The Redevelopment Agency of Salt Lake City (RDA) acknowledges that the lack of affordable housing is a crucial statewide issue and is working hard to facilitate the construction and preservation of affordable residential units in Salt Lake City. Affordable housing is the foundation of a successful city and one of the most important public benefits promoted by our mission to improve livability, foster authentic communities, and spark economic growth. It establishes stability for working families, recent college graduates, seniors, single parents, low-wage workers, and individuals experiencing homelessness, helping them work toward a better life.
Similar to cities across the country, Salt Lake City is experiencing increasing economic inequality, forcing more and more residents to spend a higher percentage of their income on housing costs. With housing costs increasing faster than incomes, it’s more difficult for residents to buy or rent a home. Inability to afford housing is the key driver of housing insecurity and increases in homelessness.
We are working alongside the Mayor’s Office, our Board of Directors (the seven members of the City Council), the City’s Housing Stability and Workforce Development divisions and community partners to address the problem and combat this trend.
As one of the City’s strongest forces in subsidizing the creation of affordable housing units, the RDA has dedicated over $70 million to affordable housing across Salt Lake City since 2010 through a variety of mechanisms, the most commonly used being:
Often, the RDA will fund “mixed-income” projects that align with the City Council’s funding priority to “adhere to federal-level efforts to encourage a mix of incomes in individual projects and neighborhoods”, as adopted in the Growing SLC: A Five-Year Housing Plan . This means that some RDA projects include affordable as well as market-rate units. Mixed-income developments can make a project more financially feasible, with the market-rate units assisting in covering the shortfall in revenue, revenue needed to cover annual operating expenses, created by the affordable units.
The RDA’s financial allocations are project-dependent and run the gamut in terms of what levels of housing affordability they include. The residential projects in which we take part are designated to be affordable to a variety of household income levels, including low, very-low, and extremely-low incomes, and including seniors or people with disabilities on fixed incomes, or those experiencing homelessness. In determining those income levels, the RDA follows Salt Lake County’s federal income guidelines , which are established by the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD ). HUD develops income limits based on Median Family Income estimates and Fair Market Rent area definitions for Salt Lake County.
Since 2010, the following partial- or all-affordable residential projects received financial support from the RDA. They are completed and currently serving Salt Lake City residents: