The Delaware State Housing Authority presented a request for an additional $8 million in for rental assistance and affordable housing development programs before the General Assembly's Joint Finance Committee on Thursday.
The funding would supplement Gov. John Carney’s proposed $101 million in spending on affordable housing initiatives in 2024 — the largest housing investment in Delaware’s history.
Carney's proposed investments, including $60 million from federal sources and $31 million in one-time state spending, would support four programs intended to incentivize additional housing development and preserve existing affordable housing.
$4 million of the additional funding requested by DSHA would be used to expand Delaware’s rental assistance program for extremely low-income households, including young adults leaving foster care and seniors leaving nursing homes. The program — a partnership between DSHA, the Delaware Department of Health and Social Services (DHSS), the Delaware Department of Services for Children, Youth, and their Families (DSYCF) and other agencies — launched in 2011.
The remaining $4 million would cover loan assistance for affordable housing developers through Delaware's Housing Development fund — a program that, according to House Authority Director Eugene Young, drew $9.9 million in low-income tax credit housing equity with only $3.3 million in state spending in 2022.
For affordable housing developers and homeless services providers who have found themselves unable to manage the scale of Delaware's housing crisis for years, the Housing Authority's request came as a sign that lawmakers might finally be willing to treat affordable housing development as a priority. Milford Housing Development Corporation President David Moore says the proposed investment is long overdue.
"The first time we’ve have an investment in decades from the General Fund," he told members of the Joint Finance Committee on Thursday.
Lawmakers themselves also appeared eager to engage in a more substantial discussion of the barriers that have prevented Delaware's housing stock from keeping pace with demand.
State Senators Stephanie Hansen and Eric Buckson urged DSHA to engage directly with local governments whose zoning rules have been barriers to affordable housing development; Buckson noted that Kent County's Levy Court is currently discussing changes to the county's decades-old zoning code that could open opportunities for new housing construction.
"Have someone from the State Housing Authority go to the Leage of Local Governments and tell them about the money on the table and the roadblocks you're seeing," Hansen said, "because it's local governments that will hold the key."
Young says his agency is working with the state's planning office and local partners to consider comprehensive planning and zoning reforms. He also expressed his intent to work with developers and local governments to shift away from single-family detached homes as the primary driver of new housing development. "Single-family detached homes make up sixty percent of all homes in Delaware," he said. "At this rate, if we continue to produce mostly single-family detached homes, most college graduates won't be able to afford to come home, nor will the forty-two percent of Delawareans making less than $20 an hour."
While lawmakers expressed enthusiastic support for Young's proposals, some housing advocates who testified urged lawmakers to consider even larger investments — especially as the cost of construction slows the pace of new housing construction.
