Approved!

Important update

The resolution in support of senior housing cooperatives on City-owned tracts within Austin-area ETODs was approved without objection at the November 21 City Council Meeting. This is a very proud moment for us! We are thrilled and filled with excitement over what this can do for our future and our promise to develop mixed-use, limited-equity cooperative housing for seniors in walkable urban village settings!

Thank Yous

Thank you Planning Commissioners Woods and Maxwell for sponsoring the initial Planning Commission resolution in support of senior housing cooperatives on City-owned tracts within ETODs. And thank you Council Member Harper-Madison, for shepherding it through the Housing & Planning Committee and on to the full Council for approval. Largely through your combined efforts, we and other shared housing groups are now primed for success!

Giving Thanks!

Wishing you and yours a wonderful Thanksgiving on the 28th as the holiday giving and gifting season kicks off! We are grateful for your generous support through the years. Please watch for coming announcements for giving opportunities and donate!

Important updates - City Resolution Support Senior Housing Cooperatives

The date is finally set! The resolution in support of senior housing cooperatives is on the City Council’s November 21st Non-Consent Agenda, Item 76 and likely won’t come up for a vote before 11 AM. Please follow the links add your voices to ours in reaching out to City Council Members via email and registering to speak in support during the meeting. Our Vice-President, Chad Wallace, is planning to join me downtown for the afternoon. And Planning Commissioners Alice Woods and Felicity Maxwell will be in attendance. We’d love to have you join us if you feel so moved. Otherwise, speaker registration for the November 21, 2024 Austin City Council Meeting will open Monday, November 18 at 10:00 AM. Feel free to adopt and adapt our draft email message.

On November 14th, Carol participated in the City / Austin Housing Finance Corporation-sponsored Round Table Discussion: Strategic Expansion of Land Banking and CLTs to help guide new government policy for organizations working to provide affordable home-ownership opportunities. This group is slated to meet on a regular basis in the coming months.

Our participation in the Community Land Trust (CLT) Accelerator ends this month with another roundtable discussion on November 19th. Please look for news on important take-aways in December!

Our nine-member collaboration team (please see our last newsletter) responded to St. David’s recent invitation to apply for funding through their Housing + Health call on October 25th. Please watch for news of the results in December!

Thank Yous

Thank you, Council Member Zo Qadri, for speaking up on our behalf at the recent Housing and Planning Committee meeting in October where the Committee voted to advance the resolution in support of shared housing for seniors to the full Council for adoption.

Thank you to the entire Housing and Planning Committee for advancing the resolution for a full vote.

Thank you to City staff for inviting us to participate in the Round Table Discussion: Strategic Expansion of Land Banking and CLTs. We are very proud to be included.

October Updates

Again, we have great news to share!

We have excellent news on three fronts!

First, on September 27th, we received an email from St. David’s Foundation inviting us to apply for their Housing + Health Call for planning and predevelopment funding. We are overjoyed! Along with our collaborating friends at the Austin Creative Alliance, we now have a nine-way collaboration slated with Family Eldercare, the UTRGV Texas Rural Cooperative Center, Collective Seeds Consulting Cooperative, Sage Age, Forge Craft Architecture + Design, BEC Austin General Contractor, and Servitas (3P Developer).

An award will help us with a formal market study and pre-development activities so that we will be ready the moment a site becomes available again. The application is due before the end of this month and a decision will be handed down in December. We are working hard to prepare a worthy proposal - more updates to come!

Second, on October 3rd, the Housing and Planning Committee of the Austin City Council voted to forward the Planning Commission’s Resolution to the full Council for action. This is wonderful news! We anticipate the Draft Resolution, directing the City Manager to “explore the Planning Commission’s recommendation” to be on their October 24th agenda. (Be on the lookout for an ‘Action Alert’ once agenda is confirmed.)

Third, we just received word that the Austin Housing Coalition voted to send to the Austin City Council, urging them to pass the resolution. It is gratifying to have their support!

Once the item appears on Council’s agenda, follow the City’s guidelines to register your support! Speak Up Austin is the City’s portal for citizen input. Or reach out directly to your City Council Member.

Again, please watch for more news from us as the democratic process unfolds!

Thank Yous

Many thanks to the Austin Housing Coalition for stepping up in support of seniors and cooperative housing! We are truly grateful!

End Of Summer Updates

We took off the month July but have jumped back in with vigor as summer begins to wind down.

Highlights

If you haven’t visited our website lately, we have revised and updated our Mission Statement. This is an important change for us because it will allow us to advocate for limited-equity cooperative housing irrespective of a physical site and improve our odds of qualify for grant funding.

We’re very excited to announce we have added four new members to our team! We have two new board members, Amber Cox, a senior housing expert, and Dallas Richard, an urban planning and marketing expert, bringing our numbers to seven! Kenya Hodo is signing on as one of our first committee volunteers to help with both our fall fundraiser and upcoming events. And, to round out our expanded team, we have a new General Counsel, Kathleen Manchin. We are very excited to welcome them all and to have such a highly qualified and expanded team tackling our many next steps!

As we reported in our last newsletter, we were thrilled the City of Austin Planning Commission recently passed a resolution prioritizing the development of limited-equity senior housing coops on City-owned tracts within ETODs. The resolution is now in the hands of the City Council Housing and Planning Committee for discussion and approval at their August 28th meeting before being passed along to the full council for action, hopefully no later than October.

Regarding the resolution, please watch for more information as we get closer to the date.

St. David’s Foundation just released a Housing + Health call. Our friends at UTRGV and the Austin Creative Alliance are collaborating with us to respond.

Other News & Announcements

The Austin Housing Coalition, along with the AIA and Housing Works Austin, is hosting “HOT TAKES ON HOUSING: A MAYORAL AND CITY COUNCIL CANDIDATE FORUM” on Thursday, September 5th, from 5 to 8 PM at Assembly Hall, 1121 E 7th St. Please RSVP via Eventbrite and plan to attend!

Low Lights

We heard back from Austin Community Foundation with a denial to our recent funding request. We made the request before we changed our mission statement earlier this summer and much of our request was based on needs dependent upon a successful outcome at Ryan Drive. We will try again next spring, now that we no longer need to tie funding requests to a physical project.

Thank Yous

Many thanks to everyone who is helping bring this model into being—past and present. Yes, we still have a way to go, but we would not be this far along with the contributions of each of you.