icon Blueprint for October

Community

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3 min read

The word that stands out throughout this issue is community. We didn’t plan it that way. But in stories devoted to a wide range of subjects, including multi-credit deals, Opportunity Zones, state funding for housing and even NH&RA’s 2018 Vision Award honorees, the concept of community demanded attention. Community in these stories does not refer to a place, but rather to a congregation of people from various venues and backgrounds who come together to address a need. It is an encouraging word and a comforting notion. Put it right up there on the favorite American convention chart alongside family and home.

In West Hartford, CT, more than 15 funders and businesses of various expertise have come together to reinvigorate an old Swift gold leaf factory as a combination of food focused businesses and affordable housing that will serve as both a job and health generator for a struggling community. Staff writer Mark Fogarty reached out to the folks at Community Solutions, Boston Capital Loan Fund, MacRostie Historic Advisors and MassHousing who collaborated on this project with funding, according to Deb Favreau of MHIC, from “three state agencies, three federal agencies, three tax credits, three foundations, three CDEs, a CDFI, US Bancorp and National Grid.” (Spinning Gold into Food)

In Lexington, KY, resident and NH&RA board member Holly Weideman looked at the abandoned 120-year-old courthouse and vacant eyesore for years before pulling together her community for a long overdue and breathtaking restoration (see our cover) into a multiuse facility that is bolstering the entire downtown neighborhood. (My Old Kentucky Dome)

In this month’s Land of OZ feature, attorney John Gahan suggests that the ongoing support for Opportunity Zones is going to depend upon providing evidence of their success and urges key players in the designated communities to join together and figure out how to measure those results locally right now.

In addition to writing for us this month, Gahan, now a partner at Sullivan and Worcester LLP, joins Bill McGonagle of the Boston Housing Authority as this year’s Vision Award honorees. Both men are most of all team players with long histories of pulling human resources together for affordable housing in the Boston area, histories you can read about in staff writer Mark Olshaker’s profiles. They will accept their awards at NH&RA’s Fall Forum at the Harvard Club of Boston on October 23.

And our peripatetic staff reporter, Scott Beyer, reports this month on both creative funding initiatives driven by community and legislative will up and down the West Coast states, as well a program in Baltimore (where Scott spent the month) providing down payment assistance to restore value to the city’s vacant buildings. (Housing USA)

I hope what you will take away from this issue is a heightened sense of the achievements that become possible when goal-minded people and businesses come together as a community. And we look forward to reporting on your community in future issues.

Marty Bell, Editor