April 30, 2025 • 32 mins
The CDFI Fund is a proven driver of affordable housing in every state—red and blue alike. But now, this vital source of financing is at risk of federal cuts. In this episode, we highlight a project in Nashville, Tennessee, made possible by BlueHub Capital, a community development financial institution based in Massachusetts.
In today's episode, we speak to Oscar Perry Abello, the author of "The Banks We Deserve," and with Karen Kelleher, president of the BlueHub Loan Fund, which recently helped finance a project in Nashville that converted two abandoned motels into affordable studio apartments. It's just one example of how community development financial institutions (or CDFIs) step in all overt the country, in red states and blue states, where big banks usually won’t.
It's also the sort of project that would be harder to finance if the Trump administration gets its wish to eliminate the CDFI Fund, the federal grant program that helps fund and support more than 1,400 CDFIs around the country. (Read our analysis of Trump's executive order on the CDFI Fund and what it means.)
“The market is profit-driven and, to be honest, it's expensive to build housing,” says Kelleher, whose team makes about 30 loans a year to fund innovative projects like the adaptive reuse project in Tennessee. “The kinds of deals that we support…don't often pencil out without subsidy. That might be tax credits, it might be grants, it might be state funds, it might be local funds.”
Making the math work can lead to transactions that are complex, risky – and unpalatable for many market-rate lenders. That's where CDFIs come in.“We and other mission-driven lenders and CDFIs really make it our business to understand those tools, those models,” Kelleher says. “We find ways to structure our financing so we can take risks and be at the table with the community or the developer who's trying to make something happen that the market won't make happen.”
In today's episode, we speak to Oscar Perry Abello, the author of "The Banks We Deserve," and with Karen Kelleher, president of the BlueHub Loan Fund, which recently helped finance a project in Nashville that converted two abandoned motels into affordable studio apartments. It's just one example of how community development financial institutions (or CDFIs) step in all overt the country, in red states and blue states, where big banks usually won’t.
It's also the sort of project that would be harder to finance if the Trump administration gets its wish to eliminate the CDFI Fund, the federal grant program that helps fund and support more than 1,400 CDFIs around the country. (Read our analysis of Trump's executive order on the CDFI Fund and what it means.)
“The market is profit-driven and, to be honest, it's expensive to build housing,” says Kelleher, whose team makes about 30 loans a year to fund innovative projects like the adaptive reuse project in Tennessee. “The kinds of deals that we support…don't often pencil out without subsidy. That might be tax credits, it might be grants, it might be state funds, it might be local funds.”
Making the math work can lead to transactions that are complex, risky – and unpalatable for many market-rate lenders. That's where CDFIs come in.“We and other mission-driven lenders and CDFIs really make it our business to understand those tools, those models,” Kelleher says. “We find ways to structure our financing so we can take risks and be at the table with the community or the developer who's trying to make something happen that the market won't make happen.”
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Straw Hut Media.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
We're not about the politics, We're about the people. The
affordable housing we create with subsidies is not fixing the
fundamental economic problem that housing is not affordable. It is,
you know, sort of carving out affordability in a market
with subsidies. So I think there's a lot of awareness
(00:33):
of the problem. It's affecting a lot more people. That's unfortunate,
but it does lead to political change that leads to
structural change.
Speaker 3 (00:41):
This is Lucas Grinley from Next City, a show about
change makers and their stories. Truth is, there are solutions
for the problems of pressing people in cities. If you're listening,
I hope it's because you want to spread good ideas
from one city to the next city. Community development financial Institutions,
or CDFIs are behind some of the most creative solutions
to the affordable housing shortage, but right now, along with
(01:04):
so many other federal programs, CDFIs are under threat. Even
though Congress approved three hundred and twenty four million dollars
this year for the CDFI fund and President Trump signed
that budget into law, the White House issued an executive
order immediately afterward calling for the elimination of the CDFI
Fund wherever possible under the law. The order set off
(01:27):
confusion and alarm across the banking industry, even among bipartisan supporters. Today,
we're talking with Karen Kelleher from Blue Hub Capital. She's
president of the Blue Hub Loan Fund, and her team
recently helped finance a project in Nashville that turned two
abandoned motels into affordable apartments, an example of how CDFIs
step in all over the country and red states and
(01:48):
blue states where big banks usually will not. We'll talk
about how projects like that are pieced together, what happens
when funding is threatened, and why the housing crisis demands
creative solutions than ever. But first, let's check in with
Oscar Periobello, Next City's senior Economic Justice correspondent and the
author of the new book The Banks We Deserve to
help us understand why cdfies matter and what we risk losing.
Speaker 4 (02:18):
So what's happening is On March fourteenth, the White House
issued in an executive order targeting the CDFI Fund and
several other agency, the Minority Business Development Agency and others
or elimination quote unquote to the maximum extent consistent with
applicable law, which is the really weird thing. It's like, okay,
we're going to eliminate all the things that these agencies
(02:39):
are doing that for which there is no congressional law
that says you must do this thing. They gave the
secretaries responsible or the administrators responsible for each agency seven
days to write a memo explaining, here are the statutes
that authorize what we're doing, and here's our plan to
reduce our staffing to what is statutorily required. And so
(03:05):
seven days later, the Sectuary of the Treasury stottbust And
issued a one page memo explaining, here's all the things
that Cdafive Fund does, and here are all the laws
that authorize what it's doing. And we are currently staffed
at our statutory you know, minimum minimum.
