Glossary of words used by affordable housing advocates

Here is a list of some common terms used by affordable housing advocates.

Income

Affordable Housing: Housing is affordable if the people living there pay no more than 30% of their income toward the rent or mortgage. Affordability depends on income.

Low-income rental housing: housing that requires subsidies for production or for occupants or both to make it affordable to low- and very low-income households.

Affordable ownership housing: market-rate, unsubsidized housing for moderate-income households, particularly first-time buyers, and subsidized ownership housing for low- and moderate-income homebuyers.

Moderate-income: A four-person household with an income from 80% to 95% of the local area median income.

Low-income: A four-person household with an income from 50% to 80% of the local area median income.

Very low-income: A four-person household with an income less than 50% of the local area medina income.

Extremely low-income: A four-person household with an income less than 30% of the local area medina income.

Housing wage: the amount a full time worker must earn to afford a two-bedroom rental at the fair market rent while spending no more than 30 percent of his or her salary.

Area Median Income (AMI): The middle income by Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) and by county. AMI depends on family size. The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) issues a listing of the AMI's each year. The AMI is used to determine the eligibility of applicants for both federally and locally funded programs.

Fair Market Rents (FMR): An affordability indicator set by HUD for most areas at their 40th percentile rent, are those for which or below which 40 percent of an area's standard quality homes rent.

Income limits: Family income limits established by law for admission into low- and moderate- income housing projects or to qualify for rent supplement assistance. Income limits are based on family size and geographic location.

Subsidy: Government grant to the sponsor to reduce the cost of one or more housing components (land, labor, material, financing) in order to lower the cost to the occupant.

General Public Financial Support

Low Income Housing Tax Credit Program (LIHTC): Created by the Tax Reform Act of 1986 to provide incentives for private sector production of low-moderate income housing. It replaced traditional housing tax incentives with a tax credit that enables developers of affordable housing to raise equity through the "sale" of tax benefits to investors (corporations and individuals). Investors receive 10 years of tax credits in exchange for their investment. LIHTC is a very important source of equity for nonprofit housing developers.

The California Tax Allocation Committee (TCAC): State agency under the State Treasurer's office responsible for administering the California state low income housing tax credit program.
             
Qualified Allocation Plan (QAP): Before allocating tax credits through the Low Income Housing Tax Credit program, each state is required to develop a Qualified Allocation Plan (QAP) to determine the level of funding per project. A QAP:  (1) sets forth selection criteria to determine housing priorities appropriate to local conditions, (2) gives preference to projects serving the lowest income tenants, and projects obligated to serve qualified tenants for the longest period of time, (3) provides procedures for monitoring of noncompliance.

California Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD): California's principal housing agency. HCD performs four primary functions: (1) Advocate and support housing development for all Californians, (2)  Develop, administer and enforce building codes, manufactured housing standards and mobile home park regulations, (3) Administer State and federal housing and community development finance programs, (4) Compile and disseminate critical information on housing, planning, financing and community and economic development issues.

Notices of Funding Availability (NOFA): Announcements that appear in the Federal Register, printed each business day by the United States government, inviting applications for Federal and State grant programs.

The California Debt Limit Allocation Committee (CDLAC): Established in 1985 by Governor Proclamation, CDLAC is required to establish and allocate the annual state ceiling. The annual state ceiling is the amount of tax-exempt private activity bonds which the state may issue in a calendar year. CDLAC also administers the tax-exempt private activity bond program available annually for California.

Federal Funding

Block Grants: Grants to states that can be used for a variety of purposes. Block grants are funded by annual appropriations by Congress and allocated to states by formula. Block grants usually provide considerable flexibility to governors for delivering the services outlined in the block grant.

Categorical Grant: An allocation of funds for a particular programmatic purpose.

Community Development Block Grant (CDBG): Federal annual direct grants distributed to states and local governments (entitlement communities) that can be used for a variety of purposes: to revitalize neighborhoods, expand affordable housing and economic opportunities, and/or improve community facilities and services, principally to benefit low- and moderate-income persons.

