Naturally Occurring Affordable Housing

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Naturally Occurring Affordable Housing, or NOAH, is housing that is affordable but not built with government subsidies. Typical examples are older housing stock, small apartment buildings, accessory dwelling units, and manufactured housing.

 

In "The myth of naturally occurring affordable housing," Joe Cortright City Observatory critiqued the term: 

[Cortright 2017] 

 

Steve King proposes an alternative term HAUTMSS: 

"As a corrective to the benign and misleading phrase NOAH, I propose HAUTMSS (Housing Affordable Until the Market Speculation Starts; suggested pronunciation: “hot mess”) as a more appropriate term."


FreddieMac NOAH Preservation Loan

"We’ve created innovative ways to finance and preserve unsubsidized affordable housing—and using these new tools, we’ve closed our first deals to help Minneapolis families stay in their homes.

"With our NOAH Preservation Loan [PDF], we continue to invest in new tools to facilitate the preservation, improvement and long-term affordability of naturally occurring affordable housing (NOAH). This loan can be paired with our just launched Impact Gap Financing, which matches impact investors with mission-focused Borrowers.

"The result? Working together with our partners, we’re keeping properties like Rainbow Plaza and Pine Point affordable long-term for moderate-income families."

"Communities like Rainbow Plaza and Pine Point are especially vulnerable to being acquired by investors, and then renovated and converted to market rate rentals—forcing families from their homes.

"'NOAH properties are easily lost to deterioration, abandonment and gentrification,' said David Leopold, Freddie Mac Multifamily vice president of Targeted Affordable Sales & Investments. 'We provide the tools needed to ensure these properties are acquired, preserved and stay affordable.'"

 

References