Saving the Stock, The Preservation Challenge: How to Save Older Affordable Housing
by Donna Kimura, featuring POAH's President/CEO, Aaron Gornstein
It’s not enough to build new affordable housing. To meet the nation’s growing needs, the existing affordable housing stock needs to be protected.
Without preservation, the nation is at risk of falling further and further behind in having homes affordable to seniors, working families, people with disabilities, veterans, and others.
The numbers tell the story: 104,088 federally assisted homes were added to the federally assisted rental stock in recent years, but 71,096 homes were lost, leaving a net gain of just 32,992 new affordable homes in this period, according to a 2024 report from the Public and Affordable Housing Research Corp. and the National Low Income Housing Coalition.
The loss of affordable housing can happen in different ways—affordability restrictions expiring at developments, properties converting to market-rate, and physical or financial decline of the housing. Another risk is inadequate government support to preserve the federally assisted housing stock.
To better understand the challenges and trends around preservation, six developers working in preservation share their insights:
Jason Bordainick, managing partner and co-founder of Hudson Valley Property Group (HVPG);
Alice Carr, CEO of April Housing;
Jeffrey Goldberg, CEO of Fairstead;
Aaron Gornstein, president and CEO of Preservation of Affordable Housing (POAH);
Priya Jayachandran, CEO of the National Housing Trust (NHT); and
Eric Price, president and CEO of The NHP Foundation (NHPF).
What role does preservation have in the overall affordable housing sector?
Gornstein: Preservation is essential to achieving net growth in the number of affordable housing units. We must preserve our existing inventory because we can’t afford to build enough new housing to replace affordable units lost to expiring restrictions or physical distress.
Preservation also protects existing households at risk of displacement and promotes the stability of the surrounding community.
Why aren’t more projects preserved?
Gornstein: Most affordable housing preservation challenges do get met. But when preservation doesn’t succeed, the primary reasons are fierce competition from buyers who may convert the property to market-rate housing; deferred maintenance or other operational failures; or lack of state and local commitment to resources and continued affordable use. Also, preservation isn’t all or nothing: Many properties have both rental assistance contracts for all or some units and a variety of regulatory agreements that constrain all rents to be affordable to various income levels. Over time, these mandates can expire, permitting unassisted rents to rise, and shifting the population that is served.