Half a Century of People Making Connections

This has been a fun issue of Tax Credit Advisor for me to work on. We’re helping National Housing & Rehabilitation Association (NH&RA) kick off its 50th anniversary celebration in 2022.

It’s a testament to any institution’s staying power to reach its golden anniversary. Not all businesses or associations make it that far. In fact, the failure rate is quite high. According to Bureau of Labor Statistics data from 2020, about 20 percent of small businesses fail in their first year and 50 percent fail within five years.

NH&RA and its members have the hard work of Peter and Sharon Bell largely to thank for the success of the association. But as you’ll read in this issue, Peter is quite humble about his role in making the organization a success. Peter will tell you that NH&RA has always been about bringing people together to share ideas and think about the best way to get things done. And he is just as proud of NH&RA’s member companies and individual members who have built up their businesses, finding success and growth through the ups and downs of the economy and the tangle of regulations on housing.

He’s right, of course. In the affordable housing world, it’s all about the people and so naturally NH&RA reflects that. It’s about putting together deals, with no two transactions exactly alike. It takes people coming together in the worlds of finance, development, law, construction, architecture, market analysis and dozens of other business segments to do good works for…you guessed it…people. Creating, building or renovating places to call home for people in our communities is what the housing business is all about.

Over the past 50 years, the last two certainly have been unique. The pandemic forced us all to spend much of our time in our homes. COVID continues to shake the economy and the housing sector to its core. Prices are up. Supplies are disrupted. Where people want to live is in flux, as are their jobs.

I came into NH&RA during these “unprecedented times,” as they say. So, I’ve known nothing but Zoom conferences instead of face-to-face meetings as the association pivoted to carry out its primary mission of bringing people together to talk, to learn and to make continuously better deals. It’s fitting that as the 50th anniversary gets underway, we’ll get to resume meeting each other face-to-face at the NH&RA annual meeting in late February.

If you’re reading this at the annual meeting, I hope I get the chance to meet you and hear stories from your career, whether you’ve been at it for 50 years or five years. I’ve been missing that people-connection during the pandemic too, and in my role as a storyteller for this magazine I’m always interested in hearing your good stories.

So, congratulations to Peter and Sharon, as well as to my NH&RA colleagues who help make it a special place for the members. In a world where everyone is behind a computer, phone or tablet screen, it’s nice to have a place where personal connections matter. Happy 50th, NH&RA.

Paul Connolly
Executive Editor

Tax Credit Advisor welcomes reader comments. Contact the executive editor at [email protected].