Reusable Resources for Housing

HUD’s report on the transformation of a downtown San Franciso YMCA to permanent supportive housing for the homeless is inspiring.  At a $91 million cost, the project required a lot of creative financing, but the payoff is a beautiful, historic building that both houses and provides medical services to otherwise homeless clients, as well as to the surrounding neighborhood.

It makes you wonder, do we have any built resources that could similarly be transformed?  Many of us thought the former Martha Jefferson Hospital property would be a candidate for affordable housing, but it has been re-purposed as office space and market rate apartments.

In the past, Piedmont Housing Alliance has renovated spaces like the Scottsville School and the former shirt factory on Monticello Rad into affordable housing.  It seems likely, however, that in the short term, new affordable housing locally will result from new building.  Piedmont Housing is already pursuing that option.