Affordable Housing Attorneys Advise on CA Program for Homelessness, Senior Care
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Ballard Spahr attorneys are advising professional services firm HORNE in its role as third-party administrator for California’s $570 million program designed to combat homelessness and a shortage of housing and care facilities for vulnerable populations, including older adults.
HORNE, a leading consulting organization and top 30 accounting firm, is working with the California Department of Social Services (CDSS) to implement the Community Care Expansion (CCE) Capital Expansion program, as well as the CCE Preservation Program.
Attorneys from Ballard Spahr are advising HORNE on agreements with counties and other agencies responsible for distributing expansion and preservation funds to facilities and developers. The firm’s lawyers, including members of the Real Estate Department and Affordable Housing and Community Development Practice Group, are also representing CDSS interests in property acquisitions for new and expanded facilities.
The Latest Transaction
In the latest transaction last month, Ballard Spahr lawyers advised HORNE and the CDSS on financing for the development of a 97-unit affordable apartment project for senior citizens at 51 9th St. in Oakland. Known as the Chinatown transit-oriented senior housing complex, the project includes 44 units reserved for formerly homeless people and is part of a multiyear plan to build more than 450 housing units around the nearby Lake Merritt Station of the Bay Area Rapid Transit system, with nearly 30 percent affordable to low- and middle-income households.
The CCE program was established through state law as part of California’s interagency approach to combatting homelessness. The program makes funds available through infrastructure grants for capital expansion projects, including acquisition, construction, and rehabilitation of residential care settings. The funds are intended to create more housing and care facilities for those most in need and are awarded through competitive grants to counties, cities, tribal entities, nonprofit organizations, for-profit organizations, and other private organizations.
Preservation Efforts
On the preservation side, Ballard Spahr attorneys are advising on allocations to county governments for design and implementation of programs to disburse funds to local, licensed, adult and senior care facilities serving qualifying individuals so they can avoid closure or maintain compliance with licensing standards. Funds are available for operating subsidies to cover potential or projected deficits, as well as for capital projects for essential physical repairs or necessary upgrades.
The Ballard Spahr team advising HORNE is led by Amy M. McClain, chair of the firm’s Real Estate Department, and Spencer I. Eldred, a lawyer in the Department, and includes Nicholas R. Spear, Joseph E. Dagher, and Claire Stanley, James E. Mills, Forrest Albiston, Blaine F. Sanders, and Alex Sellke.