NCSHA Recognizes Excellence in Housing Innovation

On October 6, the National Council of State Housing Agencies (NCSHA) announced their Annual Awards for Program Excellence to 16 state Housing Finance Agencies (HFAs) for developing innovative programs that bolster affordable housing in their respective states.

From programs that offer state tax credits for donating to affordable housing projects to human resource initiatives aimed at developing the next generation of affordable housing leaders, the honored programs leveraged creative thinking and knowledge of their respective states’ needs to craft unique strategies to meet the moment.

“At a time when housing affordability is a more pressing concern for more Americans than ever, this year’s award winners — and many other entries in the competition that didn’t win — represent a new level of leadership, innovation, and results from state housing finance agencies all across the country,” Stockton Williams, executive director of the National Council of State Housing Agencies, told Tax Credit Advisor via e-mail.

All told, 16 agencies were honored in seven categories: advocacy, communications, homeownership, management innovation, rental housing, special achievement, and special needs housing. NCSHA announced the awards at its 2025 Annual Conference, held this year in New Orleans, Louisiana.

TCA spoke to three of this year’s award winners to find out how they enacted their programs and to glean lessons that can be used by other affordable housing practitioners nationwide.

Management Innovation Award for Human Resources: Virginia’s Housing Fellows Program
Anticipating an increasing gap in its state’s affordable housing talent pool due to a wave of baby boomer retirements, Virginia Housing in 2023 launched its Virginia Housing Fellows Program in 2023. The two-year, full-time salaried program trains up “high-potential early career” individuals with the hope that the fellows then go on to work in other affordable housing associations in Virginia.

“We were getting feedback from a lot of our partners that it was hard to find people that were interested in nonprofit work, and specifically in housing,” explains Maria Pruner, associate chief of operations at Virginia Housing. “And there were a lot of retirements. So, our partners were saying – ‘We can’t attract the needed talent in the next generation.’”

Pruner says that Virginia Housing then got to work developing a program that could build a talent pipeline that could feed the state’s broader housing ecosystem. “We want to be the incubator to plant those seeds,” she says.

The first year of the program took place in 2023 with four fellows. Chosen through a rigorous application process, the fellows joined Virginia Housing’s in-house Emerging Leaders Program, which trains selected associates already working for Virginia Housing.

The selected fellows then work in areas such as paths to homeownership, rental development, and community outreach. In addition to the educational programming, the housing fellows were also given entry level jobs within Virgina Housing in one of four divisions – programs, legal, finance, and operations – and received career support in things like interviewing and resume writing. During their second year of the fellowship, they were embedded in other nonprofit partner housing agencies and programs in the state.

“They all found gainful employment after the program,” explains Michelle Prosser, director of talent development and learning for Virginia Housing. “Three found employment external to Virginia Housing and one actually came to Virginia Housing.”

Applicants to the fellows program must have a bachelor’s degree, preferably in community planning and development, business administration, communications, or equivalent work experience.

A new cohort of fellows is already in place at Virginia Housing.

“Our fellows program equips the next generation of affordable housing leaders with impactful, real-world work experience,” Tammy Neale, Virginia Housing’s CEO, said via e-mail.

Special Achievement Award: Minnesota Housing’s Tax Credit Program
In late 2023, Minnesota Housing launched the Minnesota State Housing Tax Credit (SHTC) and Contribution Fund, an innovative program that allows residents to receive a state tax credit for donating to either specific affordable housing projects or a general fund for affordable housing. The program has been a huge success. In 2024 it fully depleted its annual program cap of $11.6 million in contributions and $9.9 million in tax credits. Its 2025 limit already has been reached.

“People are really excited that they can choose where their tax dollars go and to see the impact in their own communities,” explains Krissi Mills, State Housing Tax Credit program manager. “They can drive by and say, ‘I contributed to that project,’ or ‘I helped put solar panels on that building.’ It’s meaningful for people to see the difference their contributions make right where they live.”

Eligible taxpayers can contribute from $1000 to $2 million to the Contribution Fund. The money can be used for new construction, rehabilitation, or permanent financing and stabilization for affordable housing in the state. A taxpayer then receives a tax credit certificate for 85 percent of the amount of the contribution to file with their state taxes.

