Dive Brief:

• Newport Beach, CA–based Community Development Partners broke ground on a $21 million veterans housing development in Vacaville, CA, Friday, according to The Reporter. The facility will serve chronically homeless veterans, as well as low-income veterans and families.

• The Rocky Hill Veterans Housing facility will house 39 permanent rental units for people earning 15% to 60% of the area median income. Of those units, 29 will be kept for veterans and the remaining units will give preference to veterans. Eleven of the veteran-designated units will serve as permanent supportive housing under Project-Based VASH vouchers, which combine the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Section-8 rental aid with Veterans Administration services.

• Set for completion in December 2017, the project’s structure will be made of steel shipping containers. It will be designed to LEED Gold standards.

Dive Insight:

Cities across the U.S. are searching for new ways to add affordable housing stock to their lagging inventories for low- and middle-income residents as wages fail to keep pace with soaring rental and home prices.

Some major metros are getting creative in how they deliver such properties. New York City is poised to convert a former Metropolitan Transportation Authority bus depot in East Harlem into a 730-unit, income-based affordable housing complex. In Chicago, three new projects are underway that will co-locate public housing and public library branches to better connect low- and middle-income housing and their local communities.

Earlier this year, a $33 million residential building opened in Washington, DC, with 60 of its 124 one-bedroom apartments reserved for homeless veterans and the other 64 labeled as affordable and low-income units. 

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