Gotta get NHIF back on the ballot

Will have more to say about this if I ever get that elections post done. But this shouldn't have been allowed to happen. 

For decades, tax proceeds went to the city’s Neighborhood Housing Improvement Fund, or NHIF, which has been used in recent years for emergency rental assistance, repairing storm damage, assisting first time home buyers and incentivizing new housing developments.

It was a narrow defeat. With 50.8 percent of voters casting “no” ballots, the margin was fewer than 1,000 votes. And already, some are calling for another vote to restart the tax.

Cashauna Hill, executive director of the Louisiana Fair Housing Action Center, argued that support for the NHIF remains high in New Orleans, and that the renewal’s defeat could be largely blamed on the extremely low profile nature of the race, and the near total lack of institutional support from government officials. 

“No one put any resources into educating the public on the fund and what it’s accomplished,” Hill said. “The NHIF has always had broad support whenever it’s been polled. But it’s also clear that many people had no idea that the NHIF was on the ballot, even in the weeks before the election. So it suggests that this very disappointing result was about a lack of education.”

The only PR effort that made any impact at all was BGR's absurdly conservative opposition which got broadcast all over town more or less unchallenged. That argument is what Andreanecia Morris is referring to at the end of this article. 

But Morris also argued that the focus on accountability was partially due to a deeply ingrained bias that makes people particularly suspicious of government spending on affordable housing.

She argued that similar issues can be found throughout city government, but that some people’s deep-seated association of affordable housing with corruption and crime put much greater scrutiny on housing programs. 

“Why does housing get this fake purity test?” she said. “Please name for me a pot of money that’s perfectly managed.”

The failure to renew this millage will result in a reduction in revenue for the housing fund from $12.9 million to $3.1 million in 2022 according to the city budget projection.  The Lens notes that source of that $3.1 isn't clearly indicated. However, we do know that it relies now on fees collected from short term rental licensing which, in addition to being a difficult figure to get a handle on, is also builds in a perverse incentive for funding affordable housing by allowing STRs to proliferate.  

So it's imperative that we figure out a way to get an affordable housing millage back on the ballot. It is not at all clear that the incoming city council will be interested in doing something like that, though. But maybe that's something else to save for an election recap.