Syracuse Housing Trust Fund Corporation to help ongoing housing crisis

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The Syracuse Housing Trust Fund Corporation, established by the Syracuse City Common Council on Dec. 18, is a local housing development organization that seeks to mitigate the ongoing housing crisis in the city.

An estimated “six to eight thousand people” — mostly low-income — are “housing vulnerable” in the city of Syracuse, said Councilman Patrick Hogan, who represents the 2nd district.

“What we’re also finding out is the cost of housing is so high it affects people who have jobs, and they’re paying more than (30% of their income),” Hogan said. “People shouldn’t have to pay more than 30% of their income for housing. It’s not healthy for the community, not healthy for the economy … not healthy at all.”

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Half of all United States renters use more than 30% of their income on rent and utilities, The New York Times reported on Jan. 25. Amid the housing crisis, the city of Syracuse is expected to grow with the coming of Micron Technology’s new semiconductor facility, which is expected to create nearly 50,000 jobs, according to its website.

“We have to be prepared for what Micron’s going to bring us, which is more people,” Hogan said. “We have to have living places, living quarters available for folks. All the shelters are packed. You know, it’s a real, it is a crisis. It’s gonna get worse.”

Hogan promotes the HTFC and is involved with a housing task force — a group of 40 or so entities, including housing nonprofits, private developers and “everyday people across the spectrum that deal with housing in the community,” he said. The task force created the HTFC to help with the financing of housing projects and received an initial seed funding award of $5 million from New York State.

Michelle Sczpanski, deputy commissioner of neighborhood development, organized both the HTFC and the housing task force.

“The mission of (the HTFC) is really to facilitate investments that help to address the city’s housing needs, as it pertains to the city’s market gap and affordability gaps,” Sczpanski said.

Both Sczpanski and Hogan — along with Mayor Ben Walsh, other council members and city staff — are involved in the Syracuse Housing Study, which the city developed in partnership with consulting and planning firm czb LLC. The task force has made recommendations the HTFC can carry out, Syracuse.com reported. Sczpanski said they’ve been working on the housing strategy over the last year.

Sczpanski said the HTFC tries in a “handful of different ways” to prioritize investments that help “remediate disinvestment in the housing market, deferred maintenance, improve safe and secure living conditions, really promote economic development and attract residents to the city.”

The overall cross-estimates of “cost-secure, deferred maintenance for housing stock” in the city of Syracuse is upwards of $1.5 billion, Sczpanski said, referencing the study.

The city will not be able to reach that fundraising goal, Sczpanski said, but will work to fundraise as much as it can through local and state sources, as well as any other philanthropic or private funding.

“It’s major for us to identify what a reoccurring source of capital can be (for the HTFC). Over the next several months … we’ll be working very closely with the board members and other folks here locally to try to figure out what that looks like,” Sczpanski said.

The HTFC’s major priorities over the next year will be initial startup, such as establishing the board, doing standard onboarding procedures, adopting bylaws and other operational measures, as well as building out their seed funding, Sczpanski said.

Hogan said he talked Saturday with different young developers about ways to use the HTFC. He said they are “fleshing out” a public-private developer concept.

“We know that what we’ve been doing so far isn’t working. We’ve gotten better at some things over the years, but there’s a really, really long way to go,” Sczpanski said. “(The HTFC) is one really important piece of that puzzle that we’re looking forward to figuring out how to best maintain moving forward.”