8 GROUNDCOVER NEWS HOUSING DEVELOPMENT Avalon awarded Low Income Tax Credits for the final phase of Hickory Way DAN MEISLER Avalon Housing Avalon Housing has been awarded Low Income Housing Tax Credits which will bring in approximately $10,000,000 in tax credit equity for the third phase of the Hickory Way Apartments campus in Ann Arbor. The Michigan State Housing Development Authority (MSHDA) announced the awards in December. The tax credits will pay for about 60% of the total cost of the project, which will add 39 one-bedroom units to the existing 70 units at Hickory Way. Securing the tax credits will allow Avalon to move forward in pursuing the remainder of the funding needed; depending on how that process goes, construction could start in the late summer or fall of 2026, with the project opening to tenants in late 2027 or early 2028. “We’re really excited to be able to add more local housing to help address homelessness in our community,” said Wendy Carty-Saxon, Avalon’s Director of Real Estate and Development. “We have seen what a difference it makes on an individual and community basis!” Other funding sources for the project include federal HOME and HOME ARP projects allocated through Washtenaw County; the City of Ann Arbor Affordable Housing Millage; a payment in lieu of taxes to the city that lowers the project’s property taxes; Washtenaw County Brownfield Program, construction loans from the Huntington National Bank and Chelsea State Bank; and pre-development funding from the Corporation for Supportive Housing. National Equity Fund is the investor limited partner. The City of Ann Arbor helped Avalon acquire the land by exercising its “right of first refusal” — when the previous owner sold the plot, the deed allowed the city to purchase it before any other buyer. The city bought the land, and entered into a purchase agreement with Avalon at cost, which was approximately $260,000. “When so many parts of a community come together — the federal level, the county board, the City of Ann Arbor, and our partners in banking and finance — we can do great things to address homelessness and make sure all of our neighbors have a safe place to call home,” said Avalon Housing Executive Director Aaron Cooper. Twenty-four of the new units will have project-based housing vouchers, meaning rents cannot exceed 30% of tenants’ income. Twenty of those apartments will be set aside for people directly leaving homelessness, and four will also be open to people who are homeless or at risk of homelessness. Avalon provides all residents access to support services to help them thrive, including help addressing food insecurity, on-site health care, and transportation to critical appointments, among others. When the first phases of Hickory Way opened in 2021, the rate of chronic homelessness in the county fell by 31%. ELIZA JANSSEN Big Issue Australia Home is where the heart is. It’s an escape from the outside world, or the freedom to open up and let it in. It’s somewhere to thrive, to dream or simply to sleep. A home can be easily taken for granted — if you’re safe and secure in a place of your own. Aristea knows just how important it was to be given this kind of space. At the age of 11, she found herself in a tenuous living situation after her parents’ separation — with her mother and three siblings, she had to squeeze into a small private rental. It was overcrowded, and the family bonds suffered under the strain. “For a lot of kids on the margins, you grow up really quickly, right?” Aristea explained. “In some ways, you are like an adult in a kid’s body. It’s a very sensitive time, when you want the most amount of privacy, and I had none whatsoever.” Breathing room came in the form of not-for-profit Kids Under Cover, which works with young people at risk of homelessness. They built a free-standing spare bedroom in the backyard of the family’s public housing property. “When I got that space from my mum, our relationship improved a lot,” Aristea says today. “I’m not sure that we ever would have gotten to where we are now without the studio.” These studio spaces help to empower young people to break the cycle of poverty, while staying close to their families where possible. “We always came from a lower socio-economic background,” Aristea said, “and we’d had a lot of experiences with people not validating or believing our point of view at a time when we were struggling. So to have Kids Under Cover come in and meet us where we were at was really wonderful and affirming.” Kids Under Cover is making a real Hickory Way is an Avalon Housing apartment complex on the west side on Ann Arbor. It currently has 70 one-bedroom units (50 of which are project-based vouchers). difference, and like Habitat for Humanity, Anglicare and other Australian organizations making room for those in need, it benefits from the groundbreaking efforts of the Homes for FEBRUARY 6, 2026 Inside the Big Issue Australia's Homes for Homes Homes program. Now in its 10th year, Homes for Homes has been instrumental in funding life-changing projects that have provided homes for 400 people and counting. The idea came from California, where in the mid-2000s large-scale property developer Lennar Corporation began making voluntary contributions of 0.1 per cent from each of the units that they sold each year. That was around $1,000 (USD) per unit, and with tens of thousands of units sold each year, substantial sums were funnelled back into public and affordable housing. “If you’ve ever been to California, it’s hard to ignore the rough sleeping challenges they face over there,” Homes for Homes chief operating officer Tracy Longo pointed out. Inspired by the U.S. success story but setting its sights even higher, Homes for Homes was launched by The Big Issue Australia in September 2015, with the aim to inspire Aussie homeowners, construction companies, real estate agents and “anyone in the property sector” to help end the housing crisis in Australia. Under the scheme, homeowners register their property, pledging to donate 0.1 per cent of its eventual sale price to Homes for Homes. So, a $1 million sale equates to a $1,000 tax-deductible donation. This is added to a pool of funds that is used to finance social and affordable housing projects across Australia — like those built by Kids Under Cover. To date, the social enterprise has granted almost $3 million to 28 projects across the country. But Longo is just as interested in the ripple effect these projects generate. “The way I see it, it’s not just the life of the individual who’s been given a home that changes,” she said. “It’s see HOMES page 15
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