With this year’s legislative session over and the $14 billion fiscal 2024 budget settled, the state's top housing official and affordable housing advocates say that the allocations and legislation to reduce housing shortages will allow for crucial strides forward, but the problem will require more funding and focus.
The legislative effort this year “represents an important down payment, but it’s not enough,” said R.I. Secretary of Housing Stefan Pryor. “We need to invest further in the future years in order to sustain and even grow that momentum, and in order to have a shot at truly affecting housing development in our state.”
Gov. Daniel J. McKee's administration and the General Assembly last year touted the fiscal 2023 budget for its unprecedented investment in housing, with $250 million set aside to address the housing crisis.
The fiscal 2024 budget didn't devote as much money but still dedicates $30 million to expanding shelter capacity and up to another $30 million annually for a Statewide Low Income Housing Tax Credit Program, which will give developers tax incentives for providing low-income housing options.
It also sets aside $27 million for priority project funding, approximately $4 million for transit-oriented developments, and allows the addition of 21 full-time equivalent positions to the R.I. Office of Housing and Community Development, which was established in 2022.
Pryor, who leads the OHCD, characterized the recent developments as “a highly successful legislative session regarding issues related to housing and homelessness.
“There are numerous tools that were authorized, and now we need to go about creating those tools,” Pryor said.
Some of the first steps for his office will be personnel related, Pryor says, such as filling the first of the new OHCD positions.
The office is also “far along with the creation of a consolidated homeless fund application that will enable homelessness service providers to apply for funding,” Pryor said, with plans to open applications in the early fall.
Beyond the budget, all but one of 14 housing-focused bills, introduced as a legislative package by House Speaker K. Joseph Shekarchi, were also signed into law.
That package includes legislation intended to streamline permitting processes for housing; establish incentives for developers to offer affordable housing units; foster a transit-oriented development pilot program; and eliminate rental application fees, among other changes intended to remove obstacles to creating affordable housing in Rhode Island, which ranks last in the U.S. for new housing production.
The budget allocations and legislation are "absolutely early steps” in addressing the state’s housing crisis, said Jennifer Hawkins, executive director of ONE Neighborhood Builders, a nonprofit developer of affordable housing.
She would have liked to see bigger steps taken.
For each dollar allocated, “you really need to be adding a ‘zero’ to all of these investments … and do that every year. This can’t be a one-time infusion," she said.
Nevertheless, Hawkins says she is thrilled to see housing prioritized through the package of bills.
“I think that is really a statement by [Shekarchi] of how he is genuinely prioritizing the issue and understands the work we have to do to get ourselves out of this deficit we’re in with housing units,” Hawkins said.
Funding for the Statewide Low Income Housing Tax Credit Program stands out to Hawkins as “a really big win,” she said, noting that Rhode Island and New Hampshire are the only two states in the Northeast that don’t have state-level initiatives to complement federal incentive programs.
The only proposal in the legislative package that didn’t pass would have eased requirements on establishing accessory dwelling units, also known as in-law apartments or “granny flats.”
Hawkins said she isn’t sure why that piece of legislation didn’t pass but that efforts are underway to reintroduce it next year. Pryor also said he doesn’t see the legislation that didn't pass this year creating major obstacles in reducing the housing crisis.
More than enough.
If additional housing was necessary and economically feasible, real estate developers would be building it without government intervention.