Speaker 3 (03:23):
We're at the minimum now, which is why you're so confusing, Right,
it comes down to this is very confusing. But the
intention that was set by the executive order and the
signal sent out to all these people who work in
community development is the Trump administration, or at least President Trump,
would like to seek their elimination.
Speaker 4 (03:43):
Oh, the message is concerning, and it's also consistent with
the Trump's first administration. In the first several budgets that
the Trump administration attempted to propose to Congress the first
time around in twenty sixteen seventeen eighteen, those budgets all
kid seen zero dollars for the cdf so they tried
that route, but the CDFI industry and the banking industry
(04:04):
were able to beat that back and keep the funding,
protect the funding byparts. This would be a bypars and budgets.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
At the past.
Speaker 3 (04:15):
You wrote an entire book about community banks. A lot
of CDFIs included in that. What's an example from a
red state where a CDFI is doing work in the
community and maybe people wouldn't even know that, Oh, that's
a CDFI.
Speaker 4 (04:32):
Yeah, so let's think of one like People Trust Community
Federal Credit Union in Little Rock, Arkansas. So Arkansas, red state.
It may be a bluish area, purple ish area, but
it's not a very largely populated city even though it's
a city. It's capital Little Rock, Arkansas. But yeah, this
is a CDFI that emerged out of a barber named
(04:54):
Arla Washington was just making loans to his clients. He
opened up a barber's school. He's making loans out of
his own pocket to the alumni with barber school. And
eventually he got that entity in U Street, he incorporated
a nonprofit entity, and that entity eventually got certified as
(05:14):
a CDFI, a Community development financial institution, and just started
making loans. And you know for the folks who are
get taking out the loans themselves. You know the clients
that people trust had all around the little Rock, Arkansas.
It's not necessarily true that they all know that everyone
knows who the CDFI is. Not necessarily sure that you
need to know that CDFIs exist in order to be
(05:36):
a beneficiary of it. There are about fourteen hundred certified
CDFIs across the entire country, and about half of them
are banks and credit unions, community banks, credit unions. You
may bank at at one of these institutions that not
even realized it.
Speaker 3 (05:53):
I remember that story about our Low Washington den and Arkanitas.
We talked to him for next sitting and yeah, a
lot of people just know him as the guy who
owns the local barber college and now the guy who
runs my credit union. Right, where do you come down
on this debate around our CDFIs and the CDFI Fund.
(06:16):
This money that's coming from the federal government to Harlow
Washington and many other people in their organizations. Is that
a form of investment by the federal government or it
seems like it's being attacked because it's viewed as a
form of subsidy of some kind.
Speaker 4 (06:34):
I mean, it's definitely an investment if you think about
how the organizations where the money goes generally grow use
that money for growth purposes, to become larger institutions, to
invest in technology, or invest in staffing, and invest in
all the other things you need to actually run a
local financial institution. You know. That's the thing about the
(06:57):
CDFI Fund. One of the things that makes it so
unique versus other federal grant programs is that, you know,
in the typical federal grant program, you have to say,
here's what we want to use the money for, and
then if you get awarded the grant, you have to
send in their receipts to actually get the money. So
we're going to use the money to do ABCDEFG And
(07:18):
when you do A send them their seats for A
and then you get reimbursed for A and then b
in the CDEFG. The CDFI fund doesn't work that way.
First of all, the money comes in upfront, comes in
one big lump sum, one big check, gets wired into
the organization's bank account, or if it is a banker
credit union, gets wired into the organization's account of the
Federal Reserve, and then you basically do whatever you need
(07:43):
to do should grow the institution's impact. Instead of saying
you're going to do ABCDFG, you tell the CDFI fund,
here are the communities we serve, Here's how we plan
to serve them over the next three to five years.
Here's how we plan to grow. Here's here's where we
think we'll be in five years, three years from now.
(08:04):
You know, here's our strategic plan. Here's our track record
up to this point. It's more of an investment the
way like an investor makes an investment, because once you
get approved for that CDFI funds investments, you get the money,
it shows up in your accounts, and then you go
off and do the thing. You don't have to submit
anything for reimbursements. This is very unique and it's very
(08:24):
intentionally designed by the credit unions and community banks who
initially thought of the idea for the CDFI fund, and
so it was designed by them, and to the extent
that some of them have got it, they've used it
to grow and become reliable, safe, adaptive, responsive local financial
(08:44):
institutions in communities across the country, Red states and Blue states,
rural areas, urban areas. One of the way I would say,
like archetype cdfives, one of the CDFIs that all the
other CDFIs look up to. It's called Hope Hope Credit
Union and Hope Enterprise Corporation, happily named named based in Jacksonsissippi,
but they have branches all over the Delta. They have
branches in Memphis, they have a branch in New Orleans.
