Industry News

By Alan Mallach

People

Diane Sterner, executive director of the Housing and Community Development Network of New Jersey (HCDNNJ), has been named a 2005 James A. Johnson Community Fellow. Each year the Fannie Mae Foundation recognizes and rewards urban and rural affordable housing and community development professionals in the nonprofit sector for their service to the field. HCDNNJ is a statewide association of community-based development organizations, created to enhance the efforts of organizations that support affordable housing and community development, to build affordable housing and revitalize their communities and to improve the climate for community development in New Jersey. Sterner has worked in the community development field for more than 20 years. She serves on the board of the National Housing Institute and New Jersey Citizen Action. Other 2005 Fellows are: Ellen Baxter, executive director and founder, Broadway Housing Communities, New York, NY; Robert Calvillo, executive director, McAllen Affordable Homes, Inc., McAllen, TX; and Dee Walsh, executive director, REACH Community Development, Inc., Portland, OR.

Jan Breidenbach, executive director of the Southern California Association of Non-Profit Housing (SCANPH) since 1991, is retiring. SCANPH is a Los Angles-based, 550+ membership association dedicated to the production and preservation of affordable housing for low-income people. One of Breidenbach’s greatest achievements is the creation of Housing LA, a citywide campaign for a $100 million annual housing trust fund conceived in 1998 to address the problem of maintaining even minimal levels of city housing funding. Breidenbach also argued successfully for regional allocation of state housing funds for southern California. Before coming to SCANPH, Breidenbach was the founding executive director of the Coalition for Women’s Economic Development, a microenterprise nonprofit. She is a board member of the National Housing Institute.

Henry Allen is resigning after 15 years with the Hyams Foundation. Beginning in April, he will be the new executive director of the Discount Foundation, replacing Sue Chinn, under whose leadership Discount emerged as one of a small number of funders focused on helping the working poor build political power. Discount is strongly committed to supporting grassroots community organizing; labor, community and faith-based partnerships; and immigrant rights groups, as well as to working collaboratively with funding colleagues around the country.

Organizations & Initiatives

The Calvert Social Investment Foundation is now marketing its Community Investment notes through Incapital LLC’s more than 400 brokerages across the country. Over the past 10 years, Calvert lent over $250 million, helping generate 19,000 jobs, 6,800 affordable homes and 6,600 day care centers, health clinics and schools. Calvert anticipates that selling notes through Incapital’s network will triple the size of its portfolio. www.calvertfoundation.org

Seedco Financial Services (SFS), a $75 million multi-purpose economic assistance organization, has been established as an independent lending and small business institution. It is a spin-off of its parent entity, Seedco, a workforce and economic development organization based in New York City. SFS’s capital pool has expanded from $6.5 million to $75 million the past seven years. SFS has a broad range of lending programs for community organizations and small businesses, and it uses its institutional connection to Seedco to provide a range of services that ensure its loans are well-utilized by the borrower and contribute to the local economy. Organizational capacity-building services include training around business planning, hiring strategies and Seedco-sponsored workforce support programs.
www.seedco.org

Bank of America announced a $500,000 program-related investment in the Washington Area Housing Trust Fund (WAHTF) to spur affordable housing development in neighborhoods throughout greater Washington, D.C. The investment will enable WAHTF to finance affordable housing for more residents of the metropolitan region through pre-development and other short-term loans. The fund is able to offer loans at substantially below-market interest rates. Additional support for WAHTF comes from $900,000 in federal grants, support from the Fannie Mae Foundation and contributions from the Bank of America Foundation and other financial service company foundations.
www.wahtf.org

The Enterprise Community Partners awarded the Central City Concern (OR) and Home HeadQuarters (NY) the 2005 Jim and Patty Rouse Award for their work in providing affordable housing and supportive services to low-income communities. (Application deadline for 2006 awards is April 7.) www.centralcityconcern.org and www.homehq.org

The Housing Partnership Network was selected for the second straight year as a winner of the Fast Company/Monitor Group Social Capitalist Award, which honors “social entrepreneurs” that combine creativity and ingenuity with business solutions to address the most challenging social problems today. The Network has created a $30 million fund for pre-development and acquisition lending and a member-owned insurance company. Other winners included Network member New Community Corporation, as well as Calvert Social Investment Foundation and WITNESS. Finalists included Corporation for Enterprise Development, Corporation for Supportive Housing, Earned Assets Resource Network, Inc., Social Venture Partners and YouthBuild USA.
www.housingpartnership.net

The Enterprise Social Investment Corporation announced the winners of its first Innovative Venture Award. Top honors went to the Affordable Housing Associates (Berkeley, CA), the Cleveland Housing Network (OH) and the YWCA of the Hartford Region (CT).
www.enterprisecommunity.com

Alan Mallach, senior fellow of the National Housing Institute, is the author of many works on housing and planning, including Bringing Buildings Back and Building a Better Urban Future: New Directions for Housing Policies in Weak Market Cities. He served as director of housing and economic development for Trenton, N.J. from 1990 to 1999. He is also a fellow at the Center for Community Progress and the Brookings Institution.

Published by the National Housing Institute