Tax Credit Advisor Article Archives

The New Markets Tax Credit Extension Act of 2015

At the beginning of my talk on leadership to NH&RA’s Next Generation Leadership group in November here in Boston, my glib self-description (“either the room’s youngest old person or its oldest young person”) unwittingly voiced a generational paradox of our industry: what seems to older executives a gray floor seems to their younger colleagues a gray ceiling.

At an old U.S. Army site in the Bronx, the Doe Fund Inc. is using millions of dollars from New Markets Tax Credits in a unique attempt to create new lives for New York City’s indigents.

It is no secret that there is a shortage of the creation and preservation of affordable housing units throughout the country which is an issue that needs to be addressed in every state. When most people think of states that struggle with very high housing costs and subsequent shortages of affordable housing, Tennessee is not the first state that comes to mind.

Happy Holidays. The end of each year is a reflective time and looking back over the past twelve months, it was a period of productive developments for NH&RA members and our industry at large.

The Community Development Financial Institution Fund (CDFI), which provides credit and financial services to underserved populations and oversees the distribution of New Markets Tax Credits, made a number of changes for the 2015 application round, the most significant being the imposition of restriction on the use of Qualified Low Income Community Investments (QLICI) proceeds.

At a stage where criticizing government as being dysfunctional and posting opinions have become our national pastimes, it is palliative to take a comprehensive look at the New Markets Tax Credits program as an antidote to cynicism and self-celebration.

In 2010, a team of ten 16- to 24-year-olds showed up with their tools at a two-story wood-framed building in Providence, Rhode Island. Led by a licensed general contractor, the young adults put skills they had recently learned to work. They mounted new cabinets and counters in the units’ kitchens, installed new vanities in the bathrooms, replaced exterior doors, and re-stained the property, which is owned and managed by The Community Builders.

“This is getting more and more difficult,” said Josh Anderson, Principal at Cedarbend Consulting, as he and other judges decided on the winners for his father’s namesake awards, the J. Timothy Anderson Awards for Excellence in Historic Preservation.

Despite having only four employees, Deb Koehler has achieved considerable success expanding access to affordable housing for seniors and working families in the Tampa Bay market.

Hometown love endures? Yes. And contributes to significant accomplishments.

During his playing days, Mo Vaughn, the 1995 American League MVP, was celebrated for his big bat and patrolling the first base side of the infield, at Fenway Park in Boston, Anaheim Stadium in California, and finally at Shea Stadium in Queens. But since his injury-mandated retirement in 2003, Vaughn has been dominating a substantially larger piece of real estate: the low-cost and affordable housing spheres of the Bronx, Brooklyn, and elsewhere.