Tax Credit Advisor Article Archives

This month in Tax Credit Advisor, we’re taking a look at resident services. “Two weeks to flatten the curve” has turned into 84 weeks, or a year-and-a-half. After a summer of optimism thanks to vaccines and falling COVID-19 cases and deaths, the virus came roaring back.

Mother Theresa once observed, “A life not lived for others is not a life.”

COVID-19 pushed affordable housing managers across the nation to expand resident services, change up service delivery methods and develop new partnerships – all changes that leaders in the space say are likely to stick around.

The human element is always going to be the most important factor in providing resident services, but technology is what helps a provider analyze and target services to achieve good metrics and even more importantly, useful results. National Church Residences has taken and run with this particular concept by designing its own in-house technology tool.

The last few years, America has seen increased interest in prefabricated housing construction, with materials produced and assembled off-site. The most innovative style within this construction subgenre has been 3D printing. While somewhat new and untested, the model is proving to reduce construction time and costs, making it worthy of consideration for affordable home developers.

There has been a recent debate, inside and out of the Low Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) community, about where affordable housing projects should be built. Following negative press from NPR and ProPublica showing how a majority of units were going into low-income areas, legislators have called for state qualified allocation plan (QAP) adjustments to award credits to developers who build in nicer areas. The thinking is that by placing LIHTC tenants in mid- or high-income areas, they will have better access to good schools, jobs and amenities.

In 1898, New York City hosted the first international conference of urban planners to tackle an urgent global crisis of health, congestion and overcrowding – what to do about the horses?

When Shawn Wilson, president of Blue Sky Communities, attended the recent ribbon cutting for the Clermont Ridge Senior Villas development in Clermont, FL, he saw something that made him think the seniors at the brand new development already felt at home. Many of them had put up wreaths on their front doors.

An ambitious joint venture is planning $2 billion in “middle-income” or workforce housing development in California. And in an unusual aspect of an effort that is targeting both new construction and existing housing, many of these middle-income workers will have units with luxury amenities.

In 2003, 13 of the largest nonprofit affordable housing providers, who today collectively manage 147,500 units, formed the Stewards of Housing for the Future (SAHF) to collaborate on best practices and advocate for change in Washington, DC and across the affordable housing ecosystem.

Autumn is a season of change. While many poets refer to spring as the season of rebirth, I tend to think of the fall more as the marking of a new life cycle. September has always been my favorite month, when the heat and humidity yield to cooler, drier air. It’s generally a much more pleasant time in my view. While spring is nice, it also marks the nearing of oppressive summer heat in the Washington, DC, area where I live.

September is always a busy month in DC, but this year is shaping up to be exceptionally so.