County joins affordable housing group
Hays County has become a member of the Texas Housing Foundation: a Texas regional housing authority authorized to provide affordable housing to lower income residents.
The decision was the result of a unanimous vote from the Hays County Commissioners Court at their regular meeting last week on Tuesday, June 6.
Texas Housing Authority CEO Mark Mayfield explained to the court how the foundation came into existence.
“We can begin to take private capital through the use of public-private partnerships to start meeting the affordable housing needs within our communities,” Mayfield said.
He said the foundation began with Burnet and Blanco counties in 2005.
“We’re not here for money. We don’t need money to operate. We have never received a penny from any of the counties that are a part of us,” Mayfield said.
“We’re a public body created under Chapter 392, but we’re completely [and] totally internally funded by our activities and by the work that we do as an affordable housing provider,” he continued. “Primarily bringing private capital into the public arena for the purpose of meeting affordable housing needs.”
He said he plans to put a community resource center in Hays County — something that many of the participating counties are currently benefiting from.
According to the foundation’s website, the resource center is a one-stop social service outreach serving Blanco, Burnet, Llano and Williamson Counties with participating nonprofit and state agencies all housed under one roof.
“It’s a one-stop shop to somewhat house local nonprofits,” Mayfield said. “We completely provide them a place to do their business, a place to conduct their business, at no cost to them whatsoever. All we have is a memorandum of understanding that if they want to do their work in the community resource center, then we will provide the place for them to do it.”
Hays County Commissioner (Pct. 4) Walt Smith said he looked into the Blanco County resource center.
“What you all created was a home for some of these nonprofits that may have been doing work in their community for quite some time,” he said. “They didn’t have either the financial means or financial wherewithal to have a staffroom or to have a coffee machine or to store certain things.”
“In checking with the counties that you mentioned, they were all very adamant that they’ve never spent a cent, and the return for not spending a cent was more than they could ever ask for,” Smith added.
Hays County Commissioner (Pct. 2) Michelle Cohen said that she would like a resource center in her precinct as there currently is nothing like that there.
“It would be great to be able to have something like that on [the east] side of the county for a lot of the folks that could use that. We have a couple of nonprofits right now who just work out of their homes and would love a place to be able to set up shop,” Cohen said.
Mayfield said that is the type of feedback they could use in choosing the location for the resource center.
The foundation already has many developments across Texas, according to Mayfield.
“We’ve done over 60 developments from as far north as Canadian and as far south as Rockport, as far west as Midland and as far east as Longview and everywhere in between,” Mayfield said.
Mayfield said the court would need to choose one commissioner to serve on the foundation’s board alongside the six commissioners that currently serve in that capacity.