Tax Credit Advisor Article Archives

From flexible work schedules to “stay-on” bonuses and social media blitzes, property management companies and human resources officials are embracing innovative strategies to retain and hire employees at residential properties in the quirky, tight, pandemic labor market of 2021.

The United States, thanks to a combo of Coronavirus lockdowns, supply chain issues, tariffs and a rise in inflation, is seeing a spike in home material prices.

Never in my professional experience has a government defendant so cavalierly offered up a gratuitous admission against interest as did President Biden the day the Centers for Disease Control “independently” announced that it had miraculously discovered authority to reimpose a nationwide eviction moratorium.

Affordable housing owners and managers are working hard to help their tenants tap unused Federal Emergency Rental Assistance Program (ERAP) funds to stay current on rental payments, and many of them have been doing this since the program rolled out.

Where there’s a will there’s a way. A big senior affordable housing tower for sale near New York City and Newark, NJ generated a lot of interest in turning it into a market-rate project in a gentrifying neighborhood.

National Church Residences and FTK Construction Services are working on their second project together in Texas and have agreed to do a third. The two companies seem to have some items of philosophy in common that make for a productive partnership. Interviewed separately, they both say the same thing about the seniors living in the Low Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) development they are renovating in Richardson, a suburb of Dallas: They want the residents to be able to enjoy upgraded features and stay in their homes for life.

In the fall of 2019, Gilbert Winn, the CEO of Boston-based WinnCompanies, formed a task force to explore new ways to reduce eviction rates within the company’s affordable housing portfolio. Five months later COVID-19 hit, but the task force continued to meet and hash out ideas and best practices that would be refined throughout 2020.

Seems like I got a lucky draw when I was born in the United States, the wealthiest nation in the world. I was fortunate to be alive for the final Apollo mission when Americans last set foot on the surface of the moon. As a kid, I watched the first Space Shuttle launch in 1981 and with 135 missions over 30 years, they hardly made the news anymore by the time I was an adult.

A recent NH&RA presentation describes new and underutilized options for affordable home providers.

The planets are all lined up for tax-exempt affordable multifamily bonds right now, for both public offerings and private placements. That’s the unanimous conclusion reached by a panel on the Tax Exempt Multifamily Bond Market at the recent Summer Institute of the National Housing & Rehabilitation Association.

An egalitarian spirit of co-locating affordable renters in a development along with middle-income residents and market-rate occupants is a housing idea that is being seen more and more. One such effort is in Springfield, MA, where a rehab is underway to create revitalized housing for a population that includes all three types: affordable, workforce and market-rate renters.

For decades, racial discrimination has been a real problem in housing – both for those building it and those living in it. Reversing the trends that limit housing access, and spurring economic mobility, has become a salient goal for the affordable housing industry.