Community Development Partnership Participates in Housing Study in Ireland

EASTHAM – The Community Development Partnership, based in Eastham, joined a delegation of Massachusetts housing advocates for an “Affordable Housing Learning Journey” last month in Ireland.

The goal of the trip, organized by the Massachusetts Association of Community Development Corporations, NeighborWorks Southern Mass and Massachusetts Housing Partnership, was to study Ireland’s approach to building affordable housing.

The overseas trips happen every few years and are a way for housing leaders to get inspired and learn innovative approaches to housing.

CDP Director of Housing Advocacy Andrea Aldana took part in the trip and said the housing systems in Massachusetts and Ireland are very similar.

Both systems struggle with low wages which cannot sustain market rents, long waiting lists for subsidized housing units, an aging population and resistance to new housing development.

Aldana said the largest difference is the amount of resources allocated toward housing.

“In Ireland, or in the EU broadly, the approach to housing is really different because housing is considered a human right,” Aldana said. “They allocate way more money than we do.”

The delegation also learned about other concepts, including spot rent control, which is happening in neighborhoods in Dublin.

Rent control is a government program that places a limit on the amount that a landlord can charge for leasing a home or renewing a lease.

“That is not something that we see here,” Aldana said. “I’m not sure that would be the most effective strategy here, but it is definitely interesting.”

Aldana said the way funding flows to developers for affordable housing in Ireland is much more straightforward.

“Here, you have to have a whole development stack of funds where developers need to get funding from sometimes as many as ten different sources to make an affordable housing development work,” she said.

“In Ireland, about 50 percent comes from the state to cover total development costs and then financing is available for other 50 percent.”

Aldana said financing is highly predictable in Ireland.

“Here, people are always scrambling and competing for funds,” she said.

Aldana was also struck by how housing financing and policy plays out in Northern Ireland, where there is an active confict.

“Even despite this conflict, Northern Ireland is still able to prioritize housing,” she said. “And if they can do that in a conflict area then certainly we can get our act together and figure this out in Massachusetts.”

Aldana thinks the housing advocates from Massachusetts will try to take back framing the issue of housing as a right.

She said the most valuable aspect of the trip was the networking and relationship building among the state’s housing advocates.

“We got to network with other housing leaders in the state and that was hugely valuable for our own professional development and preparing the next generation of housing leaders in the state to be innovative and bold,” Aldana said.

Funding from the Kuehn Foundation helped fund the trip for younger housing professionals, including Aldana.

The housing leaders who made the trip will be sharing what they learned from Ireland during various conferences and events over the next year.

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