What OPA Can Do

So much of the conversation around EPA OPA has focused on property values at the expense of understanding the full scope of what the policy can do.

 

OPA is a policy about homeownership for lower income households in EPA during a time when property values raced past wages…

 

AND OPA helps EPA capture public funds for affordable housing preservation, instead of being last in line for those regional and CA State resources (for REAP 2.0, $250,000 per unit; for FIHPP, $500,000-$600,000k per unit).

 

AND OPA structures affordability into the properties that receive public funding – making them permanently affordable and reducing the number of new affordable units needed each year as time goes on.

 

AND OPA addresses displacement twice – once in helping tenants become owners and second over the lifetime of the building which maintains affordability requirements.

 

AND OPA buildings become assets to the city and community in helping to keep housing affordable over the long run.

 

AND OPA implementation will help to renovate the housing stock of EPA,

because funding sources for affordable housing preservation fund both acquisition and rehabilitation of buildings.

 

AND OPA helps build out a system for affordable housing preservation to continue to compete for public investment resources as affordable housing preservation becomes a bigger part of addressing the housing crisis.

 

AND OPA can help develop local leaders in housing development and policy to expand the capacity of mission driven development organizations.

 

AND OPA adds opportunities for cooperative ownership models for people.

 

Every day that city council kicks the can on OPA, EPA as a whole community misses out on all of these benefits.