‘Universally non-supportive’: Idaho is one of four states without state-level support for affordable housing
- Kelcie Moseley-Morris
- Jul 6, 2021
- 3 min read
Updated: Sep 21, 2025
Kelcie Moseley-Morris, Idaho Capital Sun
July 6, 2021
When affordable housing development Adare Manor opened in September 2019 on Fairview Avenue in Boise, it was fully occupied within three months and has had a waitlist ever since. It is one of nearly 50 affordable housing developments in Boise.
The rent ranges from $662 per month for one bedroom to $1,104 for a three-bedroom unit, with income limits ranging between $26,400 and $52,440, which align with federal income guidelines for affordable housing.
As of this month, the median rent for a regular two-bedroom apartment in Boise is $1,303, according to ApartmentList.com.
Even at those high prices, vacant apartments are difficult to come by in Ada and Canyon counties — vacancy rates at the end of 2020 were 1.05% and 0.9%, respectively.
City and county officials across the state have identified a need for more affordable housing as the state continues to grow, but it’s much easier said than done. And a void of state-level investment or incentive to build affordable units makes the proposition that much more difficult, developers and officials say.
Nearly a dozen funding sources were cobbled together to support Adare
Thomas Mannschreck owns Thomas Development, a Boise-based company that has developed more than 75 affordable housing complexes representing nearly 4,000 apartment units, including 134 units that make up Adare Manor. Mannschreck said Adare is built with the same finishes as many high-quality apartments in the area, but 11 layers of local, federal and private investments had to come together to create a workable funding structure.
State dollars are not involved in affordable housing developments across the state. Unlike 46 other states that use a housing trust fund to support projects, Idaho has a state housing trust fund that was created in 1992 — but it has never been funded.
Cory Phelps, vice president of project finance at the Idaho Housing and Finance Association, said affordable housing comes down to how much permanent debt can be supported while still complying with the rent restrictions that come along with federal funding.
“We really only have federal resources, we don’t have any state resources when it comes to trying to fill that gap,” Phelps said. “… We just don’t have a lot of what we call gap financing.”
Adare is unique in that it began with about $1.6 million in real estate owned by the city of Boise, leased to the developer for $100 per year.
“That’s a direct benefit,” Mannschreck said. “We would’ve had to come up with the resources to purchase that ground.”
About $2 million in funding came from block grants allocated to the city of Boise and the Idaho Housing and Finance Association by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Four other city of Boise programs contributed funding to the project, as well as $700,000 from Capital City Development Corporation, the urban renewal agency for the city.
The permanent mortgage of $9.2 million is backed through tax exempt bonds through the Idaho Housing and Finance Association and amounts to a little over $12 million at a 3.75% interest rate.
By contrast, the Housing and Urban Development grants hold a 1% interest rate, which helps keep rents manageable.
“One of the premonitions on these affordable housing deals is that when these resources come in, that it puts a bunch more money in the developer’s pockets — that’s not the case,” Mannschreck said. “The real benefit is what I just said, the ability to charge lower rents.”
Developments are also often dependent on an entity willing to invest in the property in order to reduce its income tax liabilities based on the amount of increase in revenue the housing is expected to generate over a certain period of time.
In Adare’s case, American Express was the investor, and the low-income tax credit they purchased amounted to $11 million.
While Mannschreck was trying to secure the funding for Adare, the 2017 bill passed by the U.S. Congress that lowered corporate income tax rates and threatened the development’s viability.
“Anecdotally, two developments that we were working on in Albuquerque (New Mexico) and Phoenix (Arizona) were not able to move forward because of the reduction in tax equity pricing on those two deals,” Mannschreck said. “… Without all of that, we’d have to jack our rents up. Then we’re just another market-rate apartment community.”
The long-term commitment to affordable housing is significant as well. Auditors from every side of the development’s financing review the incomes and rents correlated to each unit, along with American Express auditors and others.
“The chance for mischief is somewhere between zero and nonexistent,” Mannschreck said...
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