Articles Archives

We hear a lot of conversation these days about the social determinants of health: healthcare itself; education, personal and family stability, neighborhood and environmental safety and prosperity; and social and community context and commitment.

Only a few months after Red Stone Equity Partners was founded in 2007, America suffered its worst economic recession in 80 years. While many companies in the affordable housing business closed, RSEP persevered, and over the next decade, became a leading national equity syndication platform.

REAC inspections, the means by which the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Real Estate Assessment Center evaluates the fitness of HUD-subsidized housing, is being overhauled after 20-odd years.

Mercy Housing has a big footprint, with properties in 33 states and five regions of the country. The affordable housing nonprofit also has a big footprint in the lives of the occupants of those properties, with an extensive, diverse resident services effort that targets five different areas to make a big positive impact on their lives.

In recent years, the local political obstacles to adding dense housing are thought by analysts to be overcome with state policy. And often, these policies are “stick”–like in nature: Oregon, in 2019, passed a bill to outlaw single-family zoning in most parts of the state. Legislators in Virginia, California and Maryland have since proposed similar bills. But the “carrot” approach, which involves dangling financial incentives to cities that loosen zoning voluntarily, is also possible.

When many Americans think “solar panels,” they still think of an individual array of panels that go on someone’s home. This means they see solar energy as a burdensome process that requires too much time, money and roof space to apply to them. But recently, solar energy has become much more scalable and democratic – via the “Community Solar” model. This has grown in tandem with government subsidies, and could be a good business opportunity for real estate developers or other environmental entrepreneurs who have familiarity with tax credits.

As you will read repeatedly in this issue, affordable housing is one of the most effective (and cost-effective) healthcare interventions, particularly for vulnerable populations, like the homeless. Without the stability of an affordable home, it is very difficult to treat the root causes of many common, yet intervenable, illnesses and conditions that plague modern America, whether it be hypertension, diabetes, obesity, asthma, mental illness or a myriad of other societal ills.

In case you haven’t already noticed, this issue of Tax Credit Advisor clearly demonstrates that the 50 states and the District of Columbia are at the vanguard of developing innovative housing solutions.

A small city, or even a small town, doesn’t have to have a small housing footprint. Cases in point: National City, CA, where a tiny staff works on big affordable projects, and Kittery, ME, a place so small it doesn’t have its own housing department but still dreams of attracting tax credit deals.

The tax credit equity market was relatively stable in 2019, but there is change in the air for 2020. We came heartbreakingly close to a flat four percent Low Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) for bond-financed projects in the year-end funding and tax extenders package, which gives us reason to be hopeful in 2020.

After eight years of struggling for the attention of Governor Jerry Brown, who seemed to prefer speed rail to housing, the affordable housing industry appears to be more of a priority of the administration of Governor Gavin Newsom, who took office in 2019. The nation’s most populated state includes five of the country’s ten most expensive cities to live in along its coast.

“Our agency has no power to make people do anything. We can only convince through advocacy and stories,” says Rebecca Davis, deputy director of Boston’s Metropolitan Area Planning Council (MAPC).