Fannie Mae Foundation ALETHEIA HOUSE Birmingham, …Each year, Aletheia House gets more than 5,000...
Transcript of Fannie Mae Foundation ALETHEIA HOUSE Birmingham, …Each year, Aletheia House gets more than 5,000...
C E L E B R A T I N G E X C E L L E N C E I N A F F O R D A B L E H O U S I N G
Built on patiently assembled parcels ofvacant or abandoned land, AvondaleGardens both blends into and lifts itssurroundings. Set in a historic but strug-gling inner-city neighborhood, AvondaleGardens brings 64 attractive one-, two-,and three-bedroom rental units to a met-ropolitan area with a critical shortage ofaffordable homes.
Aletheia House, one of Alabama’s lead-ing substance abuse programs, got intothe housing development business 10years ago because homeless graduates ofits residential treatment program neededhousing. Avondale Gardens is the orga-nization’s first project that is not limitedto serving residents with special needs,although at least 15 percent of thehomes at Avondale Gardens are set asidefor formerly homeless people who arerecovering from mental illness or sub-stance abuse.
Formerly homeless tenants qualify forrent subsidies through the Shelter PlusCare System, a U.S. Department of
Housing and Urban Development–spon-sored program for persons living with disabilities. The remaining units areavailable to residents with incomes of upto 60 percent of the area median income.
The scattered-site development uses twotypes of architecture: larger buildings ofone-bedroom units on a busy four-laneroad; and a duplex, a quadruplex, and sixtriplexes that look like single-familyhomes on a quiet residential street.Aletheia House hired a design consultant,in addition to the architect, to ensurethat the design of the project was appro-priate and attractive to the existingneighborhood. The high-quality designhelped turn neighborhood opponents ofaffordable homes into advocates and hasdrawn the attention of private developersto the Avondale neighborhood.
Avondale Gardens used low-income taxcredits that were syndicated by theEnterprise Social Investment Corporation,debt provided by the Alabama Multi-family Loan Consortium and AmsouthBank, and grants from the City ofBirmingham and the Federal HomeLoan Bank of Atlanta. Aletheia Houseand its co-developer, the CharterCompanies of Auburn, Ala., also investeda percentage of their developer fees inthe project.
Building on the success of AvondaleGardens, Aletheia House hopes to spinoff a subsidiary to continue developinghomes that working families can afford.Through persistence and skilled leader-ship, Aletheia House has shown the wayto provide high-quality rental homes in a challenging environment.
A L E T H E I A H O U S E
Birmingham, Alabama
A V O N D A L E G A R D E N S
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F I F T E E N T H A N N I V E R S A R Y
Fannie Mae Foundat ion
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S P O N S O R I N G O R G A N I Z AT I O N
Aletheia House focuses on empoweringBirmingham’s poor, especially those whostruggle with addiction. Its programsinclude substance abuse treatment andprevention, employment and training,transitional and permanent homes, andtransportation.
Each year, Aletheia House gets morethan 5,000 calls from low-income indi-viduals seeking substance abuse treat-ment. It operates a 66-bed residentialsubstance abuse treatment program formen and a 32-bed treatment programfor women, including women who arepregnant or postpartum.
The organization is the Birminghamarea’s largest provider of transitionalhomes, with 175 units for individualsand 33 units for families. The employ-ment and training program offers jobreadiness training, job placement help,and job retention/promotion servicesfor recovering substance abusers and ex-prisoners.
F U N D I N G F O R
AV O N D A L E G A R D E N S
• Low-Income Housing Tax Credits syndicated by the Enterprise SocialInvestment Corporation
• Amsouth Bank construction funding
• Alabama Multifamily LoanConsortium debt
• City of Birmingham grant
• Federal Home Loan Bank of Atlanta grant
• Deferred developer fees
• Housing Enterprise of CentralAlabama permanent financing
A L E T H E I A H O U S E ’ S O T H E R
A C C O M P L I S H M E N T S
• Aletheia House offers culinary artstraining for addicted homeless veter-ans and clerical training for motherswho have lost custody of their chil-dren because of drug addiction.
• The organization provides daily trans-portation for more than 150 low-income workers.
• Aletheia House runs a free summerday camp for children living in gov-ernment-subsidized homes that teachespositive alternatives to substance abuseand violence.
B O A R D L E A D E R S H I P
President: Rena Ramsey, Amsouth Bank
Immediate Past President: Victoria PooleMoore, health care consultant
Vice President: Chris Kramer, Brasfield &Gorrie Construction
Treasurer: Scott Colson, City ofBirmingham Office of the Mayor
Secretary: Hon. Quitman Mitchell, for-mer mayor of the City of Bessemer
S TA F F L E A D E R S H I P
Executive Director: Chris Retan
C O N TA C T I N F O R M AT I O N
Aletheia HouseP.O. Box 1514Birmingham, AL 35204Phone: (205) 324-6502Fax: (205) 324-7810E-mail: [email protected]
A L E T H E I A H O U S E IN 1988, TO COMMEMORATE
FANNIE MAE’S 50TH ANNIVER-
SARY, the Fannie Mae Foundation
announced the Awards of Excellence
Program, which seeks to encourage
and recognize nonprofit organiza-
tions working to develop and
maintain housing for low-income
Americans. The program also is
intended to encourage more corpo-
rations and foundations to be
involved as funding and investment
partners. The Awards were renamed
in honor of David O. Maxwell, who
retired in 1991 after 10 years of
service as chairman and chief execu-
tive officer of Fannie Mae and the
Fannie Mae Foundation.
FOR THE 15TH ANNIVERSARY
OF THE MAXWELL AWARDS
PROGRAM, the Foundation is
awarding $50,000 to each selected
nonprofit organization.
THE FANNIE MAE
FOUNDATION creates affordable
homeownership and housing
opportunities through innovative
partnerships and initiatives that build
healthy, vibrant communities across
the United States. The Foundation is
specially committed to improving the
quality of life for the people of its
hometown, Washington, D.C., and
to enhancing the livability of the
city’s neighborhoods. Headquartered
in Washington, D.C., the Foundation
is a private, nonprofit organization
whose sole source of support is
Fannie Mae, and has regional offices
in Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas,
Pasadena, and Philadelphia.
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4000 Wisconsin Avenue, NWNorth Tower, Suite OneWashington, DC 20016-2804(202) 274-8000www.fanniemaefoundation.orgwww.knowledgeplex.org