Entitlement communities: Local governments with 50,000 or more residents, other local governments designated as central cities of metropolitan areas, and urban counties with populations of at least 200,000 (excluding the population of entitled cities).

Home Investment Partnership Program (HOME): HOME is the largest Federal block grant to State and local governments designed exclusively to create affordable housing for low-income households. Communities often use the funds in partnership with local nonprofit groups to build, buy, and/or rehabilitate affordable housing for rent or homeownership or provide direct rental assistance to low-income people.

HOPE VI (The Urban Revitalization Demonstration): Designed to revitalize the nation's most severely distressed public housing. Congress and HUD created the HOPE VI grant program in 1992 to provide a flexible source of support for investments in public housing developments and for their residents.

Section 8:  Federal money distributed by local housing authorities in the form of vouchers for tenants to use in the regular rental market.

Project-base Section 8:  Section 8 funds that are used as subsidy in a particular housing development. As soon as you leave that development, you are out of the program. Today many project-based subsidy contracts are expiring, and owners have new options to continue their participation or to withdraw from providing affordable housing. As a result many recipients of project based section 8 are facing the threat of being pushed out or having to pay market rates.

Multifamily Housing Program (MHP): Subsidy program funded with state funds, administered by HCD.

Cal - Home: Subsidy program for homeo0wnership, administered by HCD.

Federal Housing Administration (FHA): A federal agency designed to encourage private housing financing through the issuance of mortgages.

Special Needs

Housing Opportunities for People with AIDS/HIV (HOPWA): A program established by HUD to address the specific needs of persons living with HIV/AIDS and their families. HOPWA makes grants to local communities, states, and nonprofit organizations for projects that benefit low income persons medically diagnosed with HIV/AIDS and their families.

811: Federal money distributed by HUD for housing for the disabled.

202: Federal money distributed by HUD for housing for the senior housing. HUD provides capital advances to finance the construction, rehabilitation or acquisition with or without rehabilitation of structures that will serve as supportive housing for very low-income elderly persons, including the frail elderly, and provides rent subsidies for the projects to help make them affordable.

Affordable Housing Organizations

Community Development Corporations (CDC's): Entrepreneurial institutions that combine public and private resources to aid in the development of socioeconomically disadvantaged areas.

Syndicators: Intermediary organizations such as LISC and Enterprise Foundation who raise funds and distribute them to non-profits in the form of technical assistance to the organizations themselves, and provide loans to the groups to buy projects, develop projects, etc.

Housing Authorities: Local agencies that manage public housing (housing completely built and operated by the government, no private investment-housing for the very poor).

National Low-Income Housing Coalition (NLIHC): Organizes, provides up-to-date information, formulates policy, and educates the public on housing needs and the strategies for solutions. NLIHC Does national advocacy around all housing issues, including production, public housing, and HUD-assisted housing.

National Housing Trust: formed to preserve and improve affordable multifamily homes for low and moderate income use. The Trust saves multifamily properties at risk of conversion to market rate housing and resolves the problems of "troubled" properties that suffer from physical deterioration and financial and social distress.

National Congress on Community Economic Development (NCCED): The trade association and advocate for the community-based development industry. NCCED services the community development industry through public policy research and education, special projects, newsletters, publications, trainings, conferences, and specialized technical assistance.

Center for Community Change (CCC): National organization that supports emerging non-profits and grassroots groups. CCC provides on-site assistance to grassroots groups, connects people to resources, helps build coalitions, and informs communities on in state and national policy issues.

Los Angeles Housing Department (LAHD): Works to provide safe and livable neighborhoods through the promotion, development and preservation of  and affordable housing utilizing federal capital resources, tax-exempt bonding authority, tax credits and leveraging of other funds from the public and private sector, complaint-based and routine periodic housing code inspection of all rental housing except single-family homes, and the police powers of the City's rental housing laws.

Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC): The nation's largest community building organization. LISC provides grants, loans and equity investments to CDC's for neighborhood redevelopment.

Enterprise Foundation: Helps locally-based nonprofit organizations working in community development by provide them with the specialized information, resources, and connections they need to revitalize their communities.

