Tax Credit Advisor Article Archives

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.

The Schleswig-Holstein question is socomplicated, only three men in Europe have ever understood it. One was Prince Albert, who is dead. The second was a German professor who became mad. I am the third … and I have forgotten all about it.
– Lord Palmerston (Prime Minister, 1855-65)

Sandeep Sood didn’t have to wait to replace the rusted, inefficient boiler at Jeffery Parkway – thanks to teamwork between developers, financers and energy experts.
“We were able to invest early in the process rather than later. That allowed us to make really significant changes upfront,” says Sood, project manager for Nautilus Investments at the Preservation Through Energy Efficiency Roadshow, held September 29 in Chicago.

In early October, the Department of Housing & Urban Development awarded its 2015 Choice Neighborhood Initiative Implementation Grants to projects in five cities—Atlanta, Kansas City, Memphis, Milwaukee and Sacramento. NH&RA members were awardees as developers or funders in each of the cities.

Whoever coined the phrase “no rest for the weary,” must have known someone trying to develop affordable housing, Gerry General mused as he left port for a Sunday afternoon sail. Lake Erie’s waters were a calm oasis for Gerry away from the frenetic pace of the office and Gerry had a lot on his mind.

It’s the silly season again! Both the Republican and Democratic parties have now held their first presidential debates, and, as promised, they have been very entertaining. Now that the 2016 presidential campaign is really picking up steam and the bizarre Game of Thrones continues to play out in the US House of Representatives (outcome very uncertain at the time that I am writing this month’s column), I think we can safely predict that Congress is unlikely to change course and start passing reams of legislation this political season.

Developers, like renown bank robber Willy Sutton, naturally go where the money is. Yet for far too long, one place they have not been able to go as a potentially huge source of money to create quality affordable housing has been health care. That may be changing, and for the better.