City explains why it is selling off affordable housing

WICHITA, Kan. (KSNW) — Two days after the City of Wichita announced it is selling 13 public housing units, the mayor explained why and what it could mean for people who need public housing.

Why?

“A lot of these houses, keep in mind, are not occupied,” Mayor Brandon Whipple said. “Frankly, they are the ones I get calls about on, ‘Why are they boarded up?’ ‘The city owns this,’ and ‘It’s a drag on the neighborhood.'”

He said there is a blight issue with the houses, so the city wants to find buyers to get the homes fixed and then get people living in the homes.

“We have had decades of underfunding in the capital needs of our housing stock,” Sarah Gooding, Wichita Real Property Section manager, said. “So that really left us in a place where the best option available was to dispose of those properties into the private market.”

In all, the city wants to sell all 352 of its single-family public housing units. So far, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has only approved the sale of 37 of the houses.

Of those, 13 are vacant and are currently for sale.

“This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to add affordable units back into the private market, and it’s so exciting to see a great deal of interest in the affordable housing opportunities that these units could provide,” Gooding said.

What about the tenants?

There are tenants in the other 24 houses. Two tenants are considering buying their homes from the city. That leaves 22 tenants who need to find new places to live.

“Remaining individuals have been issued 90-days notice, which is typically substantial to be able to secure housing on the private market,” Gooding said. “All qualifying individuals will receive tenant protection vouchers, which are a high-priority voucher to help ensure that those tenants are not homeless.”

City workers must also find at least one appropriate unit that the tenant might qualify for.

“The tenant does not have to accept that unit, but staff do have to provide in that way so that there is an attempt at a seamless handoff,” she said.

Will buyers have to keep them affordable?

KSN News asked if anything is being done to keep the housing units that are being sold affordable for lower-income families. Gooding said the first 13 homes are scattered around Wichita, so the city is not placing affordability restrictions on them.

“We are seeing interest from both potential home buyers and potential developers or landlords,” she said. “We do know that the price point of the houses place them in some of the more affordable housing stock within the city of Wichita.”

The first 13 houses for sale all need repairs, some of them costly. If a landlord buys the house and fixes it up, Gooding says that could mean they’ll want to charge higher rent.

But she said the city will put restrictions on some of the future housing units that go on the market.

“We do have future groups that will be very specifically designated for affordable housing, and we will have long-term controls in place to ensure that we are providing housing that aligns with real household incomes, either through vouchers or through affordable homeownership opportunities in future groups,” Gooding said.

Sally Stang, Wichita Housing and Community Services director repeated that message.

“The majority of the units that we are going to transition from public housing, the majority of those units we are hoping to have affordability restrictions whether that’s for home ownership or for rental,” Stang said. “And we’ll be using different mechanisms to try and enforce and keep that affordability.”

“We’re actually going to tie in some affordable housing funds to be able to fund some of the renovations,” she said. “If they want to do affordable rental, we’ll require that they do a project-based voucher, the unit, so that we, for 15 years, can ensure that they stay affordable.”

Workweek open houses?

Some people expressed concern that the city only offered three opportunities for potential buyers to tour the 13 units. The three open houses were this Wednesday, Thursday and Friday during normal working hours. It left working families unable to see the houses.

Gooding said staff is considering adding more times for people unable to attend the first open houses.

Whipple said the city is dedicated to make sure tenants are taken care of, but also the housing units.

“You want to get them back, the folks living in them, you want to get them back to where they need to be ’cause, if not, a lot of bad stuff happens in houses that’s not being occupied,” he said. “So we don’t want them to be magnets for crime.”