Fannie Mae: A housing lender that provides financial products and services that make it possible for low-, moderate-, and middle-income families to buy homes of their own. Fannie Mae helps increase the flow of funds to finance home mortgages, both single family and multifamily. 

Association Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN): The nation's largest community organization of low- and moderate-income families ACORN members organize in their neighborhoods across the country around local issues such as affordable housing, safety, education, improved city services, and, tenant organizing, fighting banking and insurance discrimination, organizing workfare workers, and winning jobs and living wages.

SCANPH

Southern California Association of Nonprofit Housing (SCANPH): A non-profit membership organization of non-profit housing developers, social service agencies and community groups, private businesses, local government agencies, lenders, and individuals all engaged with affordable housing. Among SCANPH serves as a resource center and clearinghouse for Southern California nonprofit housing developers.

Housing Trust Fund for the City of Los Angeles:  A $100 million annual trust fund dedicated exclusively to housing in the City of Los Angeles.

Housing LA (HLA): A campaign coalition created and led by the Southern California Association of Nonprofit Housing (SCANPH) to establish the trust fund.  HLA was created in 1998 in response to city administration utilizing federal pass-through housing funds for other activities. Tired of fighting an annual budget battle just to maintain existing housing resources, the board of SCANPH decided that it would engage this effort and win a dedicated trust fund.

Planning/Development

Police power: The right of the government to regulate property in order to protect the health, safety, and welfare of citizens.

Eminent domain:  The power of a public authority to condemn and take property for public use on payment of just compensation.

Zoning: Classification and regulation of land by local governments according to use categories (zones); often includes density designation as well.

Variance: A permit issued to a landowner by an administrative agency (zoning administrator, board of zoning adjustment, planning commission, or the city council acting as an administrative agency) to construct a structure or carry on an activity not otherwise permitted under the zoning regulations.

Conditional Use Permit:

Housing Element: One of the 7 mandatory elements required in a general plan in California cities. The housing element identifies and analyzes housing needs and includes goals, objectives, policies, and programs for provision of housing. Cities must include a plan to meet its "fair share" of affordable housing needs. Although each jurisdiction is required to have an approved housing element, it is not enforced.
SCAG Regional Housing Needs Assessment (RHNA): Produces regional, sub-regional and local targets for the amount and type of housing needed over the seven and a half year period, January 2001 to July 2008. It takes into account unmet housing needs and anticipated housing demand generated by employment growth and population increase

Redevelopment: The redesign or rehabilitation of existing properties

Rehabilitation: For the purpose of the national goals set by the Housing and Urban Development Act of 1968, a rehabilitation housing unit with more than 20% of the total mortgage proceeds or development costs expended for improvements, as opposed to property acquisition. Rehabilitation takes many forms, varying from a plan to repaint and modernize as building and bring it up to building code standards, to a complete gutting of the interior and replacement of the mechanical systems and roof.

Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA): A governmental entity separate from the city established to redevelop certain defined areas of a city. Under State law, it is also responsible for the development of affordable housing.

Fiscalization of land use: The idea that local planning and zoning decisions are driven by the goal of maximizing the local tax revenue that local land can produce. In California the fiscalization of land use was fueled by the passage of Prop. 13 (1978). Fiscalization of landuse encourages sprawl and high tax revenue producing retailers such as "big box stores" and auto malls.

Pro forma: A financial statement that projects gross income, operating expenses, and net operating income for a future period based on a set of specific assumptions.

Hard Costs: In new construction, includes payments for land, labor, materials, improvements, and the contractor's fee.

Soft costs: Outlays for interest, obligation fees, appraisals, and other third-party charges associated with real estate development.

Ground lease or rent: A lease of land alone, as distinguished from a lease of land with improvements on it, usually on along-term basis

Density: The level of concentration (high or low) of buildings, including their total volume, within a given area; Often expressed as a ratio, for example dwelling units per acre or floor/area ratio.

Mixed-use development: A development, in one building or several buildings that combines at least three significant revenue producing uses that are physically and functionally integrated and developed in conformance with a coherent plan. A mixed use development might include for example, retail space on the ground floor, offices on the middle floor, and condominiums on the top floors, with a garage on the lower level.

