The Bloom Colocates Affordable Housing and Emergency Shelter in Alexandria, Virginia

The Bloom Colocates Affordable Housing and Emergency Shelter in Alexandria, Virginia

The Bloom is an affordable apartment building in the Washington, D.C. suburb of Alexandria, Virginia, that shares its $51.1 million building with a ground-floor emergency homeless shelter called Carpenter’s Shelter. Credit: Alexandria Housing Development Corporation

Opened in 2020, the Bloom is a 97-unit affordable housing development that shares its 7-story building in the Braddock Road neighborhood of Alexandria, Virginia, with Carpenter’s Shelter, a ground-floor emergency shelter for people experiencing homelessness. Although the Bloom and Carpenter’s Shelter maintain separate entrances and are managed by distinct entities, 10 of the Bloom's units are designated as permanent supportive housing for tenants formerly experiencing homelessness who receive case management and services from the team at the shelter. As a suburb of Washington, DC, the city of Alexandria faces serious housing affordability problems; from 2000 to 2016, Alexandria’s stock of housing affordable to low-income residents declined by 14,000 units. The colocation of affordable housing, permanent supportive housing, and temporary shelter that Carpenter’s Shelter and the Bloom provide is uniquely valuable for the city’s Braddock Road neighborhood.

An Opportunity for Collaboration

The project launched when a board member for Carpenter’s Shelter, a local nonprofit that has served people experiencing homelessness in Alexandria since 1982 and that runs the shelter of the same name, engaged in a conversation with a counterpart from the Alexandria Housing Development Corporation (AHDC) and realized that both organizations were tackling the same problem. “Homelessness comes from a lack of affordable housing,” says Kayla Hornbrook, AHDC’s communications and development manager. Once the service organization and the nonprofit developer were in contact, it was not long before the opportunity for collaboration arose. By 2015, Carpenter’s Shelter was finding that the cost of remaining in its aging facility on North Henry Street, a retrofitted Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) building, was rising. At the same time, the desirable Braddock Road neighborhood was developing rapidly but not gaining affordable housing at the same pace, a fact that both AHDC and the city of Alexandria’s Office of Housing had noted.

Redeveloping the 0.82-acre Carpenter’s Shelter site on North Henry Street was an ideal solution for meeting both organizations’ needs for temporary shelter and affordable housing — the location is just a quarter-mile from the Braddock Road Metrorail station and within walking distance of neighborhood amenities such as retailers. “One of the things that we’ve grown to value is working with organizations that have these real estate needs that we can combine with affordable housing. We jokingly call it the “stuff on top of stuff” policy,” says Hornbrook. Carpenter’s Shelter temporarily moved its operations to an empty Macy’s store in the nearby Landmark Mall, and in August 2018, AHDC demolished the repurposed DMV structure and began work on the new building for Carpenter’s Shelter and the Bloom. Although the COVID-19 pandemic delayed the project’s construction, the seven-story contemporary building was completed in October 2020.

Residents of the Bloom’s 97 affordable units enjoy amenities including a community room with a kitchenette, three large terraces, bicycle storage, and a playground shared with Carpenter’s Shelter. Credit: Alexandria Housing Development Corporation

New Growth at the Bloom

Named “the Bloom” to evoke the sense of possibility and regeneration present in new growth, the development features a small ground-floor lobby through which residents can access their mailboxes, the leasing office, a secure package room, a restroom, an exit to the shared playground, and the elevators. The building’s décor includes subtle botanical motifs to reflect the theme of growth and renewal. For example, the carpeting in each of the six residential floors has a different floral overlay pattern to give each level a distinctive look. The residential floors house 10 studios along with 4 one-, 72 two-, and 11 three-bedroom apartments.

Tenants of the Bloom may earn no more than 60 percent of the area median income (AMI); 29 units are reserved for tenants who earn no more than 50 percent of AMI and 10 units are reserved for tenants who earn no more than 40 percent of AMI. The 10 studio apartments are permanent supportive housing units reserved for tenants formerly experiencing homelessness who are receiving case management services from Carpenter’s Shelter; these households may earn no more than 30 percent of AMI. The permanent supportive units, which are fully furnished, are integrated throughout the building. In addition, 10 units are fully accessible.

The Bloom’s primary amenities include three large terraces and a third-floor community room. The community room has a kitchenette and opens onto a terrace that wraps around the northwest corner of the building, offering excellent, unobstructed views from the Washington Monument to the Old Town Alexandria waterfront. Another terrace includes 1,600 square feet of raised beds, and Hornbrook reports that local garden services provider Love & Carrots will begin planting a production garden for the 2021 growing season in early August. Once that project is underway, interested residents will be able to participate, and all residents will receive free fruits and vegetables from the garden weekly when it begins producing.

The Bloom also has bicycle storage in the 78-space underground parking garage it shares with Carpenter’s Shelter and access to AHDC’s resident services program. In a normal, nonpandemic year, these resident services would include seasonal and holiday celebrations, regular social events, children’s gatherings, and themed activities. Because of the increased financial uncertainty created by the COVID-19 pandemic, AHDC launched its Emergency Rent Assistance Program in April 2020 and has dispensed with many of its typical resident services in favor of organizing rent assistance and food relief for tenants. As a result, AHDC has not lost a single tenant because of financial hardship during the pandemic.

Replacing the Old Carpenter’s Shelter With a Purpose-Built Facility

Carpenter’s Shelter was able to move into its new space on the ground floor of the building in December 2020. The shelter has communal rooms outfitted with bunk beds where up to 60 people can stay while seeking more permanent housing. The beds are claimed on a first-come, first-served basis for individuals, whose average stay at the shelter is 2 months. Families stay for an average of 3 months. The shelter space also has a community room, classroom, library, computer lab, dining room, commercial kitchen, and pantry. The kitchen is staffed by volunteers who prepare meals out of donated food. Administrative offices provide a place for staff to manage the nonprofit’s operations. A day shelter area called David’s Place, provisioned with lockers, showers, and laundry machines, allows people experiencing chronic homelessness to wash their clothes and attend to their hygiene needs.

The shelter has two service centers. In the Housing Solutions Center, clients meet with professional housing locators to connect with permanent housing, and in the Case Management Office, case managers help clients access rapid rehousing services, retrieve copies of important documents, or search for work. Unlike its previous location, the new shelter has large, private outdoor spaces, including a colorful playground that it shares with the Bloom. The building also has a private landscaped courtyard with trees and flowers. Although the North Henry Street site is the sixth location that Carpenter’s Shelter has occupied since its founding, it is the first purpose-built shelter space the nonprofit has ever called home.

Partnerships

Although Carpenter’s Shelter and the Bloom operate separately, the $51.1 million building they share was financed as a single project. The largest single contributor to the undertaking was the low-income housing tax credit program, which supplied more than $22.5 million in equity. The city of Alexandria contributed more than $8 million in the form of community development block grants, for which its Office of Housing won the 2020 National Community Development Association’s Audrey Nelson Community Development Achievement Award. The Virginia Housing Trust Fund and the National Housing Trust Fund each contributed $800,000 — a first for the city. These trust fund awards helped the project secure the necessary funding to include permanent supportive housing units. AHDC contributed approximately $2.6 million in the form of a deferred developer fee. The remaining funds were made up of seller equity and Virginia Housing Development Authority loans.

The Bloom and the new iteration of Carpenter’s Shelter are the result of a close partnership between the shelter organization and AHDC in which the city of Alexandria and the state of Virginia played instrumental roles during the development stage. Hornbrook reports that for its next affordable housing development, AHDC is seeking to partner with a health organization to colocate a medical clinic and benefit the surrounding community.