(09:06):
These are all Red states. They're providing financial services to
places where like it had been a Mississippi on the
edge of the Mississippi Delta. There's one surcharge free ATM
in town, and I sat across from that branch for
an hour and watched, like every two minutes someone pulls
up and uses that ATM. That's the kind of institution
(09:28):
that we're talking about when we're talking about CDFIs.
Speaker 3 (09:34):
The story of people's trust is in your book the
banks we deserve hope. Credit Union though, is not. So
what is it that all these other CDFIs look up
to hope for.
Speaker 4 (09:45):
For the fact that it's, you know, a member owned institution,
community driven, member owned. It does everything right again, not
just loans, but financial counseling, homeowner counseling. It has branches.
And also the fact that the credit union and the
CDFI entity. You know, there's two entities there, a nonprofit
(10:08):
CDFI entity and a credit union, and they work together
and they compliment each other in ways that other CDFIs
don't realize until later that it works better when you
when you have both sides. If you have these deposits,
if you're taking these posits from the community, that's the
pathway to scale. That's how really how you grow to
the point where you can do the things that you
(10:32):
that the communities actually need. You've got to have deposits
in your institution. You can't. You can't just rely on
flanthropy or or or corporations or or public or whatever
you have to. You have to combine. You have to
combine all of it.
Speaker 3 (10:47):
I feel like the case that you're making is almost
more relevant now that in this turmo that's happening even
though you wrote the book before, you know, the Trump
administration took office. But this case that you're making that
CDFIs would be more powerful and also more sustainable if
they had taken advantage of deposits. I mean, right now,
(11:13):
with their funding being threatened repeatedly, it feels like that
would be one way to ensure that you know, they're
going to be resilient no matter what. And I know
you talk to the CDFI leaders and they say, if
we were to lose this money, it would be bad,
but we would also we'd still be around.
Speaker 4 (11:28):
Yeah, I think it becomes more powerful or even more
relevant now. And I wasn't sure it would it would
it would pan out this way, but I guess yeah,
when I wrote the book, I mean I already knew
what I knew. I learned what I learned about the
banking system and why I'm more locally owned, locally controlled
(11:50):
backing system is just better at dealing with the problems
that we need to deal with as a country. And
I think what these short few months has only been
a few months, right, it's able twenty first we're talking
with this when we're recording this interview February March April,
(12:11):
three months one quarter basically, right. I think the way
it's kind of panning out is that people are looking
for how to start building power at the local level
from the ground up. They're looking for ways to kind
(12:33):
of say, like, you know, this is who we are
as a community, this is what we believe in. This
is who we believe and we believe in each other,
and we want a way to stans that belief in
each other into an economy and the financial system that
works for all of us. Because clearly whatever path we've
(12:56):
been on for the past forty years been the wrong path.
We allowed this banking system to fall into the hands
of so few institutions, like four banks now control about
half the banking system, four these four banks. Forty years ago,
these four banks controlled six percent of the banking system.
(13:18):
We had a much more locally owned, locally controlled, geographically
dispersed banking system. And that dispersion of the banking system
is also a dispersion of power.
Speaker 3 (13:27):
Yeah, what you're prescribing in the book is a way
for communities to empower themselves but also to protect themselves.
Like if people are looking at what's happening in the
federal government now and thinking that they have some dread
going on. This could be one way if we were
to reimagine the way that banks are working locally, that
you could retain and preserve and grow local power.
Speaker 4 (13:50):
Yeah. I mean one example that did make it into
the book, because I didn't do the story until earlier
this year. It was about Texas National Bank. This is
the CDFI certified bank right on the book order in
the Rio Grande Valley. So this is like McCallan, Brownsville,
Harlan jan Edinburgh, Rio Grand Valley, So the very very
southern tip of Texas, almost more than a hundred years old.
(14:13):
Now Hispanic owned the bank, one of the oldest Hispanic
own banks in the country. They figured out a way
to build housing that's affordable and the right size for
the families that they're trying to serve out there. Like
I talked to the one home owner in the story.
She was like, all the homes for sale were like
just too big for me. I'm a single mother. I
don't need a giant house. I just need a small,
(14:34):
like stable place to live that's not too far from work.
He's like I couldn't find that until the bank figured
out a way to build it themselves using the contexts
that they had in the community. They were able to
do all of that without federal funding, which you know,
in some ways it's frustrating because federal funding could make
(14:58):
it easier for the bank to do this work, and
this work should be easier, but it's not there right now,
and so but it shouldn't stop the work. That's really
you know, some of the power of these institutions, for
these community bands, of these credit unions that I'm talking here,
they're like, yeah, I mean, the CDFI Fund will help
(15:19):
us do more, but we're not going to stop us
if it goes if there's some chaos there for a
year or two because of what's happened, it'll slow us down,
but it's not going to stop us because we don't
really have a choice. There are no other financial institutions
doing this work in these neighborhoods.
Speaker 3 (15:37):
After the break, we'll meet Karen kellerher president of the
Blue Help Loan Fund. She's from one of these institutions,
and what makes their work special is it's helping make
affordable housing happen in places all across the country where
the traditional market says it's not possible. Welcome back to today.
