Alabama Statewide Discussion Topline Report

Socio Economic State

The socio economic state of Alabama is highly vulnerable at this time. According to the CFED the overall state is failing in terms of areas of “Assets and Opportunities.” In particular, the key areas of failure are Financial Assets and Income (looks at poverty rates and net worth), Businesses and Jobs (micro enterprise, unemployment rates, underemployment rates) and Education (early childhood education enrollment, 8th grade math and reading proficiency, two and four year college degrees). While not failing, Alabama’s Healthcare score is a D mainly because of employee share of premium, uninsured low income children and parents and uninsured by income). An additional health concern is that of food access options. In fact there are 30+ food deserts (counted by census tracts) in state of Alabama primarily in 10+counties. This presence of food deserts signals that residents in these areas lack access to grocery stores and thus healthy food options. The food insecurity can be a contributing factor to the health challenges that residents are facing. Housing and Homeownership individually received a score of B because of the high homeownership rate, low foreclosure rate, but that only tells half of the story. There are still many housing issues facing Alabama that are not evident in this average score.

Community stability is in jeopardy for two key reasons: foreclosure and reoccurring tornadoes. While foreclosures are a national issue the true impact of foreclosures is just recently being seen in Alabama. The economic downturn in Alabama is depicted by mass layoffs and folks in certain areas losing their commercial business to Katrina and the BP oil spill among other things. Nonetheless, loss of income or decrease in income has put a financial strain on households regardless of tenure. Residents are severely cost burdened and are faced with making personal sacrifices just to make ends meet. Many residents are already on a fixed income such as the elderly or those with adaptive needs but are forced to live in unconscionable living conditions because they have no alternatives or the resources to improve their existing home. For those who were unable to negotiate with their lender when they fell behind they are without homes and their former home is now among the 36, 000 tax delinquent properties for sale in the Alabama Department of Revenue’s database. Acquiring these tax delinquent, foreclosed, abandoned properties is no small feat in Alabama. Regarding shrinking the affordable housing deficit practitioners report challenges with getting a clean title, dealing with air property for existing properties and comps, resources and developers for new properties, especially in rural areas. There are still opportunities for new development . Since the beginning of the 2012 housing permit issuance has shown a consistent trend, most permits being issued are for single family or 5 or more units (multi -family). While permits are being issued, on the ground data indicates that housing developments aren’t necessarily being built in the areas most needed and for the people in the greatest need.

Impact of Tornadoes

The tornadoes that struck Alabama between April 2011 and March 2012 had a devastating impact not only on communities, but it also compounded an already affordable housing scarcity issue. One

1

organization reported a 600 home deficit (300 existing and additional 300 needed). According to the Alabama Center for Real Estate the April 27, 2011 impacted 65% of the counties in Alabama and approximately 14,000 (as of August 2011 report) were declared inhabitable or a complete loss. Interestingly enough practitioners reported that many homes destroyed in the storm were inhabitable or unstable prior to the storm and the structure vulnerabilities were just highlighted by the storms. The storms following the April 27th, 2011 tornado in some cases re-victimized residents who previously lost their homes and were in the process of rebuilding or took new residents’ homes that had not previously been hit. Low income communities and those in rural areas were hit extremely hard and besides homes, lives, schools and even churches in some areas were lost. Rebuilding these communities has been and will continue to be challenging due to time required, costs and financial constraints in trying to maintain the same level of affordability residents were previously use to, i.e. $300-400 month rent. Additionally, in rural areas economic feasibility is challenging and thus hinders these areas from attracting developers to build there. These reoccurring disaster episodes and lack of disaster recovery infrastructure have provided an opportunity for Alabama CDCS to be innovative and in some cases to collaborate with one another to ensure the needs of Alabama residents are met concurrent with helping them recover from the tornado. For instance, organizations mentioned aiding families by creating one stop shop housing resource centers, creating a cdc for long term disaster recovery or serving as a liaison between the home owners and their lender following the disaster.

Housing is one key staple that every resident regardless of the socio economic status deserves as are accessibility to community assets such as grocery stores, medical facilities, transportation, jobs and businesses to patronize. Again issue of community assets like grocery stores was further compounded by the tornado by increasing the number of food deserts in a county as well as for the state of Alabama as a whole. These tornadoes have caused resident displacement as well which impact their “daily round” and results in increased expenses for things like transportation. While a large majority of individuals seem to live and work in the same area, tornadoes striking completely disrupt that phenomenon.

Collectively, the vulnerability of the socio economic state of Alabama compounded by the economic downturn and impact of the tornado has resulted in community instability. Residents are struggling day to day to make ends meet in areas with often limited access to resources. Access to education, access to healthcare, access to healthy food, access to transportation, access to jobs and most importantly access to safe, quality and affordable housing. This current environment presents an opportunity for the NeighborWorks Network and Alabama CDC Network to collaborate on addressing these issues.

