‘Unprecedented’ local funding moves 60-unit deeply affordable housing project in Northside forward
Almost $10 million in local funding is poised to help a deeply affordable housing project — one of the most difficult kinds of housing to produce — get off the ground in Richmond.
Despite earlier delays, plans are moving forward for the 60-unit Greenview at Rady Street, a development that will be built on a forested parcel of land in Highland Park to provide housing and support services to people who have experienced homelessness or have very low incomes.
“We often hear statistics about homelessness, but they are more than just numbers,” said Allison Bogdanovic, executive director of nonprofit SupportWorks Housing, which is developing the project and operates a similar 86-unit supportive housing building known as Cool Lane Commons just a stone’s throw away. “They are veterans who served our country, grandparents, seniors, and people with disabilities.”
Bogdanovic told The Richmonder that most residents will have incomes of less than $40,000 annually.
As prices for both ownership and rental housing units have soared in recent years, deeply affordable homes — those that are within reach of people making 30% or less of Richmond’s area median income — have become ever more difficult to produce. Subsidies are what make nearly all affordable housing projects work, and the lower the incomes of the residents they serve, the more subsidies are required.
Sarah Vogelsong
The Greenview project is drawing on roughly $11.3 million in COVID-era funding distributed to local and state governments to provide housing and supportive services to people who are homeless, at risk of homelessness, fleeing from domestic violence or human trafficking and veterans.
Of that, just under $5 million comes from the city of Richmond, $2 million from Henrico County, $1.8 million from Chesterfield County and $2.5 million from Virginia’s Department of Housing and Community Development.
Richmond is also chipping in an additional $1 million from its Equitable Affordable Housing Program, which steers money into the city’s Affordable Housing Trust Fund. Additional contributions come from the federal government and the Bob and Ann Lou Schaberg Foundation.
In total, Bogdanovic said SupportWorks has raised $13 million of the estimated $18.3 million development cost and is fundraising for the remaining dollars. The Richmond Behavioral Health Authority, which owns the parcels at 2900 Rady Street and 2733 5th Ave., is donating the land.
“The level of local government support is unprecedented — $10 million in regional funding,” Bogdanovic said.
SupportWorks had initially hoped to break ground on Greenview earlier and to build 83 units but ran into funding problems. In an October letter to the city’s Planning Department, Preston Lloyd, a Williams Mullen attorney representing the nonprofit on the project, asked for an extension of Greenview’s deadline to secure a building permit, citing “ongoing challenges involving the financing of supportive and deeply affordable housing, including at the federal level.”
Now, Bogdanovic said the goal is to begin construction in 2027 and open the new building in 2029.
“We are fast-tracking the project to move forward ASAP,” she said.
Contact Reporter Sarah Vogelsong at svogelsong@richmonder.org