(16:01):
We're talking about CDFI's and how they work across the
country in red states and blue states, and we're about
to learn about how even a CDFI and a blue
state can help out a project in Nashville that needed
funding to convert two aging motels into affordable studio apartments.
Local lenders weren't interested. They were more comfortable financing high
end new construction. That's where the Blue Hub Loan Funds
(16:23):
stepped in. Based in Rock Spray, Massachusetts, Blue Hub has
invested over one hundred and fifty million dollars there in
affordable housing, healthcare, education, and more. But in recent years
they've expanded because there are underserved communities everywhere across our country,
including places like Nashville, where flexible financing can make all
the difference. Here is Karen kelleher, president of the loan fund.
Speaker 2 (16:50):
I do think we're not necessarily you're out of the
box CDFI. We were originally Boston Community Capital. We are
and have been for decades based in Roxbury, Massachusetts, which
is a low income community in Boston. And so you
know a decade or two ago, Blue Hub, you know,
started to grow. We are in twenty three states in
(17:15):
the District of Columbia, and deals are really different in
different places. And these ones in Nashville that you've focused
on are really interesting. I've never developed, I've never worked
on anything like them, and that they are motels, you know,
from a bygone era that have been repurposed for the
needs of the specific community that they are located in.
Speaker 1 (17:37):
And they are mixed income, right.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
They have some deed restricted affordable housing units and some
more sort of workforce level, but they're small units that
are there to meet the workforce needs of that community.
The downtown areas being built out by the market players.
As you said, this is a little further afield, but
still you know, really close to downtown and available for
(18:00):
that are you know, flocking to new jobs that are
happening in Nashville because it is striving economically, but the
people who want to participate in that economy need an
affordable place to live.
Speaker 1 (18:11):
They're kind of.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
Cool looking too. They're very sort of retro, kind of
mid century modern trendy.
Speaker 3 (18:18):
Right they are. Yeah, I sell photos. It took two years,
I guess from the time that the developers in Nashville
closed on the purchase of the property to actually wrapping
up construction at least on the first motel to apartments
called the Wilder and still adaptive reuse of scene is
the faster way to get to affordable housing than you know,
(18:39):
starting from scratch essentially, What do you think about this
as a trend, not only adaptive reuse but motel conversions,
because we've been talking about motil conversions. I feel like
at least since the pandemic, there was a large push
for it, right, and I wonder, you know, a few
years into it, do we think this is lasting.
Speaker 1 (18:57):
I think it's very place.
Speaker 2 (19:01):
We haven't seen an influx of a lot of deals.
We have actually sought to promote this deal so people
could see what's possible or these two deals.
Speaker 1 (19:11):
I think adaptive reuse.
Speaker 2 (19:13):
Is so local, right, and there are global trends that
make this. I think the era of the greatest need
for adaptive reuse, certainly in my lifetime, technology has changed
so much about the way we live in the way
we use real estate, right, and so technology changed where
(19:34):
we shopped and that puts, you know, main street businesses
at risk. Technology made it possible for white collar workers
to work from home. For us to do this podcast
remotely sitting in very different places. That means we don't
need the buildings that we used to do office work
and meet in person, and those buildings are increasing, you know,
(19:57):
heavily in downtown areas are the economic heart of larger communities,
and the vacancies in those buildings threaten the economy and
many of the major players who've invested in those buildings,
which have been safe investments for decades. Cities are trying
to get creative to take the space that was used
(20:20):
for one thing and turn it into something else and
respond to the current need. And in almost every place
that current need is housing, more housing and more affordable housing.
So we get excited about adaptive reuse, mostly because it's
meaning that critical need, but also focusing on trying to
(20:41):
revive communities where there is distress because there's an asset
that's not being used. We've funded schools in malls because
malls increasingly are not where people are doing their shopping.
We have funded you know, well, this is more typical
of the kind of historic adaptive reuse we've done before.
(21:01):
But you know, the city hall being turned into housing
because it's a bigger need for housing in.
Speaker 1 (21:05):
The downtown than that building.
Speaker 2 (21:09):
I find the unique examples of it some of the
more fund puzzles.
Speaker 1 (21:13):
That we get to work with developers to put together.
Speaker 3 (21:21):
You are rooted in Roxbury, the Boston area and still
serving the community there. And then, like you say, there
are communities everywhere in the country that have these needs
around affordable housing and more that the Loan Fund can
help with. One of the developers in Nashville told our
reporter that a local Nashville lender is more comfortable lending
(21:42):
money to build a brand new high end development, and
he said when he told the lenders that he wanted
to turn a motel into apartments, the door would shut.
So you do more than thirty loans to projects like
this every year all over the country, Red States, Blue States, Massachusett,
it's Tennessee, everywhere. So what is it you're looking for?
(22:03):
And is that kind of what you hear?
