate larger issues that affect housing affordability in Greenville.
Since the Greenville City Council appropriated $2 million to support affordable housing, these lead partners have been working to negotiate a new contract with czb, LLC and route it through the appropriate approval channels in their respective organizations. They have also recruited a working group for this phase, which includes some of housing champions from the assessment, ensuring that the knowledge and experience carry forward. They have also recruited some new members, bringing new expertise and a fresh perspective, creating new affordable housing champions. This working group will meet over the next few months to address the issues of who will be served by the trust fund and how the trust fund will operate.
As the group proceeds with development of strategies, they plan to check in with other affordable housing champions for feedback and to provide updates, and they will reach out to funders through the Greenville Partnership for Philanthropy.
To make it easier to communicate progress, the City of Greenville, the Graham Foundation, and Hollingsworth Funds have created a timeline of events that will be updated as milestones are achieved; this is posted on the City of Greenville’s affordable housing website located at http://greenvillesc.gov/1275/Affordable-Housing
This is significant work, and the input from community members – including funders – strengthens the potential for residents. We look forward to updating GPP members on opportunities to support the work.
