Mark Olshaker Author Archives

While the Covid-19 pandemic has imposed unprecedented stresses and challenges on all levels and aspects of society, affordable housing owners and operators are quickly having to find new ways to manage their properties, interact with residents and meet their variety of special needs. The NRP Group of Cleveland, OH is one company that has come up with some innovative approaches, not only trying to keep residents safe and well, but also to bring some joy to their lives during this trying time.

Adrian Iglesias founded Generation Housing Development in Dallas, TX in 2002 with the mission to provide affordable multifamily housing for families and seniors, “in sustainable communities that residents and city leaders can be proud to call their own.”

Originally constructed in 1971, Denver Metro Village is a 191-unit affordable rental housing property serving seniors. It’s west of downtown Denver at West Colfax Avenue and Quitman Street, near Sloans Lake, the city’s largest, and is being preserved through a partnership with the nonprofit owner, manager and developer, MGL

“RAD has been the most positive experience I’ve had working with HUD,” states Richelle Patton, president of Collaborative Housing Solutions of Decatur, GA, a consulting firm that specializes in creative problem-solving to develop affordable rental housing. She specializes in HUD’s Rental Assistance Demonstration program, has been involved with around 18,000 RAD unit conversions and has served as a RAD transaction manager for HUD.

Motivation is a basic actors’ tool – and it’s also the driving force behind the Actors Fund’s tireless effort to create the Hollywood Arts Collective: a new multi-use affordable housing development for all entertainment industry professionals being developed in Los Angeles.

When the Opportunity Zones program was added to the bipartisan Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, it was presented as a triple bottom line win: helping underserved communities achieve economic growth and build wealth for residents and businesses; bringing a new source of investment dollars into those communities; and offering the new investors an attractive way to defer and even offset capital gains taxes.

Ever since the Opportunity Zone program was announced two years ago, developers, investors and community development organizations have been trying to determine which other tax benefit programs, if any, fit comfortably within the same requirements and parameters.

We hear a lot of conversation these days about the social determinants of health: healthcare itself; education, personal and family stability, neighborhood and environmental safety and prosperity; and social and community context and commitment.

REAC inspections, the means by which the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Real Estate Assessment Center evaluates the fitness of HUD-subsidized housing, is being overhauled after 20-odd years.

“Our agency has no power to make people do anything. We can only convince through advocacy and stories,” says Rebecca Davis, deputy director of Boston’s Metropolitan Area Planning Council (MAPC).

“The housing crisis in many ways is worse than it’s ever been. We have a 7.5 million unit shortage for the lowest income group and it’s growing. More people are experiencing homelessness than ever before. There is an explosion of people suddenly homeless. In some communities on the West Coast, real estate prices are causing severe increases that affect everybody down the line.”

The New Markets Tax Credit (NMTC) program faces political pressure. It is being questioned in some circles as no longer being necessary, now that other Trump-era initiatives, such as Opportunity Zone investments, have been put in place.