Domestic Violence Victims Get New Life With Help of New Markets Credit
By Caitlin Jones & A. J. Johnson
2 min read
Tax Credit Advisor, March 2009: The federal new markets tax credit will be giving numerous domestic violence survivors in New York City a new start in life, through the transformation of a vacant building into a new service-enriched emergency shelter tailored to address their needs.
The new shelter is being developed by the Volunteers of America-Greater New York. When completed early this year, it will be the organization’s fifth domestic violence shelter in the New York metro area and the first in Manhattan. It will provide emergency housing along with a wide range of services.
The new 63-bed shelter will be created from the rehabilitation of an existing 13,000-square-foot walk-up building originally constructed in 1920 and vacant since 2006. The rehabilitation will include the repair and restoration of the building’s interior, updates of exterior building systems, and a build-out of the interior living space. Work began last fall.
The entire funding for the project has been provided by a $7.7 million allocation of new markets tax credits (NMTCs) by Columbia, MD-based Enterprise Community Investment, Inc. from its fifth round NMTC award. Chase is the NMTC investor and senior leverage lender for the project. The transaction is Enterprise’s and Chase’s second NMTC investment with Volunteers of America-Greater New York.
The new shelter will enable Volunteers of America-Greater New York to expand its current emergency shelter capacity in the region by 35%, and will connect the domestic violence survivors who live in the new shelter to a range of essential services. These include substance abuse prevention, crisis counseling, vocational and employment services, victim advocacy and court accompaniment, foster case prevention and family reunification, and educational training and workshops. The shelter will have a psychiatrist on staff.
The project will create about 50 temporary jobs during the construction phase and several new permanent full-time jobs through shelter operations.
“This project is a leading example of how NMTCs can help to deliver much-needed services that improve lives in the nation’s underserved communities,” said Joseph A. Wesolowski, senior vice president, Structured Finance, Enterprise Community Investment.
According to Volunteers of America-Greater New York, there are about 8,000 homeless families – including 15,000 homeless children – in the New York City area, and about one-third of these homeless face domestic violence related issues. Because of high demand for beds in domestic violence shelters but limited space, survivors often are placed in general homeless shelters.