Speaker 2 (22:05):
A lot? The market is profit driven, and to be honest,
it's expensive to build housing. It's incredibly expensive. It varies
by market, but it's expensive everywhere, and so pricing that
housing to make a reasonable profit means you're in a
market that is not the people that we serve. Generally,
(22:26):
we have a crisis across America, and it's not limited
to cities. It's in rural areas. It's not limited to
blue states or red states. It's almost everywhere. The cost
of housing is unreachable for lower income people and increasingly
moderate income people in our communities. It's, you know, I think,
(22:47):
now being recognized as a crisis. And I've been working
in housing for I don't want to say how many years,
long enough that we used to wish it was a
political issue. It's a political issue now, and it's not
for the reasons we'd hoped. It's because the crisis has
gotten worse and crept up the income scale into the
middle income, and so in places that used to be affordable,
(23:12):
people who've raised a family, their children can't afford to
live there anymore. They bought a home, their children can't
buy a home. In low income communities, gentrification is happening
and the people who you know are the heart of
that community are being pushed out. So we are a
useful partner in markets that may not be our home.
And it's in part because the kinds of deals that
(23:35):
we support often require subsidy. Right, we talked about how
they're affordable housing, and some of the other kinds of
assets we support, they don't often pencil out without subsidy.
That might be tax credits, it might be grants, it
might be state funds, it might be local funds. These
result in incredibly complicated transactions. There are risks associated with
(23:58):
them that are not typically under by market rate lenders,
and so we and other mission driven lenders CDFIs really
make it our business to understand those tools, those models.
We find ways to structure our financing so we can
take risk and be at the table with the community
or the developer who's trying to make something happen in
(24:20):
the market.
Speaker 4 (24:21):
Won't make happen.
Speaker 3 (24:26):
What I hear you saying is that like the market
will support and is interested in supporting these new luxury developments.
The market's there for that. And you said the market
won't make happen these other deals that are more about
affordable housing, and that's the case all over the country.
What do you think about CDFI's role in the solution
(24:48):
across the country to the housing crisis.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
Yeah, I think CDFIs have played an increasingly critical role
in working with local partners who are trying to rest
the crisis in their community. I don't see the need
for that going away. I would love to think that
there is a market solution that's going to you know,
our jobs should be to work ourselves out of a job.
(25:13):
I wish I could say I was worried about that.
There's not you know, and increasingly we have to advocate,
you know, for the resources that are critical to make
these deals pencil because without them that it doesn't happen.
Without a loan income housing tax credit. A lot of
the affordable housing that's been created over the last well
we can go back to nineteen eighty six, it would
not have been developed. The creativity is actually incredibly impressive.
(25:40):
It's really fun if you like, you know, complex transactions.
We don't ever get bored. There's always something new to learn,
you know. We have worked with a number of states
that have state low income housing tax credit programs, and
a couple of states have just added I just learned
recently that Rhode Island has added a state loancome housing
tax credit. Looking forward to playing with that. It's I
(26:02):
guess a professional hazard that you become like a puzzle.
Speaker 3 (26:06):
Yeah, a puzzle to put together all the different sources
of money and subsidy that can make affordable housing construction possible.
Speaker 2 (26:13):
But yeah, and I wouldn't say that banks don't come
to the table for affordable housing transactions. They do, and
in fact, in part due to the long coome housing
tax credit, there is a market for affordable housing lending
and investment, and their affordable housing projects once they're built, constructed,
and leastuff, they're really quite stable. There's very little market
(26:35):
risk because there's a crisis and there's a very very
very long waiting list for most affordable housing in most communities.
Speaker 3 (26:42):
The affordable housing crisis isn't just a big city problem.
It affects communities everywhere in every state. After the break,
we'll talk with Karen about the tools communities are using
to create affordable housing and why protecting them is more
important than ever. Welcome back to next city. We've talked
(27:06):
about how many moving parts need to align in order
to make affordable housing happen. There are dozens of federal
and state programs that help build the gaps, from block
grants to housing tax credits, and every affordable housing project
relies on some patchwork of these tools. Now, Karen's going
to walk us through the tools that are working, where
she sees some real momentum and what gives her hope
(27:29):
that change is possible. I want to ask you, because
you would be someone really close to the problem and
to the solutions, how all of us should be feeling
about the fact that, yeah, it wasn't seen as a
political crisis until I don't know, somewhat relatively recently, the
(27:49):
housing crisis, And yeah, you can't see the moment in
which you're going to be working yourself out of the job, right,
that's not in a foreseeable future. And I'm not sure
how we should feel about whether or not it's getting
closer or much further away. Like, how do you feel
about the housing crisis right now?
Speaker 2 (28:10):
I feel optimistic, but might be because it's my nature.
Right There are sometimes things that have some negative economic
impacts have some positive ones too, So there's some softening
of housing markets that might lead to some movement in affordability.
(28:31):
I don't think we're poised on the precipice of solving
the problem. I do see really interesting things happening in
a lot of places right We see zoning reform happening
in a lot of communities where zoning has been a
barrier to building multi family housing. We see bipartisan support
for affordable housing financing almost across the country. And I
(28:55):
know we're in uncertain times now, and you know, those
of us who use those resources are geared up to
be prepared to talk with Congress about how important those
tools are. But that is a group that comes from
every state in the country. And we're not about the politics,
We're about the people. The affordable housing we create with
(29:17):
subsidies is not fixing the fundamental economic problem that housing
is not affordable. It is, you know, sort of carving
out affordability in a market with subsidies. So I think
there's a lot of awareness of the problem. It's affecting
a lot more people, that's unfortunate, but it does lead
(29:37):
to political change that leads to structural change.
