More than 450 affordable homes and apartments will be constructed using about $10.4 million in state tax credits. The funds, distributed by the quasi-public Connecticut Housing Finance Authority (CHFA), will go to 24 nonprofits across 15 municipalities.
Large and small communities will benefit from the funding, including Bridgeport, Norwalk, Sharon and Middletown, according to CHFA’s Senior Director of Research, Marketing, and Communications, Marcus Smith.
The timelines vary for each project given the different types of development, which range from rehabilitating historic sites and constructing new homes, Smith said.
“A lot of these are shovel-ready, and they could be ready to go in the next six months, and some of them might be just maybe a little bit longer to get going depending on what the use is for,” Smith said.
Connecticut needs 100,000 more affordable housing units, according to several studies, including one conducted by Connecticut’s Office of Policy and Management.
How the program came to be
The State Housing Tax Credit Contribution (HTCC) Program was established in 1987 and has helped create, preserve and rehabilitate more than 12,000 units of housing since 2010, according to Smith.
“It's evolved over the years to become less of a gap filler for those big dozens of units or 100-unit multifamily projects that the state supports, and more towards funding the unique developments and the unique types of housing that, but for the HTCC program, just wouldn't have access to the resources.”
Some unique types of housing supported by the project include owner-occupied multifamily buildings and supportive housing, designed to help formerly homeless residents transition to stable housing.
Additionally, three programs funded will provide downpayment assistance for homeowners. Six units of supportive housing will also be funded across Norwalk and Middletown.
CHFA allocates up to $10 million annually in state tax credits under the HTCC program to nonprofits developing very low-, low- and moderate- income housing. The funding is set by the state and, Smith said, over the years more money has been requested.
This year, there were far more applications than could be fulfilled with the allotted funding, Smith said. The 37 applications amounted to a request for $16 million. Ultimately, 24 were funded.
Last year, the program had to provide two application rounds to use up the funds.
“Consider last year as a blip, and this year demonstrating that there is a strong desire for this type of flexible support from the state,” Smith said.
Eversource is typically the main investor, he said, and as soon as nonprofits get the equity from Eversource the projects “should be up and running.”
Awardees must file quarterly reports to ensure the funding is being properly utilized, Smith said.
“Connecticut’s housing challenges are complex, and meeting them requires a broad and flexible set of tools,” Nandini Natarajan, CHFA’s CEO and Executive Director, said. “HTCC is an important part of that toolkit because it can support so many different housing needs, from creating new affordable rental homes and homeownership opportunities to preserving the housing we already have.”
