The Tree Lane project is the city’s second phase of permanent housing with support services for the homeless. The city and Dane County are investing about $2 million and using $5.4 million in WHEDA federal tax credits for Heartland’s $7.5 million project with 60 units of housing for adult singles, including some units targeted to veterans, on the 700 block of Rethke Avenue on the East Side.

The city’s new Affordable Housing Fund, created in the 2015 budget, has a goal of supporting at least 250 units of permanent housing with services for the homeless and 750 or more units for people making up to 60 percent of the area’s median income by 2020.

Last spring, WHEDA announced $23.3 million in federal tax credits for three Madison housing projects with more than 200 low-income units. The city had committed $3 million from its housing fund for those projects — Union Corners on the East Side, Maple Grove Commons on the Southwest Side, and Tennyson Ridge on the North Side.

“The strategy to leverage these very valuable tax credits has proven to be a smart one,” O’Keefe said. “From the perspective of starting to accelerate the production of affordable housing, it couldn’t have worked out better than it has.”

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