Speaker 3 (29:41):
Yeah, I would never diminish the importance of you know,
local distinctions between communities that, yeah, everybody has a different
situation happening, but at the same time, we're all in
the same affordable housing crisis. And yeah, lulls are being
used less and office space is being used less all
over the country, and the tools for solving it are
(30:03):
very similar, if not the same, everywhere you look. And
I do wonder how we get everybody feeling like they're
in this together, right, because it doesn't often feel like that. Now,
what do you see as what needs to happen?
Speaker 1 (30:24):
You ask hard questions?
Speaker 2 (30:26):
Oh good, I feel like that question might be above
my pay grade, It may be above everyone's page.
Speaker 3 (30:33):
It's a hard one, right, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1 (30:34):
Yeah, it's hard. You know.
Speaker 2 (30:38):
I like to think about it from the role that
I play, right, which is trying to show up and
help communities build what they need. That's the case for
people who think real differently, who live in really different
places and where I personally live. You know, we financed
a really cool deal in Augusta, Georgia called Freedom's Path.
(30:59):
It's a adaptive reuse of a vacant VA like Veterans
Administration structure into affordable, supportive rental housing and that will
serve it'll have a leasing preference formerly hopeless veterans. That's
what's needed in that community in Augusta, Georgia, which is
a really different place.
Speaker 1 (31:20):
Than where I might sit.
Speaker 2 (31:21):
While I'm figuring out how to onderate that loan and
help make it happen. That's how we bridge it. Like,
we show up and we do stuff together and for us,
we do what's important to the community.
Speaker 3 (31:33):
Yeah, keep showing up, I think is how we'll get
there eventually. Thanks Karen, Thank.
Speaker 1 (31:39):
You appreciate the conversation.
Speaker 3 (31:56):
We hope you enjoyed this episode of Next City, a
show about chains and their stories. Together we can spread
good ideas from one city to the next city. Thanks
for listening this week. Thank you to our guest Karen Kelleher.
She's the president of Blue Help Loan Fund. Thank you
to Next City's Oscar pario Bello for his help understanding
this story. Our audio producer is Silvana Alcala, Our show
producer is Maggie Bowles, Our executive producer is Ryan Tillotson,
(32:20):
and I'm Lucas Grindley, Executive director for Next City. By
the way, Next City is a news organization with a
nonprofit model. If you like what we're doing here, please
consider pitching in to support our work. Visit nexcity dot
org slash membership to make a donation. We'd love to
hear any feedback from our listeners. Please feel free to
email us at info at nexcity dot org, and if
you haven't already, subscribed to the show on Apple, Spotify,
(32:41):
good Pods, or anywhere you listen to your podcasts.
Straw Hut Media.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
We're not about the politics, We're about the people. The
affordable housing we create with subsidies is not fixing the
fundamental economic problem that housing is not affordable. It is,
you know, sort of carving out affordability in a market
with subsidies. So I think there's a lot of awareness
(00:33):
of the problem. It's affecting a lot more people. That's unfortunate,
but it does lead to political change that leads to
structural change.
Speaker 3 (00:41):
This is Lucas Grinley from Next City, a show about
change makers and their stories. Truth is, there are solutions
for the problems of pressing people in cities. If you're listening,
I hope it's because you want to spread good ideas
from one city to the next city. Community development financial Institutions,
or CDFIs are behind some of the most creative solutions
to the affordable housing shortage, but right now, along with
(01:04):
so many other federal programs, CDFIs are under threat. Even
though Congress approved three hundred and twenty four million dollars
this year for the CDFI fund and President Trump signed
that budget into law, the White House issued an executive
order immediately afterward calling for the elimination of the CDFI
Fund wherever possible under the law. The order set off
(01:27):
confusion and alarm across the banking industry, even among bipartisan supporters. Today,
we're talking with Karen Kelleher from Blue Hub Capital. She's
president of the Blue Hub Loan Fund, and her team
recently helped finance a project in Nashville that turned two
abandoned motels into affordable apartments, an example of how CDFIs
step in all over the country and red states and
(01:48):
blue states where big banks usually will not. We'll talk
about how projects like that are pieced together, what happens
when funding is threatened, and why the housing crisis demands
creative solutions than ever. But first, let's check in with
Oscar Periobello, Next City's senior Economic Justice correspondent and the
author of the new book The Banks We Deserve to
help us understand why cdfies matter and what we risk losing.
Speaker 4 (02:18):
So what's happening is On March fourteenth, the White House
issued in an executive order targeting the CDFI Fund and
several other agency, the Minority Business Development Agency and others
or elimination quote unquote to the maximum extent consistent with
applicable law, which is the really weird thing. It's like, okay,
we're going to eliminate all the things that these agencies
(02:39):
are doing that for which there is no congressional law
that says you must do this thing. They gave the
secretaries responsible or the administrators responsible for each agency seven
days to write a memo explaining, here are the statutes
that authorize what we're doing, and here's our plan to
reduce our staffing to what is statutorily required. And so
(03:05):
seven days later, the Sectuary of the Treasury stottbust And
issued a one page memo explaining, here's all the things
that Cdafive Fund does, and here are all the laws
that authorize what it's doing. And we are currently staffed
at our statutory you know, minimum minimum.
