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Round 2 Wrap Up Report

Small Rental Property Program Round 2 Wrap-Up
February 6, 2008

Overview of Round 2

The State awarded nearly $375 million in federal funds to 5,032 applications in Round 2 of the Small Rental Property program. The average award is approximately $75,000.

The awards will help restore more than 9,000 rental units in the eligible parishes. Of those, more than 8,000 units will be rented at affordable rates for low- to moderate-income working families. The other units will be home to owner-occupants (who live on the same property as their rental units) and market rate tenants in mixed-income buildings.

The Program accepted applications for Round 2 from June 5 to July 31, 2007. Included in the Round was a 5% funding set-aside for non-profits that focused on creating “Permanent Supportive Housing” (PSH) for people with special needs.

Awards for Round 2

Parish Awards
The number of awards in each parish closely matches the level of damage each parish sustained in the hurricanes. The chart below shows the distribution of awards by parish.

The awards will help increase the amount of affordable housing available for renters in each hurricane-impacted parish. The chart below shows the number of awards made in each parish, along with the number of affordable rental units the awards will make possible, and the total dollar amount awarded.

Interest in the Program was strong across all of the affected parishes. The greatest demand came from heavily damaged parishes such as Orleans and St. Bernard. In some of the smaller parishes, the number of applications was low enough that the Program was able to award all of them before the allocation for that parish was used up.

• There were several eligibility changes made in Round 2:
• Partially occupied properties were eligible to compete in Round 2, though most owners only received an incentive award for units that have been vacant since November 1, 2006.
• Mid-sized owners and new investors were eligible to compete in the Round.
• Properties with multiple owners, where a member of the pre-storm ownership group sold his or her interest to the partners were eligible to compete as long as the remaining partners meet eligibility requirements for the round.
  
• The State made these changes in order to attract a sufficient volume of quality applications from all parishes, and to enable the Program to spend the full Round 2 allocation.

 

Awards by Applicant Type

• Of the 5,032 awarded applications, 3% (164) were owner-occupants of three-and four-unit properties.
• While small-scale owners continued to receive priority, mid-size owners of up to 100 units at the time of the storms were eligible to receive awards in Round 2 as part of the “general pool” of applicants.
• Round 2 also allowed new owners, those that purchased rental property after the storms, to receive awards. Together these new groups accounted for 9% (463) of the awarded applications.
• 86% (4,323) of the awards were made to small-scale owners from the general pool.
• Non-profit organizations received 2% (82) of the awarded applications.

 

Awards by Race
The chart below shows the awarded applications grouped by the race of the primary applicant.

 

Awards by Area Median Income (AMI Rent) Tiers
The chart below shows the awarded applications grouped by maximum income levels by household size.

 

Awards in New Orleans
74% of the awards went to applicants in New Orleans. The awards are spread across a range of different neighborhoods.

Application Process
The applications that received awards scored higher compared to the other applications in the same parish that were competing for the same funds.

• Owner occupants of three and four-unit properties were given top priority.
• Non-profits, who were required to provide extended affordability, competed for a funding set-aside of 5%.
• Within the general pool, Small-scale owners were given priority over mid-size owners. As were pre-storm owners over new investors. All other applications were ranked based on responses to scoring questions on the application.

The table below shows the minimum winning scores in all 13 parishes. Calcasieu and Orleans were the only parishes with minimum scores; these were for small-scale and mid-size owners only.

 

All applicants are required to demonstrate that they merited the scoring points they received for the questions they answered on the application. In some cases, applicants’ responses will also be verified against a separate data source.

 

Questions
If you have any questions regarding your Rental program application, please visit http://www.road2la.org/rental/faqs.htm (Frequent Questions), email rental@road2LA.org or call 1.888.ROAD.2.LA(1.888.762.3252) and select the Rental program prompt (#1). TTY callers use 711 relay or 1.800.846.5277.

For additional details by parish on Round 1, please visit http://www.road2la.org/rental/round1.htm (Round 1 Wrap-Up Report).

For information on rental properties available for prospective tenants, please visit LAHousingSearch.org.