Bisnow The First Draft
— Mark F. Bonner, Jay Rickey, Catie Dixon and Kayla Carmicheal
That question is keeping developers up at night.
At least $60M in federal funding earmarked for affordable housing development has already been paused, and the $1B Green and Resilient Retrofit Program is on the chopping block.
Developers told Bisnow they fear LIHTC will no longer be a viable funding source, and some worry the board shake-ups at Fannie and Freddie this week, including FHFA Director Bill Pulte appointing himself as chairman of both, are the first step in big changes to how they underpin financing. A predicted 50% reduction in HUD’s workforce would likely slow the disbursement of what grants survive.
“I feel like there has to be a modern-day Underground Railroad for capital to projects to sustain us,” Massachusetts Housing Investment Corp. CEO Moddie Turay said at a Bisnow Boston event last week.
One private firm is stepping up — impact investor SDS Capital Group just launched a debt platform that aims to finance more than $1B of new affordable housing units in the next 18 months.