In December 2010, LDC completed the Three-Year Work Plan to Facilitate Transit-Oriented Affordable Housing Development for the San Diego Housing Commission. This strategic outreach plan included assistance identifying and establishing strategically important agency and partnership relationships; identifying and structuring a workforce affordable housing development strategy; and outlining best practices by entities engaged in TOD to strengthen the Housing Commission’s ability to undertake TOD initiatives.

LDC assisted the Centre City Development Corporation, San Diego’s downtown Redevelopment Agency, with the planning and implementation of Downtown San Diego Registry Week (September 2010) to identify and assess the needs of the most vulnerable homeless individuals sleeping on downtown streets. LDC is currently project managing the provision of permanent supportive housing opportunities to 125 of the most vulnerable persons identified through Registry Week and is coordinating the activities of variety of services and housing funding programs and systems, including the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and its HUD-VASH Program; the County of San Diego Health and Human Services Agency and its Mental Health Services Act programs; and the San Diego Housing Commission and its Section 8 and Homelessness Prevention and Rapid Re-Housing Program. LDC is working with these organizations to create and document expedited processes for linking vulnerable homeless persons to services and resources utilizing multiple funding sources, and is also coordinating the involvement and supportive activities of organizations from across San Diego’s homelessness services network and systems.

In conjunction with Common Ground and the Corporation for Supportive Housing, LDC developed a training toolkit for communities participating in Common Ground’s 100,000 Homes Campaign to conduct Registry Weeks to survey their local street homeless populations, identify the most vulnerable among them and then link them to housing and services. The training materials included media and collateral materials; lining up the supply of housing and services; forming and managing a leadership team; recruiting and training volunteers; using the homeless survey instrument; organizing and conducting Registry Week; and reporting back to the communities about the data gathered. Each toolkit includes a binder with overview memos and template materials as well as discs containing digital copies of all templates and video clips.

LDC led the design and implementation of training curricula for staff working in housing and homeless services programs in Salt Lake County, Utah. Two trainings were conducted, one on strengthening housing first services skills with individualized goal setting and services planning and the other on strengthening housing first partnerships, coordinating property management and supportive services in supportive housing.

Housing policy and planning work included two workshops with the City Council to help them prioritize their housing resources and create a five-year financial plan for how to best target their housing investment in a declining economy.

Work also included a joint scope with both the City and County to develop affordable housing lending program underwriting guidelines, application process and NOFA. Entailed significant stakeholder input.

On behalf of the Mayor of the City of Los Angeles and LAHSA, wrote this plan in 90 days, and engaged in review process with city agencies and electeds.   Provides a comprehensive plan for ending homelessness tied to resources currently available and plans to systematically strengthen the linkages of current resources with the homelessness in order to achieve steady reductions over the next 10 years.  Plan still under review by City of Los Angeles.

Formulation of a comprehensive, coordinated housing and land use proposal providing a long-term road map for transforming downtown Los Angeles’ Central City East neighborhoods and accommodating the competing needs of the growing residential and business communities, including addressing issues of the concentrations of low-income housing and homelessness.

LDC developed affordable housing lending programs for Napa County and the City of Napa. Both programs lend out locally generated housing trust fund dollars. The final set of products each included: a) policies and procedures, which brought together the relevant sections of the municipal code and the housing elements of each jurisdiction; b) underwriting guidelines based on best practices observed in a review of more than 15 local jurisdictions in the state; c) a pre-application; d) a full application; and e) a NOFA. The City and County jointly share the pre-application, the full application, and the underwriting guidelines, and have similar but locally customized policies and procedures and NOFAs.

Following the release of the NOFA, LDC reviewed the five NOFA project submissions, including each developer’s proposed site and architectural plans; financial and credit information; financial pro-forma; general feasibility of each project; viability of proposed leverage; and assessment of appraisals. LDC scored each proposal according to scoring guidelines and other policy considerations and then prepared reports for Loan Committee consideration. We continue to evaluate NOFA applications that are submitted.

