Preservation of Affordable Housing

Preservation of Affordable Housing is a nonprofit affordable housing developer and owner founded in 2001, headquartered at 2 Oliver Street in Boston with regional offices in Chicago and Kansas City. It holds close to 12,000 apartments across roughly 120 properties in eleven states and Washington, DC, acquiring at-risk subsidised housing and building new mixed-income communities. A separate affiliate, POAH Communities, manages the portfolio and runs resident services. POAH is lead developer on the Barry Farm-Hillsdale redevelopment in Southeast Washington with Baltimore’s A&R Development. The first building there, The Asberry, is a 108-unit senior community built to passive house standards and served by a district geothermal system delivered with Brightcore Energy.

Two halves of the same job, run deliberately together. On one side POAH implements strategies for its properties to keep them financially and physically sustainable for the future and well managed – the unglamorous asset-management work that determines whether affordable housing stays affordable past its first compliance period. On the other, community impact coordinators are based at properties across the country, connecting residents to skill-building, workforce certifications and education programs.

The mission statement is precise about that pairing: to preserve, create and sustain affordable, healthy homes that support economic security and access to opportunity for all. Preserve comes first, which is the distinguishing choice – acquiring and recapitalising existing subsidised housing is harder to finance and less visible than building new, and it is where most units at risk actually sit.

Recent activity includes closing financing to renovate a 130-unit affordable complex in Providence.

The organisation is structured in two parts that show up on its own team page: POAH itself, covering development, development finance, operations and finance leadership, and POAH Communities, the management affiliate with its own leadership team. The Chicago Woodlawn Resource Center is listed as a distinct operation within that structure – a neighbourhood facility rather than a housing property, which is consistent with how the organisation describes its work.