Speaker 3 (03:23):
We're at the minimum now, which is why you're so confusing, Right,
it comes down to this is very confusing. But the
intention that was set by the executive order and the
signal sent out to all these people who work in
community development is the Trump administration, or at least President Trump,
would like to seek their elimination.
Speaker 4 (03:43):
Oh, the message is concerning, and it's also consistent with
the Trump's first administration. In the first several budgets that
the Trump administration attempted to propose to Congress the first
time around in twenty sixteen seventeen eighteen, those budgets all
kid seen zero dollars for the cdf so they tried
that route, but the CDFI industry and the banking industry
(04:04):
were able to beat that back and keep the funding,
protect the funding byparts. This would be a bypars and budgets.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
At the past.
Speaker 3 (04:15):
You wrote an entire book about community banks. A lot
of CDFIs included in that. What's an example from a
red state where a CDFI is doing work in the
community and maybe people wouldn't even know that, Oh, that's
a CDFI.
Speaker 4 (04:32):
Yeah, so let's think of one like People Trust Community
Federal Credit Union in Little Rock, Arkansas. So Arkansas, red state.
It may be a bluish area, purple ish area, but
it's not a very largely populated city even though it's
a city. It's capital Little Rock, Arkansas. But yeah, this
is a CDFI that emerged out of a barber named
(04:54):
Arla Washington was just making loans to his clients. He
opened up a barber's school. He's making loans out of
his own pocket to the alumni with barber school. And
eventually he got that entity in U Street, he incorporated
a nonprofit entity, and that entity eventually got certified as
(05:14):
a CDFI, a Community development financial institution, and just started
making loans. And you know for the folks who are
get taking out the loans themselves. You know the clients
that people trust had all around the little Rock, Arkansas.
It's not necessarily true that they all know that everyone
knows who the CDFI is. Not necessarily sure that you
need to know that CDFIs exist in order to be
(05:36):
a beneficiary of it. There are about fourteen hundred certified
CDFIs across the entire country, and about half of them
are banks and credit unions, community banks, credit unions. You
may bank at at one of these institutions that not
even realized it.
Speaker 3 (05:53):
I remember that story about our Low Washington den and Arkanitas.
We talked to him for next sitting and yeah, a
lot of people just know him as the guy who
owns the local barber college and now the guy who
runs my credit union. Right, where do you come down
on this debate around our CDFIs and the CDFI Fund.
(06:16):
This money that's coming from the federal government to Harlow
Washington and many other people in their organizations. Is that
a form of investment by the federal government or it
seems like it's being attacked because it's viewed as a
form of subsidy of some kind.
Speaker 4 (06:34):
I mean, it's definitely an investment if you think about
how the organizations where the money goes generally grow use
that money for growth purposes, to become larger institutions, to
invest in technology, or invest in staffing, and invest in
all the other things you need to actually run a
local financial institution. You know. That's the thing about the
(06:57):
CDFI Fund. One of the things that makes it so
unique versus other federal grant programs is that, you know,
in the typical federal grant program, you have to say,
here's what we want to use the money for, and
then if you get awarded the grant, you have to
send in their receipts to actually get the money. So
we're going to use the money to do ABCDEFG And
(07:18):
when you do A send them their seats for A
and then you get reimbursed for A and then b
in the CDEFG. The CDFI fund doesn't work that way.
First of all, the money comes in upfront, comes in
one big lump sum, one big check, gets wired into
the organization's bank account, or if it is a banker
credit union, gets wired into the organization's account of the
Federal Reserve, and then you basically do whatever you need
(07:43):
to do should grow the institution's impact. Instead of saying
you're going to do ABCDFG, you tell the CDFI fund,
here are the communities we serve, Here's how we plan
to serve them over the next three to five years.
Here's how we plan to grow. Here's here's where we
think we'll be in five years, three years from now.
(08:04):
You know, here's our strategic plan. Here's our track record
up to this point. It's more of an investment the
way like an investor makes an investment, because once you
get approved for that CDFI funds investments, you get the money,
it shows up in your accounts, and then you go
off and do the thing. You don't have to submit
anything for reimbursements. This is very unique and it's very
(08:24):
intentionally designed by the credit unions and community banks who
initially thought of the idea for the CDFI fund, and
so it was designed by them, and to the extent
that some of them have got it, they've used it
to grow and become reliable, safe, adaptive, responsive local financial
(08:44):
institutions in communities across the country, Red states and Blue states,
rural areas, urban areas. One of the way I would say,
like archetype cdfives, one of the CDFIs that all the
other CDFIs look up to. It's called Hope Hope Credit
Union and Hope Enterprise Corporation, happily named named based in Jacksonsissippi,
but they have branches all over the Delta. They have
branches in Memphis, they have a branch in New Orleans.
