2027-2037 Housing Strategy Services

The Vendor is required to provide required components for the 2026-2035 housing strategy:
- Public outreach strategy
•    The assessment of housing conditions and needs has a significant component that is data driven in support of future grant applications materials but any work on this topic must also include conversations with key stakeholders, local code enforcement and planning staff, service providers, and advocacy groups to guide and provide context for the conditions survey and needs assessment. 
•    This work will leverage substantial county staff time in convening and facilitating meetings, but proposers should plan to collaborate in strategizing on community outreach, incorporating results into the conditions and needs assessment, and include budget for providing a stipend to at least five (5) community ambassadors who will support bringing outreach conversations to least likely to apply communities.
- Housing conditions assessment
•    The project will start with analysis of current housing conditions. 
•    Conditions assessments generally include a windshield survey of housing quality and conditions following HUD standards, as well as development of wait lists and at least three (3) project estimates for 2-4 community project types (to be identified by the stakeholder committee) with a level of detail appropriate for supporting successful applications from the county, as well as towns and villages within the county. 
•    It is not expected that the consultant will review the condition of every home in the county, a statistically valid sample will suffice.
- Below market housing needs assessment
•    The needs assessment will include analysis of below market rate housing availability and need – including demand for units at 30, 60, 80, 100, and 120% of AMI, and demand for units serving groups identified as in need of specific focus, including seniors, frail and elderly, unhoused people, residents with mental health conditions, residents dealing with addiction and recovery, students, young professionals, families with children, 1-2 person households, and other groups identified in community outreach. 
•    Work addressing some of these groups and needs has recently been completed in the county continuum of care’s home together city plan.
- Housing market analysis (authority funded)
•    County currently compiles significant data on demographic changes and tracks housing construction. 
•    The 2024 housing snapshot will serve as a base for additional analysis. 
•    The market analysis will go beyond review of the standard census data to focus on deeper financial analysis of the housing market, where there is unmet need, and what types of additional housing development are supportable under current and projected market and regulatory conditions. 
•    The assessment will include market demand for a variety of housing types (including townhomes, condominiums, co-ops, accessory dwelling units, starter homes, low-, mid and high-rise apartments, missing middle housing types, etc.), with supportable market price points and absorption rates based on reasonable development scenarios given regional conditions. 
•    There are several locations in the county planned for new walkable communities and this analysis should include information that can support the viability of those projects as well as incremental infill project.
•    The market analysis will present supply and demand data in a format that is useful for developers and finance partners to help maximize the number of units built in the local housing market over the analysis period (2027-2037) including modeling in a format that allows the county and our partners to update assumptions and plug-in new data as market conditions evolve in future years.
- Housing strategy
•    The housing strategy will incorporate recently completed infrastructure and regulatory analysis into analysis of regional market data for all sectors of the housing market. 
•    The strategy will specifically outline and prioritize tasks for the county, authority, municipalities, and other partners to complete over the next ten (10) years to improve housing market outcomes and meet housing needs. 
•    This strategy will recommend infrastructure investments, regulatory reforms, funding, and organization and process changes that could help meet the community’s housing needs and allow the desired development in furtherance of the county comprehensive plan, and the comprehensive plans of the county’s constituent municipalities. 
•    This work must include substantial community conversations driving the understanding of needs and solutions.