This website is no longer being updated. Sign up for our newsletter and learn more about our new direction at AustinCurrent.org.

More than $62 million in 2014 Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs loan recommendations were announced Thursday, and there was good news for some local affordable housing projects. The agency made its award recommendations for the competitive 9 percent housing tax credit program, which helps many of the state’s most affordable housing projects. This year, the state recommended that about $4.2 million be allocated to five projects in Region 7, which includes Austin. Three of those projects, including Foundation Communities’ Trails Phase II, South Lamar’s Bluebonnet Studios and the Rutledge Spur Apartments, won recommendations. Also named were Liberty Manor in Williamson County and the Art at Bratton’s Edge project. If completed, the five projects will bring 426 affordable units to the region.

Mike Kanin is the Publisher of the Austin Monitor. As such, he doesn't report on much--aside from the workings of the Monitor--any more. In his previous life as a freelance journalist, Kanin has written...