For over twenty years, University Neighborhood has worked to ensure that low income residents of the Northwest Bronx live in affordable, decent housing. While UNHP began solely as a financial lender of low or no interest loans, the organization has since expanded its services in order to maintain affordable housing through research, organizing and technical assistance provision.
Accomplishments and Current Programs
• Successfully created and managed a community development loan fund that since 1988 has lent close to five million dollars for community based affordable housing in the Northwest Bronx. A combination of UNHP technical assistance and our loan funds have played the key role in the preservation, purchase and renovation of 53 multifamily buildings in the Northwest Bronx. UNHP low interest and rehabilitation lending have assisted an additional 2,000 units of affordable housing.
• Certified by the Department of Treasury as a Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI) in January 2002, UNHP manages eleven investments from financial and religious institutions that total over one million dollars.
• Collaborating with our neighborhood partner, Fordham Bedford Housing Corporation, UNHP has created a broad community development agenda for the neighborhoods in the heart of the NWBronx that addresses a wide variety of housing needs. The Fordham Community Action Plan (FCAP) was created in 2002 and remains the blueprint for UNHP’s lending, organizing and technical assistance work. Successes under FCAP so far include financing the purchase of a single room occupancy building, the rehabilitation of a nine unit building on Webster Avenue, as well as the formation of the Multifamily Assistance Center and the creation of a pilot project to reclaim vacant HUD homes in our neighborhoods.
• Developed a research component to our technical assistance and organizing work beginning in 2000. UNHP has published and held forums to discuss the results and implications of our research work. UNHP published the 2003 report, entitled, “A Real Estate Bubble in the Bronx? A Study of Trends in Bronx Multifamily Housing Pricing, 1985 to 2001.” In 2005 UNHP published a follow up report entitled, Rising Values in a Highly Subsidized Market: An Assessment of Bronx Multifamily Affordable Housing Indicators. In 2006, we shifted our research focus to The State of Homeownership in the Bronx, looking at trends of subprime lending and foreclosures. This year's report (Shrinking Affordability: Housing Prices, Quality and Preservation in the City’s Last Expanse of Affordable Private Rental Housing) explored the loss of affordable market rate apartments in New York City, and how the west Bronx is the last refuge for the working poor being priced out of other boroughs.
Beginning in 2004, UNHP has created detailed lending reports based on the UNHP Building Indicator Project database with the leading Bronx financial institutions. These lending reports or portfolios were created through UNHP’s Building Indicator Project (BIP) database of more than 7,000 multifamily properties in the Bronx. The BIP database is a research and organizing tool that uses violation and lien data to identify buildings that warrant further review.
• Continued to update and expand UNHP award winning online Community Resource Guide as a tool for citywide technical assistance. University Neighborhood Housing Program provides citywide technical assistance through our Community Resource Guide on the web at UNHP's web site. This online guide is designed to provide a wealth of research information to not for profits to get demographic information and other essential data for community information and organizing. The community resource guide provides new tools to community organizations in their research on needs and resources in their communities. UNHP offered workshops in 2004, 2005 and 2006 to not for profits on how to use the site and utilize demographic and housing information on line to inform further their missions
• UNHP has worked to create the UNHP Multifamily Assistance Center as an alternative to multifamily building foreclosures for owners and financial institutions and as a way to preserve and rehabilitate affordable housing for low income New Yorkers. UNHP has forged partnerships around the idea of a Multifamily Assistance Center with NYC Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD), Fannie Mae, Enterprise, Fordham Bedford Housing Corporation, financial institutions, and others in a collaborative approach to foreclosure prevention and preserving affordability. UNHP has made significant strides towards the goal of improving distressed buildings; namely through increased inspections, improved violations recording, vigilance by financial institutions on properties with high risk factors, and discussions on lending protocols aimed at preserving both the affordability and improving the habitability of buildings. University Neighborhood Housing Program was the first non-profit to broker the purchase of a forclosed building from the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (Freddie Mac). UNHP went on to assist in the purchase and renovation of 7 additional Freddie Mac foreclosure properties. Our current work to create the UNHP Multifamily Assistance Center is based on our work with Freddie Mac foreclosed properties and seeks to assist financially and physically distressed properties prior to foreclosure.
• Alarmed by the significant rise in foreclosure actions (lis pendens) in one to four family homes in our neighborhoods, UNHP developed a targeted outreach strategy using our Home-Owner Outreach Database to identify and contact homeowners at-risk of foreclosure. UNHP has held a number of Homeownership Resource Fairs over the past few years to provide housing assistance to local homeowners. Groups showcase programs that range from home repair and weatherization to foreclosure prevention and senior aid. The need to assist local homeowners remain in their homes is serious and growing.