The Community Redevelopment Agency of the City of Los Angeles issued a request for proposals for the redevelopment of CRA-owned parcels near the historic Westlake Theatre. One component of that redevelopment effort is a new 52-unit affordable housing complex that will include extra parking for Westlake Theatre staff. LDC examined the feasibility of the proposed housing development and underwrote a $5.4 million subsidy loan on behalf of the agency. LDC’s analysis included an examination of all entitlement issues, a line-by-line review of the project’s development budget and operating cash flow, a determination of the likelihood that the developer would be able to obtain the remaining financing commitments needed and an analysis of the developer’s financial viability.

The Community Redevelopment Agency of the City of Los Angeles requested LDC’s assistance in underwriting a subsidy loan for and determining the ultimate feasibility of a new 66-unit affordable housing complex. The new development was to provide housing for very low- to moderate-income families, including faculty and staff of the adjacent elementary school. The 2/3-acre project site is owned by the Los Angeles Unified School District and is currently used as a parking lot for the school. The school district will enter into a long-term ground lease with a highly regarded nonprofit developer. In return, the new development will include replacement parking for the school as well as viable, high-quality and affordable housing opportunities for school staff.

Restructuring of a low-income housing tax credit project that failed financially during construction. LDC created the work-out strategy including putting a new development team in place, led multi-party negotiations with bank, contractor and new development team, and provided overall project management assistance from restructuring to restart of construction with new development team and new capital structure.

Since April 2009, LDC has administered the First-Time Homebuyer Lending Program for the Community Redevelopment Agency of the City of Los Angeles’ East Valley Region. The scope has included establishment of a $2 million first-time homebuyer program for CRA/LA’s East Valley Region and development of lender worksheets, data collection checklist, and all project evaluation, workload tracking, and monitoring tools. The ongoing scope includes coordination with participating lenders in processing buyer applicants and underwriting review; coordination and preparation of transmittal forms and loan packaging for submission to CRA/LA for review; and coordination and preparation of documents during the closing process. LDC attends client meetings, prepares client narrative reports, and reports to the CRA/LA Board of Commissioners as requested.

Development and financing feasibility study for a 2.17-acre mixed-use, transit-oriented development site. Produced a development and financial feasibility analysis to determine what type of projects could be delivered, including ones with higher density under a TOD overlay zone. Work included two designs with complete massing drawings and a financing plan with six complete underwriting scenarios, including for-sale homes, affordable rental housing and senior housing units.

CRA/LA commissioned this report to determine how to most effectively finance large single-room occupancy hotels in downtown Los Angeles. The report focuses how to most effectively leverage the CRA/LA’s affordable housing financing given different target levels of affordability and supportive services. Extrapolated data to complete a cost and financing analysis for redeveloping the 10 largest SRO hotels and placing them under permanent affordability covenant.

LDC, on behalf of its client, oversaw and managed the competitive application to Los Angeles Unified School District including creating the deal structure and overseeing the preliminary design for the Glassell Park Homes and Early Education Center. The entire proposal was completed in less than three weeks, and required convening the development team of third-party architects and contractors, a full-blown financial analysis, preliminary site design, and assembling the application and required supporting materials. LDC managed the whole development team and completed all work, excluding the site plans.

This project is a mixed-use development with 45 family rental units and a 13,000-square-foot early education center that serves both pre-school and school-age students in seven classrooms. The project is being developed by Abode Communities (formerly Los Angeles Community Design Center) on land leased from the Los Angeles Unified School District. The school district will operate the childcare center and share some facilities with the housing project.

LDC is working with the San Diego Housing Commission to design and implement a more efficient system for managing SDHC’s large, growing and diverse portfolio. The system combines the best uses of available technology and streamlines assessment and reporting of asset, portfolio and property management performance data.

Scope included organizing the portfolio and creating a monitoring system with a portfolio dashboard analysis, and individual summary memos that lay out the key business terms, affordability covenants, and monitoring and compliance requirements. Created a system for compliance letters to be sent out annually. Monitoring system is nearly paperless, with all existing documents indexed, scanned and organized on disk. 24 loan portfolio system including all loan files contained in one single notebook with disks for each project. Easily transferrable to a computer server for paperless access and storage.