Fannie Mae is committing $10 million over two years to combat the nation's affordability crunch, and calling for cities to provide solutions for homebuyers and sellers.
Maria Evans, vice president of Fannie Mae's Sustainable Communities Partnership & Innovation Initiative explains that since the call to action in 2017, "We saw lots and lots of proposals that involved ADUs." The West Denver Renaissance Collaborative was one such program that caught their attention, as "much more comprehensive and streamlined'' than other ADU-focused proposals, CNBC reports. "West Denver was a good solution to help long-term residents fight off that dislocation that often comes from gentrification," adds Evans.
Back in 2016, Renee Martinez-Stone, director of the West Denver Renaissance Collaborative, was hearing a question from residents of the struggling neighborhoods west and south of the Denver Broncos stadium: "Why do we have to rely on developers to fix our problems when this is our own neighborhood and we own the land?" The answer she ended up with turned out to be simple: turn low-income homeowners into landlords to help them afford to stay in gentrifying neighborhoods.