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The Affordable Housing Access Project (AHA)
 They say everything begins in the home and due to lack of finances millions of single mothers in the United States of America live in abject conditions unsuitable for raising children. Kids need a secure home life to become well-balanced citizens, rather than problem adults who eventually haunt society and drain state resources. At CoAbode we are trying to help otherwise at-risk single moms maintain healthy and independent lives by placing them in quality affordable housing, close to child care facilities, reputable schools and their places of work.
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Many real estate Developers across the country have received significant government funding on the understanding that they will provide affordable housing to low income ‘key workers’. CoAbode launched a pilot project in July of 2002 connecting our low income participants with affordable housing through the Playa Vista Foundation in Marina del Rey, California. It is possible for a single mother of two children who earns less than $24,500 per year to receive a two bedroom apartment for $620 per month which would otherwise cost $1850. The economic relief is hugely important, but so too is the bonus of a family oriented environment and the support of other single mom neighbors for child care, car pooling and friendships. Furthermore, there are reputable local schools and accredited after-care programs to rely on. All of these factors serve to give these single mom families a stake in their own communities. CoAbode is seeking to advocate to all interested Developers on behalf of single parent women who qualify under the affordable housing guidelines.
CoAbode is seeking funding to allow us to build a platform through which we can provide our single mom participants, whether teamed up together or working alone, with access to affordable, subsidized housing in prime real estate developments. CoAbode will create effective collaborations with a large number of Real Estate Developers which have been the recipient of government funding. Developers allocate a certain percentage of apartment units to low to median income ‘key workers’ at significantly reduced rents in order to satisfy the requirements set for them under the terms of their government funding. Fulfilling this obligation requires a heavy expenditure of time, research and management resources given that there are so many more applicants than units available. Understandably Developers set strict qualifying criteria to prospective applicants because they are seeking reliable tenants who will not bring discord into a community that charges premium market prices to other residents who can afford to pay. This is where CoAbode has found an opportunity to advocate on behalf of our single mom participants.
Our recent track record with Playa Vista has demonstrated that we can provide candidates for the housing who satisfy all of the qualifying criteria including income, key worker employment status, credit-worthiness and so on. Thus, the Developers welcome our submissions because we only put forward candidates who are certain to qualify according to the set criteria. Better still we have found a direct way to enable our single mom participants to become candidates for affordable housing within reputable school districts and near to their places of work at significantly lower rents.
CoAbode’s task therefore, is to expedite all the relevant research and documentation, verifying incomes, employment, references, status of children and where necessary, help our single mom participants to repair credit reports that have been damaged by divorce etc. so that they may qualify as tenants. This task requires the design and implementation of a structured application process which participants will access through the CoAbode website, by mail, or in person. This allows the AHA project coordinator to review the information and follow up for verification of eligibility for tenancy according to the qualifying at the specific properties.
These are the specific goals we aim to accomplish with the AHA program and we will find success by reaching out to all the major Development Corporations with references from Playa Vista, the Department of Housing and Urban Development and our collaborative partners at other community support organizations.
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