Marty Bell Author Archives

The majority of our issues of Tax Credit Advisor are built around themes. In those months we try to tell a story with a beginning, a middle and an end on subjects, such as housing and healthcare, asset management or one of the tax credits.

I walked outside the Santa Lucia train station in Venice, boarded the vaparetto (or water bus) down the Grand Canal and found myself surrounded by palaces and churches, some five and six centuries old. Suddenly transported into hundreds of years of history, the short-term view no longer seemed as significant nor as inspiring as the long-term perspective.

In our office, in addition to publishing Tax Credit Advisor, we manage organizations that address the needs of aging Americans. This has inspired me to be a collector of stories about creative aging solutions, including many in housing. Some of my favorites—including MetaHousing’s Arts Colonies, senior housing that contains art studios, music studios and theaters, and the Actors Fund residences where people get to spend later life with others with whom they shared an occupation—have been covered previously in these pages.

It can feel as overwhelming as combining algebra and physics into one class. Both affordable housing and assisted living are vital solutions to the issues faced by aging Americans, but they are also each extremely complicated to develop and manage.

Working in various businesses for almost five decades now, perhaps the most significant change I have seen is the dependence upon data.

“Longevity is going to change everything,” says Kathryn Lawler, executive director of the Atlanta Regional Collective for Health Improvement and one of the most popular presenters on the aging conference circuit.

I grew up in a suburban community of 18,000 in which the homes were built on potato fields and mostly bought with the help of the G.I. Bill. Walking to school, I would say hello to the local firemen who were playing handball against the wall of the firehouse. When the cops were called by neighbors to break up a backyard party that got too loud, we knew them by name.

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).

One of the primary roles of the President of the United States is encouraging and overseeing creation. Nations have problems and we elect a head of state to find solutions.

In 2011, on a Labor Day break from her job as the State of Washington’s junior Senator, Maria Cantwell joined a party of five to climb 14,000 feet to the peak of Grand Teton.

On stage to debate for the Republican nomination for president were 16 people who thought they had to outshout each other—and one who obviously wanted to be the softest. Many needed to out-insult each other—and one felt compelled to show respect.

Transitions are times of anxiety and uncertainty. We know what we have, but we don’t know what we are going to get. Patience is probably the best antidote. It is difficult to anticipate outcomes. But that is not going to stop us.