Monthly Columns Archives

There’s no question our country is divided, as evidenced by the rancorous 2020 presidential campaign and heated down-ballot contests in many states. We’re all entitled to our political opinions, of course. And debating those opinions from the kitchen table to the town square is part of what makes America who we are. We are opinionated. We are strong-headed. And we are capable of getting anything done when we really need to.

When it comes to dealing with the looming or present expiration of judicial eviction moratoria, our industry should do what many of us have done whenever the economic times are out of joint: don’t litigate the past, negotiate the future.

I like to joke with other parents that we need to treat our children well, because someday they’ll be choosing our senior living arrangements and I’d like to live someplace nice.

When disruption threatens health and prosperity, whom does duty call, and to what action?

Thanks for picking up this month’s copy of Tax Credit Advisor. I’m the new executive editor, taking over from Marty Bell who is enjoying a well-earned retirement after bringing you news about industry innovation. Marty left some big shoes to fill, and it’s my goal to build on his efforts to give you the information and analysis you need to help you identify opportunities in your sector of the market. NH&RA is here to help you build your business, and our team wants to make this magazine and all our other content well worth your memberships and subscriptions.

If the pandemic itself doesn’t decide the upcoming election, the voters’ judgment of their elected officials’ policy responses to its consequences will. And voters’ pandemic experiences are wildly diverse based on many things – most especially on their housing, what it is and where it is.

Working with this organization for 11 years, I have devoted a good deal of my time addressing the needs of older adults along with many of you.

The future seems to have arrived on our doorstep. Robots have been employed to construct multifamily homes. If you’re a SciFi fan, you no longer have to go to the movies, you can visit a prefab housing factory instead.

Once it starts, a thunderstorm is unstoppable: the sunny seeming equilibrium of a moment before becomes a torrent whose cooling reinforces itself, reversing in a few minutes what took hours to build up.

Madi Ford is listening. As you will read in this month’s Talking Heads interview (p. 6), her team at MidCity Financial includes a director of community engagement, as well as additional staff committed to listening to the residents and to neighbors.

Because infrastructure always reaches the poorest last, its networks are always uneven. Because the business case for prevention can never be made until the cost of allowing failure is proven, preventive policies arise only after catastrophe.

Catastrophe is both precondition for and stimulus of three things – sudden extinction, explosive innovation and enduring reform. As all three happen speedily, each vies with the other two for primacy.