Officials with the program say that the vast majority of donors choose to direct their donation to a specific project rather than the general contribution fund.

The program began in October 2023 and garnered $6.9 million in donations, but in the two months of operation did not reach its annual cap of $9.9 million in state tax credits. In 2024, its first full year of operation, 532 donations totaled $11.6 million, reaching the subsequent cap of $9.9 million in state tax credits. By March of 2025, the program was fully subscribed for the year, reaching its annual cap. In total, over its less than two full years of operation, taxpayers have contributed $30 million through about 1,100 separate contributions supporting more than 70 projects.

According to NCSHA, the cost to Minnesota is solely in the uncaptured revenue of the tax credits; the program does not rely on new money spent. The program is currently authorized to run through 2028.

Developers need to meet certain criteria and apply to the state to receive the funds, but projects can be wide ranging. For example, one local nonprofit — Project for Pride in Living — leveraged the program to receive over $400,000 from 47 individual donors for Opportunity Crossing, a 110-unit affordable housing development in Minneapolis’s Powderhorn community. Opportunity Crossing, which opened October 24, replaces a former Wells Fargo branch that had been destroyed during the 2020 unrest following George Floyd’s murder. According to the developer, the SHTC Contribution Fund dollars helped plug a growing financing gap early in the project, allowing construction to commence in the first quarter of 2024.

Rental Housing Award for Supporting Property Management and Renter Needs: Montana Board of Housing’s Fair Market Rent Reevaluation Survey
Like many places in the United States, Montana has experienced skyrocketing rents and housing prices since the pandemic. In Montana, however, the 2023 U.S. Department of Housing and Redevelopment’s (HUD) published Fair Market Rents (FMR), upon which voucher payment standards are set, was not accurately reflecting the real costs of rental housing, Montana leaders said. So, the Montana Housing Division with the Montana Department of Commerce set out to conduct its own statewide FMR reevaluation survey.

“It seemed that our actual asking rents throughout communities in Montana were quite different than what HUD was publishing for fair market rents,” explains Cheryl Cohen, executive director of the Montana Board of Housing, administratively attached to the Montana Department of Commerce.

The discrepancy between HUD’s fair market rent assessment and Montana’s rent prices in many communities was creating a problem in tenant-based housing voucher programs administered by public housing authorities across the state.

“We were issuing vouchers to families who had been waiting months or years for a voucher to achieve greater housing stability. Unfortunately, in some cases, when families shopped on the open market for housing in Montana, they weren’t able to find a rental home within our voucher payment standards,” Cohen explains. “To us, that was just an extreme travesty and we needed to do something about it.” Indeed, only 48 percent of voucher recipients were able to successfully lease a unit within 120 days of issuance.

Thus, Montana set out to conduct its own FMR survey, thinking some rural areas were more difficult to accurately calculate using the federal government’s prescriptive methodology. They sent out a request for proposals through the Montana Department of Commerce for a firm to conduct the survey. They selected Econometrics, Inc., which sent out a survey to more than 100,000 renters throughout the state. Up to $1 million was authorized by the state’s Behavioral Health System for Future Generations Commission and Governor Gianforte for the survey but ultimately just $316,000 was spent, leaving nearly $700,000 for other critical behavioral health initiatives.

The survey determined that the state’s 40^th percentile rent for FY 2025 was $375 more than median state nonmetropolitan HUD rent for FY 2025 and $634 more than the media U.S. nonmetropolitan HUD FY 2025 rent. On March 28, 2025 the federal register was updated with the new FMR amounts, creating an average increase across the state of about 14 percent.

Fair Market Rents are also factored into HUD’s calculation for Housing Choice Voucher annual budget authority. With the revised FMRs, the 2025 budget authority for housing authorities across Montana increased by 45 percent, or nearly $20 million. For the statewide public housing authority in the Montana Housing Division, the state’s budget increased to $31 million from $19.5 million in 2024. Montana public housing authorities are now working briskly to issue vouchers and support lease-ups for families struggling with housing stability, including households with a range of behavioral health needs. Their goal is to both expend and maintain this increased budget authority going forward.