NeighborWorks Network + CDC Network

There is a great deal of strength in numbers and this is especially true in Alabama. NeighborWorks Alabama Network coupled with the other local cdcs in the area possesses a tremendous amount of organizational strength, particularly around housing. As a collective group the network could certainly make meaningful impact. Some of the key strengths highlighted were:

2

Biggest Strength Strategic relationships Community engagement in decision-making process Community Asset On the ground community insight Quality housing development Quality housing programs Skilled Staff

Despite their organizational strengths and expertise, all organizations still expressed state challenges around existing housing inventory and economic loss

Biggest Challenges

Access to credit Getting solid appraisals—comps aren’t there Foreclosures Lack of development funds Reduction in funds from government sources Shortage of affordable rural housing Old housing stock and thus lack of quality affordable housing Resilience to disasters Lack of Housing Policy

Economic Loss Mass layoffs Businesses destroyed in the tornado Spatial mismatch Population Drift Destruction to Maritime Industry-Katrina and Oil Spill

Each Alabama NeighborWorks Network organizations expressed their own service area nuance or unique characteristics that impact their ability to serve their population. For CAPNA whose 2011 market analysis service area included Morgan, Lawrence, Jackson and Cullman counties, “Population Drift has been an observed occurrence. According to CAPNA, Population Drift occurs when families to seek stable employment or safe harbor with family or friends. With the economic downturn and subsequent job loss Alabama’s rural area population has “drifted.” CAPNA stated Morgan and Cullman counties saw a population increase between 2005 to2010 and Lawrence County had no population change during that same period while Jackson County saw a decline.

CSP given its work in the black belt stated the area itself presents its own challenges. The blackbelt includes 12 counties in the Central Alabama Area. Residents in this area are poor and were described in

3

terms of ownership as “land rich and money poor.” Blackbelt residents are older, some are grandparents raising their grandchildren and many have literacy, particularly financial literacy obstacles.

NHS of Birmingham also has a unique position given its position as the only homeownership center in the state of Alabama. This undertaking presents it challenges and provides a tremendous amount of opportunity to not only serve residents themselves but to also partner with other organizations to provide that service.

All Alabama housing professionals interviewed aspire for a strong Alabama housing infrastructure and are actively seeking ways to facilitate that. Beyond their own efforts everyone had a vision about what their “Ideal Alabama” would be like in terms of affordable housing.

Ideal Alabama

Overall practitioners are seeking impactful change in Alabama around affordable housing. Ideally they aspire for a cohesive stance and system around affordable housing. Housing leaders believe that a convenient system that allows individuals to enter a single entry point (clearinghouse) and then be able to navigate a seamless process to get their complete household needs met would be ideal for Alabama. Furthermore, practitioners envision affordable housing in Alabama to consist of diverse housing stock built which includes a mix of populations in terms of age, education, race and income rather than solely segregated communities. Affordability is a big issue for both urban and suburban areas so the vision includes abundance of safe, quality affordable housing for all areas along with community amenities and support services. Also, they would prefer an easier land acquisition process or more government support around housing in Alabama as a whole.

Unfortunately there are several obstacles identified that currently hinder achieving the “Ideal Alabama” (beyond resources) which are:

• LACK OF POLITICAL WILL

• LACK OF HOUSING POLICY; HOUSING TRUST FUND BILL GETTING PASSED

• OBTAINING CLEAR TITLES

• LAND ACQUISITION-AIR PROPERTY

• LACK OF A COHESIVE PLAN

Conclusions & Recommendations

4

Alabama is facing many issues from a socio economic stand point but in terms housing in particular. One of the main housing issues is that there is not enough safe, quality affordable housing, particularly in rural areas. In the context Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs Alabama residents are struggling miserably at the lowest rung of the triangle i.e. meeting basic needs of food and shelter. Through no fault of their own but rather due to lack of policy, infrastructure and a statewide housing plan. An initial step would be to organize a statewide discussion at least with the main funding institutions such as intermediaries LISC, NeighborWorks, Enterprise along with major foundations and funders such as Untied Way and others to implement a collective voice that can support the on the ground efforts of local cdcs. Beyond the statewide organizations some tasks that an Alabama Collaborative should consider are:

Advocacy around Housing Policy to Ensure Affordability in Perpetuity

Organize/Lobby as a group to ensure existing and new housing legislation gets passed and funded

Establish a Alabama Community Land Trust leveraging the National Community Land Trust and nearby successful land trust such as in Charlotte and Georgia

Establish an Alabama Land Bank

Rural Housing Initiative

Incentivize investment in blighted areas and rural communities; need programming similar to what has taken place in Mobile, Alabama

Institute peer-to-peer sharing with other NeighborWorks Network organizations who have been successful in

Alabama Housing Collaborative Details & Procedures

Incorporate other local cdcs in the collaborative in some capacity

Model FAHE’s caucus format in terms of meeting frequency and data sharing

Develop MOU’s pertaining to different lines of service, taking advantage of the each organization’s strengths and capacity

Leverage FAHE’s back office operation for lending, access to credit and some of the “financing” challenges previously expressed

5