Hudson River Housing: Partnerships to Improve Resident Choices and Neighborhood Outcomes

In the last year housing prices in Poughkeepsie, New York have dropped by 35 percent from its peak. Unemployment hovers around 8 percent, which is slightly better than the national average, but still means a lot of people are out of work. At Hudson River Housing’s NeighborWorks® HomeOwnership Center, 60 to 70 percent of new customers are existing homeowners seeking help with mortgage delinquencies and foreclosures. This is up from just 4 percent a year ago, and the numbers continue to increase.

Once known as the “Queen City of the Hudson” in the 1800s, Poughkeepsie’s economy included paper mills and breweries, and a thriving shipping trade. The decline of manufacturing eventually took its toll on Poughkeepsie and in the late 20th century it suffered from disinvestment and blight. The city demolished many of the old mill buildings to make way for new development but the area continued to struggle. Hudson River Housing was formed in 1982 to provide shelter and services to a growing population of homeless people. As years passed, Hudson River Housing recognized that the homeless needed more than just emergency shelter and began developing first transitional and supportive housing, and then homeownership opportunities for low income families. Hudson River Housing was chartered as a NeighborWorks® organization in 1999. While serving homeless people remains central to its mission, Hudson River Housing has steadily expanded its affordable housing development focus and points with pride to the construction of over 600 emergency, transitional and rental units, and 39 one- and two-family homes.

Hudson River Housing has focused much of its housing work in the northern part of Poughkeepsie, home to many of the city’s low income and minority residents. As the economy worsened, Ed Murphy, Hudson River Housing associate executive director for real estate development, worried that the poorest areas would be hit the hardest. These fears were justified when Murphy and his staff mapped the foreclosure-affected properties in preparation for a Neighborhood Stabilization Program Round 1 (NSP-1) proposal; 80 percent of the 130 affected properties were in the city’s north side. Eight census tracts had HUD Risk Scores of eight or higher, indicating concentrations of foreclosed, vacant and abandoned properties. In the last 18 months, the city’s north side has also seen an increase in violent crime, and vandals have targeted vacant buildings.

The city of Poughkeepsie was awarded $2.1 million from NSP-1 from the New York State Housing Financing Agency, which will be used to help stabilize the eight census tracts in the city’s north side. To improve its ability to move swiftly once the NSP-1 grant is executed, Murphy assembled a “SWAT Team” that included a builder, an architect, an environmental engineer and an appraiser. This group met several times to plan its strategy. As soon as the grant is finalized they will assemble the team and visit as many properties as possible in one day, repeating this as necessary until all the properties have been reviewed. Their target is 43 units; Hudson River Housing staff has put together a list of foreclosed and vacant properties in the target census tracts for the SWAT team to work from. The properties include a mixture of one- and two-family homes and small multifamily (4-6 unit) buildings.

A new initiative for Hudson River Housing and its partners will be to renovate the buildings using green building principles to the extent the construction budgets will permit. Priorities include upgrading appliances to “Energy Star” rated items, installation of high efficiency heating and cooling systems, improved insulation, landscaping with native plants and use of paints and finishes containing no volatile organic compounds (VOCs).

Hudson River Housing also plans to use NSP1 funds to redevelop the old underwear factory near downtown Poughkeepsie, rechristened “The Cooperage” by a would-be developer who later walked away from the project. This lovely 27,000 SF building is on the National Register of Historic Places, and is one of the few that remain of Poughkeepsie’s manufacturing past. It is also a key component of Hudson River Housing’s newest initiative, the Middle Main revitalization. This effort will target a five-block stretch of Main Street, where three out of five commercial spaces are vacant, upstairs apartments are vacant and buildings are falling into disrepair. Hudson River Housing believes that redeveloping “The Cooperage” as affordable rental housing will bring new life to the historic building and re-energize the downtown. Additional affordable housing opportunities are available on the residential side streets leading off of Main Street.

The area has a high concentration of Latinos, many of whom moved to the city as immigrants 15-20 years ago. They have opened new restaurants and bodegas along Main Street, as well as other small businesses. Research shows that homeownership rates among immigrants who have lived in the United States for less than 10 years is relatively low, around 16 percent. It takes time to find stable employment, understand housing markets and save for a downpayment. Homeownership rates among families who have been in the country for 20 years are far higher, around 59 percent, suggesting that Poughkeepsie’s Latino population could be an important source of new buyers.¹ Hudson River Housing has bilingual on staff, one of the few housing programs locally to do so, and has been reaching out to the Latino community.

This sort of focused revitalization effort is new to Hudson River Housing and the organization has been experimenting with ways to make it more of a grassroots effort. A meeting in June 2009 drew 27 attendees who enthusiastically discussed the strengths and opportunities, as well as the challenges, of Middle Main. Assets cited included the diverse population and ethnic food offerings, as well as the presence of some owner-occupied buildings to help anchor the neighborhood. Problems included crime, an over abundance of pit-bulls, and the neglected visual appearance of many buildings. One outcome of the meeting was to establish an advisory committee, which will work with residents and Hudson River Housing to identify priorities for the next three to six months.

Hudson River Housing is also experimenting with social networking to reach out to people who might not attend Middle Main face-to-face meetings due to scheduling difficulties or who simply do not care for meetings. The newly established www.middlemain.ning.com offers a discussion forum, photos, an events calendar and a membership list. It has a small number of followers at present, but this is an innovative strategy for reaching out to people interested in the revitalization of Middle Main, especially younger residents.

Helping Poughkeepsie recover from the housing and economic downturn requires Hudson River Housing to work in different parts of the city, with different constituencies and to utilize different revitalization strategies, but in both efforts they will be improving choices, opportunities and outcomes for residents. In the city’s north side Hudson River Housing will use a scattered site approach, stabilizing the neighborhoods by putting foreclosed and abandoned units back into service. Using a housing SWAT team to evaluate units adds efficiencies that will speed redevelopment of the units into owner-occupied properties or affordable rental housing for neighborhood residents. The Middle Main project, by contrast, focuses on restoring one defined neighborhood near the downtown. Hudson River Housing is engaging residents and other stakeholders in the planning process, which will lead to the redevelopment of an old mill building into permanent affordable rental housing, improvements to the smaller mixed-use buildings that line Main Street and revitalization of the neighborhood.