Articles Archives

Affordable housing finance is an ever evolving discipline and, as a result, an evergreen topic for this publication. This month’s issue highlights a number of interesting financing opportunities, tools, niches and programmatic changes that will be of interest to our readers. Keeping with this theme, I’d like to explore and expand on a few topics that are trending in our office following the NCHMA Spring Meeting on March 31 and the PTEE Roadshow in Indianapolis on April 9.

As of Tax Day, at least four major candidates have declared they are running for President. By the time we get to NH&RA’s Summer Institute, we could have a baker’s dozen or more candidates.

In Geoff’s 26 years, USA Properties has grown from seven employees to 400 and developed, through construction or acquisition and rehabilitation, over 11,000 units of affordable housing for families and seniors throughout California and Nevada. In addition, its subsidiary, USA Multifamily Management, manages its own projects in a portfolio consisting of over 10,600 units—two-thirds of it senior housing. Tax Credit Advisor sat down with Brown to discuss his passions and priorities.

Solar power is becoming more of an economic and technological possibility for developers of multiunit affordable housing—the cost of solar panels, for example, has been dropping exponentially since 2008.

In February, for the first time ever, NH&RA hosted a Public Housing Joint Venture Symposium in Key Largo, Florida where it convened HUD representatives with more than 100 developers, syndicators, lenders, and other members of the affordable housing community. The one-day event preceded the 2015 NH&RA Annual Meeting.

To a group of American housing developers and financiers, four days in Havana is a tall mojito loaded with both spices and bitters. Make that a pitcher of mojitos, for walking the streets of a city frozen in the ‘50s surrounded by turquoise and lavender cars with protruding fins that your grandfather used to drive, you cannot help but feel a bit inebriated.

The formation of tax credit financial partnerships to build affordable housing can be a joyous occasion. Both general and investor limited partners are optimistic. Regrettably, years later, the exit can be mayhem.

Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae have recently created new affordable housing products that provide borrowers with ways to access low-cost loans that finance affordable housing for the 15-plus years of the building’s compliance life.

The rehabilitation of Cumberland Arms in Cumberland, Md., mixes housing, historic and energy tax credits. To get the maximum tax credit award, the developers committed to meet tough standards for energy efficiency. That meant creating significant energy cost savings even though energy costs are now low – a challenge that almost derailed the project.

I find it inspiring that many of the communities developed by the first generation of NH&RA members in the 1960s are still prospering 50 years later. Indeed, many of these firms, and even a few of the founders, are still actively developing new or preserving existing affordable housing around the country today.

Simply stated, it is an emphasis on wellness that, in many cases, can preempt an emphasis on sickness and infirmity. And it is paying off in measurable financial results for the facilities that have embraced the approach.

Bodaken was born and raised in Storm Lake, Iowa, studied history at the University of Iowa and received his legal degree from Peoples College of Law in 1979. After 11 years as a Legal Aid lawyer specializing in housing, he was appointed Housing Coordinator-Deputy Mayor for the City of Los Angeles. Under this leadership, the City of Los Angeles dramatically increased its housing funding and created a Housing Department and Housing Commission.