The last two posts have been about Embry’s career and raising our children. Before that I posted about my experience working for the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, working on the ill fated Seton Belt Village, an ambitious, proposed 3,500 unit “new town” in the Washington metro area, which did not move forward due to political opposition, but my experience was salvaged when the diocese was awarded HUD Section 202 financing for a 144-unit subsidized senior living community near the Kennedy Center in Foggy Bottom. That experience led to my being recruited by the largest affordable housing developer and syndicator in the country, the National Corporation for Housing Partnerships.
Bingo! Finally, a dream job! I reported to two very sharp guys about my age and who were very supportive of the work I was charged with doing. The primary role of the National Corporation for Housing Partnerships (also known as the “National Housing Partnership” or NHP) was to bring equity capital to the affordable housing industry by selling limited partnerships in multi-family, low income rental housing developments to investors seeking tax shelters. There was a staff of over a dozen associates in the firm whose job was to seek out developers all over the country who had been awarded HUD Section 8 contracts and then take over ownership as general partner, assume property management of the properties, and raise equity capital by selling limited partnership shares.
Section 8 was the federal housing program created in 1974 whereby HUD allowed private developers to charge market rents for affordable housing and provided the subsidies that covered the difference between what the low income tenant paid (25% of income, later increased to 30%) and the market rent for the unit. The Section 8 Program for new construction and substantial rehabilitation produced over a million new units before it started to be phased out on the early 1980s due to the high cost involved and changing politics in the country. (Beginning in the early 1980s, the program was changed so that the Section 8 subsidies could only be used for existing housing and was administered by local housing authorities).
The early program that was designed to produce more new affordable housing was a highly technical business that at NHP involved lawyers and accountants along with a team of experts, seeking out developers who had Section 8 contracts, matching them with high income investors, and providing equity financing. NHP was set up by an act of Congress as a public/private venture, led by a charismatic though cranky CEO with plenty of private sector finance experience, and functioned as a private company with the goal of remaining a going concern, in other words, making money. The informal motto of the company was “doing well by doing good.”
Before I was hired, however, NHP did not develop properties itself. Its primary clients were real estate developers who had managed to get Section 8 commitments and secure financing. I was hired to be the in-house developer. I loved the job. I had a staff of four people, all experienced and smart, who after the Section 8 new construction initiative terminated ended up having very successful careers in the affordable housing industry. Our job as the in-house developer at NHP was to do what all real estate and housing developers do—find and secure site control of suitable sites, hire architects and civil engineers, oversee the design process, battle NIMBYs, obtain permissive zoning, secure the HUD Section 8 commitments, close on the financing and monitor the construction and initial lease up. I found the work interesting, challenging, and rewarding. Over the four years that I worked for NHP, my team developed something like eight or nine properties containing close to a thousand units, located mainly in the Washington and Baltimore metro areas. I could not have asked for a better job. I gained the job training and experience that would open all sorts of other doors.
So why on Earth would I leave a dream job like that after being there for just under four years? Stay tuned for the next installment and find out.