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Sherlock’s Homes

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3 min read

In our cover story this month, staff writer Mark Olshaker interviews the leaders of the various tax credit coalitions on advocacy plans in the face of potential tax reform. (Defending the Forts).  Over the past couple of years, this peripatetic reporter has covered, among other things, artist housing, workforce housing, housing and healthcare and wandered inside the RAD and Community Development Entity programs, stories that frequently end up on our cover. But that is just a hint of Olshaker’s dexterity.

On March 24, a piece Mark co-authored with Michael T. Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease at the University of Minnesota, entitled “The Real Threat to National Security: Deadly Disease,” appeared on the OpEd page of the New York Times. The piece warned, “While the Trump administration is proposing significantly increased military spending to enhance our national security, it seems to have lost sight of the greatest national security threat of all: our fight against infectious disease.”

Visit your local bookstore or booksite today to find these gentlemen’s collaboration Deadliest Enemy: Our War Against Killer Germs. And this October, Netflix will be offering a new dramatic series called Mindhunter, based on Mark’s collaboration with John Douglas, who created criminal profiling while leading the Investigative Support Unit at the FBI Academy (the inspiration for Silence of the Lambs), a one-time Number 1 Best Seller in the Times. The series, produced by David Fincher and Charlize Theron and starring Jonathan Groff, has been renewed for a second season before an episode has been shown publicly.

Mark and I met during the Anti-Vietnam War years in the offices of the George Washington University student newspaper where we served as the movie and theater critics. Unconventionality was the convention of the time and he was frequently seen wearing a Sherlock Holmes cap and smoking a pipe. But he wasn’t just feigning interest in detection; he has had a remarkable career publishing ten non-fiction books, five novels, mostly focused on crime and infectious disease, and producing over a dozen documentaries including Emmy winners. Though the hat you will most likely see him wear today may be that of the Washington Nats, we’re honored to have Mark’s unique skill set now investigating housing on our behalf.

With Congress threatening to tackle tax reform this spring, this issue will also look at preparation for this possibility already occurring within the State Housing Finance Agencies. NH&RA Policy Manager, Christian Robin surveys adjustments already included in QAPs (QAPs Adapt).

Another issue the arrival of the new administration in Washington has set in limbo is immigration restriction, which has a direct effect on both the size of the workforce and potential residents of affordable housing. Reporting this month on his American journey from Portland, OR, staff writer Scott Beyer predicts some of the consequences. (Fewer Immigrants, Higher Costs). And staff writer Bendix Anderson looks at projects filling budget gaps by Mixing 4% and 9% LIHTCs.

And our Talking Head this month is NH&RA’s new chair John Weld Peck, an attorney with Jones Walker in Cincinnati and a long-time member of the organization.

We welcome and congratulate John and look forward to working with him. And we congratulate Mark on his overflowing bucketful of writing accomplishments.

Marty Bell
Editor