Infill development: A strategy for accommodating growth and preventing sprawl through greater density and efficiency in land use development within existing urban boundaries.

Planned Unit Development (PUD): Zoning classification created to accommodate master planned developments that include mixed uses, varied housing types, and/or unconventional subdivision designs.

Density bonus: An increase of at least twenty-five percent in the number of dwelling units authorized for a particular parcel of land beyond the otherwise maximum allowable residential authorized by the county zoning ordinance.

Inclusionary zoning: A program that principally requires developers to include affordable homes when they build a particular number of market-rate homes.

Exclusionary zoning: Zoning practices such as large lot requirements and minimum housing sizes that serve to exclude from a community, intentionally or not, racial minorities and low-income persons.

Not In My Back Yard (NIMBY): Neighborhood opposition to low income housing development or facilities that could be a nuisance such as a landfill, hazardous waste facility or an airport.

Urbanized area: central city and surrounding closely settled "urban fringe" that together have a minimum population of 50,000.

Metropolitan Area (MA): Highly populated and economically integrated area that contains a city of at least 50,000 people or an urbanized area with a metropolitan population of at least 100,000, groups of one or more whole counties.
Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA): A freestanding Metropolitan Area.

Environmental

Brownfields: With certain legal exclusions and additions, the term 'Brownfield site' means real property, the expansion, redevelopment, or reuse of which may be complicated by the presence or potential presence of a hazardous substance, pollutant, or contaminant.

CEQA: Under the California Environmental Quality Act of 1970, a public agency must prepare an Environmental Impact Report (EIR) for both public and private projects which may have a significant impact on the environment. The basic purposes of CEQA are (1) to inform government decision-makers and the public as about the potential environmental effects of proposed activities, (2) to prevent significant, avoidable environmental damage by requiring changes in projects, either by the adoption of alternatives or mitigation of mitigation measures, (3) to disclose to the public why a project was approved if that project would have significant environmental effects. 

Legislative Terms

Bill: A proposed law, introduced during a session for consideration by the Legislature, and identified numerically in order of presentation; also, commonly refers to Joint and Concurrent Resolutions and Constitutional Amendments.

Codes: Bound volumes of law organized by subject matter. The code to be changed by a bill is referred to in the title of the bill.

Section: A portion of the California Codes. The text of these sections are set for the in bills and proposed to be amended, repealed, or added.

Act: A bill passed by the Legislature and approved by the Governor.

Measure: Any bill, resolution, or constitutional amendment that is acted upon by the Legislature.

Petition: A formal request submitted to the Legislature by an individual, or group of individuals.

Referendum: The method by which a measure adopted by the Legislature may be submitted to the electorate for a vote.

Bond Bill: A bill authorizing the sale of State general obligation bonds to finance specified projects or activities, which must be subsequently approved by the voters.

Fiscal Year: The twelve months period on which the budget is planned. The State fiscal year begins July 1 and ends July 30 of the following year. The federal fiscal year begins October 1 and ends September 30 of the following year.

Appropriation: The amount of money available for expenditure by a specific source such as the General Fund, Environmental License Plate Fund, etc. and for a specific purpose.

Senate: The upper house of the California legislature consisting of 40 members elected from districts apportioned on the basis of population, one-half of whom are elected or re-elected every two years for four-year terms.

Assembly: The house of the California legislature consisting of 80 members, elected from districts apportioned on the basis of population. 

District: The area of the State represented by a legislator. Each district is determined by population and is known by a number. There are 40 Senate districts and 80 Assembly districts.

Constituent: A person who resides within the district of a legislature.

Legislative Advocate: An individual engaged to present to legislators, the views of a group or organization. They are required by law to register with the Secretary of State. More commonly known as lobbyists.

Lobbyist: An individual who seeks to influence the outcome of legislation or administrative decisions. The law requires formal registration as a lobbyist if an individual's lobbying activity exceeds 25 contacts with decision makers in a two-month period.