Thomas Amdur Author Archives

The season of holiday parties and the last minute push to close transactions will keep us all busy this month. That’s right; we made it to the end of the year, mostly intact, and not a moment too soon. Frankly, after observing our political system in action this year (or, perhaps more accurately, inaction) I was not sure we were going to make it.

Since joining National Housing & Rehabilitation Association in 2004, sustainability in affordable housing has been my pet issue – a theme I’ve tried to raise in every conversation and initiative. I believe “green” development is the right thing to do: good for our residents, the environment, and the bottom line.

After an exhausting season of conference planning and advocacy, I took advantage of the summer Congressional recess to take a short vacation and recharge my batteries.

One is the growing awareness – in policy and practice – of the critical importance of resident services in rental housing developments to provide the residents with the tools for success and to build a sense of community.

As NH&RA’s Executive Director, I’ve enjoyed getting out of Washington and into the field periodically to learn about what our members are working on, the local challenges that they are facing, and the development opportunities that they are finding.

For those of us who live and work in Washington, D.C., the city exhales when members of Congress recess for the month of August to return to their districts and states to reconnect with voters.

This past month has taken me to Lansing, Los Angeles, Louisville, and Nashville and provided me the opportunity to meet with developers to try to put my finger on the pulse of our industry. Along the way, I’ve noticed a few trends and opportunities are apparent:

To paraphrase Mick Nelson, a policy analyst at the Tennessee Housing Development Agency and recent panelists at NH&RA’s 2013 Multifamily Housing Exchange, the housing market doesn’t work like an NFL draft – the households with the least resources and greatest challenges don’t get to choose their unit first. Whether it’s the senior living on a fixed-income, the wounded veteran transitioning back to civilian life, or the working class family living in a blighted neighborhood, the marketplace provides few options for the families and individuals served by our federal affordable housing programs.

While I often talk about public policy, one of my primary tasks as Executive Director of NH&RA is to identify new business opportunities for our members. Sometimes these opportunities manifest themselves in new programs enacted by Congress, innovative financing structures, or inefficiencies in the capital markets.

National Housing & Rehabilitation Association members have a reputation as the most innovative minds in affordable housing, historic preservation, and community development finance. I am constantly impressed by the creative strategies and structures that they use to combine and leverage a myriad of federal, state, and local grant, loan, and tax credit programs to finance their projects.

The passage of the American Taxpayer Relief Act (ATRA) in the final days of the 112th Congress was an important victory for affordable housing and new markets tax credit developers, professionals, and advocates around the country.

Sometimes it feels like our lives are a progression of acute crises. It is rare that an initiative or transaction goes exactly as planned, and in adversity it easy to lose sight of the big picture. As I write this column on December 12, the fiscal cliff looms ever closer and the Northeast begins the long recovery from Hurricane Sandy’s devastation.