Most groundbreaking events are ceremonial affairs where officials talk about the work to be done.

There was the talk, but as officials took the podium, workers were tearing off the siding of Greenwood Terrace that has 53 apartments. Siding, roofing, windows apartment stoves, flooring, painting and a building boiler are all part of a $850,000 project aimed at ensuring the building and the affordable housing it offers is here for another generation.

“There is simply not enough housing,” Barbara Fields, executive director of RIHousing, said to an audience of Greenwood Terrace tenants and officials including Senator Jack Reed and Mayor Scott Avedisian and Councilmen Steve McAllister and Ed Ladouceur. She said not only is there a need to build more affordable housing but to “preserve what we have.” According to demographic studies, Fields said the state would need an additional 35,000 units of affordable housing to serve seniors and millennials.

According to RIHousing, the primary source of funding for the project is a $4.385 million permanent taxable loan insured through the U.S. Treasury, HUD Federal Financing Bank HFA Multifamily Risk Sharing Loan Financing Initiative. As it is explained, Risk Share provides credit enhancement for mortgages of multi-family housing projects whose loans are underwritten, processed and serviced by housing finance agencies like RIHousing.

“We’re here to keep that going,” Senator Reed said, pointing out the need to ensure there is adequate affordable housing to meet needs. He questioned whether funding will continue for these programs given President Trump’s $6 billion cut to the HUD budget.

“I don’t think it makes sense. We need a balanced approach,” he said.

Mayor Avedisian focused on the maintenance and renovation of affordable housing. He pointed to his own efforts to ensure that Trafalgar East remain a part of the HUD designation of affordable housing. He said his involvement with Trafalgar taught him to be persistent.

Fields said RIHousing is seeing a demand for housing that is close to transportation and services. She said people want to live in duplexes and four-plexes.

“We need Jack Reed, we need the federal dollars,” she said. She said it is a combination of private, state and federal funding that makes affordable housing possible.

According to Gary Beaune, project director for Cathedral Development Corp. that has the contract to renovate the apartment complex built in 1978, the job should be completed in about six months, at which time the parties will be invited back for a ribbon cutting ceremony.