Capital Needs Assessment

In recent years, the nation’s third-largest housing authority has  undergone an institutional transformation to private management of its inventory. CHA engaged OSI for several phases of this process, including assistance with two rounds of capital funding requests and Comprehensive Grant submissions to HUD. Most recently, OSI modeled the long-term physical  needs of a large portion of CHA stock to support a major bond refinancing by HUD. OSI completed all phases of this work successfully, and CHA is well on its way to privatization. The project was led by David Smith, and contracted to Recap.

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Services provided:

Exhaustive physical needs assessments of nearly all federally assisted CHA developments and some state-aided properties while meeting tight inspection and analysis deadlines:

· Review of  findings with senior CHA staff and preparation of modernization plans

· Development of redesign alternatives for eight family developments not meeting contemporary standards, or requiring overhaul to meet new market conditions and improve project viability

· Preparation of a capital needs assessment field protocol, with staff training, providing CHA with its own update capacity

· Ultimately the CHA entered completed modernization plans into an automated database for future planning purposes

· Modeling of long-term needs of the bond-financed portfolio, based on representative property samples (with Abt Associates)

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Outcomes:

· CHA is well along with a ten-year, $1.56 billion dollar commitment to rehab or rebuild 25,000 units of housing

· Quick turnaround on the bond portfolio provided for a successful refinancing