One hour before the Metropolitan Housing Trust Fund Commission was set to approve a slate of affordable housing grants worth $9.5 million, a representative from the mayor’s office told them their budget had instead been cut to $5 million. Commission members were alarmed by the sudden announcement.
“We were all pretty sick to our stomachs,” says Councilmember Colby Sledge, who sits on the commission. “Knowing that we had come into that meeting thinking we were going to be rewarding $9.5 million, and [then] knowing that there were projects that weren’t gonna get funded and housing that wasn’t gonna get built.”
A representative from Mayor John Cooper’s office says the city decided to make cuts to the Barnes Housing Trust Fund due to the city’s budget problems. The mayor’s office says they hope to address the remaining $4.5 million by spring 2020.
Sledge says the commission originally planned to approve nine projects consisting of 680 units, but have now approved seven projects with a total of 549 units.
Chris Ferrell is a member of the commission and former two-term Metro Councilmember (and, full disclosure, founder and onetime CEO of Southcomm, which formerly owned the Scene). Ferrell says he was disappointed by the decision and by the lack of notice from the city. He hopes the commission can get the remaining $4.5 million approved by the Metro Council. After the commission voted to allocate the $5 million that the city made available, members passed a second resolution to request the Metro Council allocate the remaining funds.
“This is a policy decision that the leaders of Nashville needs to make,” Ferrell tells the Scene. “It shouldn’t be done in an obscure commission.”
It may not be that simple, unfortunately — as Councilmember Bob Mendes notes on Twitter, “[Metro’s] Finance Director has Charter power to ‘impound’ funds.” That means the city may have taken this out of the council’s hands for the moment. But with the recent election of arguably the most progressive Metro Council in city history, the council may push back on Cooper's proposal.
The grants, named for the late champion of affordable housing Rev. Bill Barnes, are often given to nonprofit developers that build housing for sensitive populations like victims of domestic violence, people recently released from incarceration and those with intellectual developmental disabilities.
The Barnes Fund was established in 2013, and in 2016 Mayor Megan Barry committed the city to an annual investment of $10 million. According to the city’s website, the fund has helped construct more than 1,300 housing units since its creation.
