After getting denied twice, the third time was a charm for Keystone Apartments. Critical federal and state tax credits totaling $12 million were approved in June which will allow the village-supported affordable housing project on Madison Street to move ahead after five years in the works.
Perry Vietti, head of the Interfaith Housing Development Corporation, said, “It always feels great to get funded because once you get a tax credit award, that means the project is going to happen.”
The Illinois Housing Development Authority approved two tax credit fundings for the affordable housing project on Madison Street at a meeting in June.
The funding comes from the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit, a federal program, and the Illinois Affordable Housing Tax Credit, a state program. Together, the two tax credits will bring in more than $12 million to go against the $17 million cost of the project.
Interfaith, the non-profit organization managing the project, is partnering with Housing Forward to build a five-story residential building with 36 units for people making less than 30% of the area’s median income.
The partners applied for funding twice under the IHDA Permanent Supportive Housing Development program but were ultimately denied. After almost five years of work on this project, Vietti said, “it’s such a relief” to finally get approved.
He also emphasized that this project could not have happened without the support of local government. Oak Park’s village board invested $1 million from its Housing Trust Fund to buy the property at 1106 Madison St., formerly the Fellowship Christian Church, to secure the project while they waited for the additional funding.
Village President Vicki Scaman said the project is a “win-win-win.”
“This speaks directly to the sincere priorities of the village board for us to serve all people, to remain as diverse as we can, to remain the diverse community that we historically have sought to be, both socioeconomically and racially,” Scaman said.
Blue Cross Blue Shield of Illinois committed to a 3-year rental subsidy for 20 of the 36 units to make up the difference between what individuals are able to pay and what it costs to operate the building. Vietti said this partnership reinforces the “housing is healthcare” approach and having the private sector invest in a project like this is something he has never seen before in his career.
Scaman seconded the importance of public-private partnerships and said they are “the way of the future.”
“We need to be able to work with for-profit and non-profit partners across the board to collectively meet the needs of all of our communities, particularly with the gaps in funding that this project saw early on and that are continuing to come down from our federal government,” said Scaman.
The building will blend living spaces with social services on site to help the residents have access to what they need to be successful. This model aligns with Housing Forward’s mission to end homelessness and help people transition into housing stability.
“Just to put them in a unit and then kind of hope everything goes okay is not the right approach. You really need to have the wraparound services that you can turn on and off as necessary for the needs of the individual,” said Vietti. “We don’t want to create dependency, we just want to create opportunity.”
The funding is the first step in a long process of getting the project built. Vietti said the immediate next step is getting the construction drawings which could take a few months. Although it is still too early to give an exact timeline, he estimated opening the doors in 2029.