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On the ballot tomorrow in Albuquerque’s municipal election is a bond question that would continue funding Albuquerque’s Workforce Housing Trust Fund.
The Workforce Housing Trust Fund was created in 2007 by the City Council, and it is funded by general obligation bonds. In 2007, voters approved $10 million for the fund, and are being asked to approve another $10 million this year.
The bonds are meant to provide the city with a dedicated source of revenue for rehabbing or building permanently affordable housing. Projects since 2007 have focused primarily on creating affordable rental units, but the funds were also used to allow the city to purchase the rail yards in the downtown neighborhood of Barelas with the intention of creating affordable housing there in the future.
According to an op-ed in the Albuquerque Journal by Ed O’Leary, retired president and CEO of First Security Bank of New Mexico, 2007 workforce housing bonds have an economic development impact that is felt throughout the community:
The first bond issue approved by voters two years ago allowed the city to create 355 new, high quality permanently affordable housing units. Six new developments were created including both single and multifamily units. They are located convenient to employment opportunities and to citywide transportation routes. Five of these developments are located near the city’s central core convenient to new jobs and opportunities that have arisen in recent years.
I am proud that the city of Albuquerque’s draft 2008 Workforce Housing Annual Report notes that as a result of the first bond issued in 2007, a projected $20,000,000 in new spending was generated, more than 400 construction jobs have been created and state and local governments are collecting new gross receipts taxes totaling more than $3 million.
Further, for every Workforce Housing Trust Fund dollar expended, not-for-profit developers have leveraged approximately $7.50 in new sources of private, state and federal funding. There are worthy affordable housing projects already in the planning and design phases ; projects that will need the support of this year’s bond dollars.
O’Leary is the chair of the Vote Yes for Workforce Housing Committee.
The Journal also endorsed Workforce Housing Trust Fund bonds.
General obligation bonds are issued to help fund the city’s capital program. The bonds are paid off by property taxes. It’s an ongoing cycle, with new bonds being issued and older ones being retired.