(09:06):
These are all Red states. They're providing financial services to
places where like it had been a Mississippi on the
edge of the Mississippi Delta. There's one surcharge free ATM
in town, and I sat across from that branch for
an hour and watched, like every two minutes someone pulls
up and uses that ATM. That's the kind of institution
(09:28):
that we're talking about when we're talking about CDFIs.
Speaker 3 (09:34):
The story of people's trust is in your book the
banks we deserve hope. Credit Union though, is not. So
what is it that all these other CDFIs look up
to hope for.
Speaker 4 (09:45):
For the fact that it's, you know, a member owned institution,
community driven, member owned. It does everything right again, not
just loans, but financial counseling, homeowner counseling. It has branches.
And also the fact that the credit union and the
CDFI entity. You know, there's two entities there, a nonprofit
(10:08):
CDFI entity and a credit union, and they work together
and they compliment each other in ways that other CDFIs
don't realize until later that it works better when you
when you have both sides. If you have these deposits,
if you're taking these posits from the community, that's the
pathway to scale. That's how really how you grow to
the point where you can do the things that you
(10:32):
that the communities actually need. You've got to have deposits
in your institution. You can't. You can't just rely on
flanthropy or or or corporations or or public or whatever
you have to. You have to combine. You have to
combine all of it.
Speaker 3 (10:47):
I feel like the case that you're making is almost
more relevant now that in this turmo that's happening even
though you wrote the book before, you know, the Trump
administration took office. But this case that you're making that
CDFIs would be more powerful and also more sustainable if
they had taken advantage of deposits. I mean, right now,
(11:13):
with their funding being threatened repeatedly, it feels like that
would be one way to ensure that you know, they're
going to be resilient no matter what. And I know
you talk to the CDFI leaders and they say, if
we were to lose this money, it would be bad,
but we would also we'd still be around.
Speaker 4 (11:28):
Yeah, I think it becomes more powerful or even more
relevant now. And I wasn't sure it would it would
it would pan out this way, but I guess yeah,
when I wrote the book, I mean I already knew
what I knew. I learned what I learned about the
banking system and why I'm more locally owned, locally controlled
(11:50):
backing system is just better at dealing with the problems
that we need to deal with as a country. And
I think what these short few months has only been
a few months, right, it's able twenty first we're talking
with this when we're recording this interview February March April,
(12:11):
three months one quarter basically, right. I think the way
it's kind of panning out is that people are looking
for how to start building power at the local level
from the ground up. They're looking for ways to kind
(12:33):
of say, like, you know, this is who we are
as a community, this is what we believe in. This
is who we believe and we believe in each other,
and we want a way to stans that belief in
each other into an economy and the financial system that
works for all of us. Because clearly whatever path we've
(12:56):
been on for the past forty years been the wrong path.
We allowed this banking system to fall into the hands
of so few institutions, like four banks now control about
half the banking system, four these four banks. Forty years ago,
these four banks controlled six percent of the banking system.
(13:18):
We had a much more locally owned, locally controlled, geographically
dispersed banking system. And that dispersion of the banking system
is also a dispersion of power.
Speaker 3 (13:27):
Yeah, what you're prescribing in the book is a way
for communities to empower themselves but also to protect themselves.
Like if people are looking at what's happening in the
federal government now and thinking that they have some dread
going on. This could be one way if we were
to reimagine the way that banks are working locally, that
you could retain and preserve and grow local power.
Speaker 4 (13:50):
Yeah. I mean one example that did make it into
the book, because I didn't do the story until earlier
this year. It was about Texas National Bank. This is
the CDFI certified bank right on the book order in
the Rio Grande Valley. So this is like McCallan, Brownsville,
Harlan jan Edinburgh, Rio Grand Valley, So the very very
southern tip of Texas, almost more than a hundred years old.
(14:13):
Now Hispanic owned the bank, one of the oldest Hispanic
own banks in the country. They figured out a way
to build housing that's affordable and the right size for
the families that they're trying to serve out there. Like
I talked to the one home owner in the story.
She was like, all the homes for sale were like
just too big for me. I'm a single mother. I
don't need a giant house. I just need a small,
(14:34):
like stable place to live that's not too far from work.
He's like I couldn't find that until the bank figured
out a way to build it themselves using the contexts
that they had in the community. They were able to
do all of that without federal funding, which you know,
in some ways it's frustrating because federal funding could make
(14:58):
it easier for the bank to do this work, and
this work should be easier, but it's not there right now,
and so but it shouldn't stop the work. That's really
you know, some of the power of these institutions, for
these community bands, of these credit unions that I'm talking here,
they're like, yeah, I mean, the CDFI Fund will help
(15:19):
us do more, but we're not going to stop us
if it goes if there's some chaos there for a
year or two because of what's happened, it'll slow us down,
but it's not going to stop us because we don't
really have a choice. There are no other financial institutions
doing this work in these neighborhoods.
Speaker 3 (15:37):
After the break, we'll meet Karen kellerher president of the
Blue Help Loan Fund. She's from one of these institutions,
and what makes their work special is it's helping make
affordable housing happen in places all across the country where
the traditional market says it's not possible. Welcome back to today.
(16:01):
We're talking about CDFI's and how they work across the
country in red states and blue states, and we're about
to learn about how even a CDFI and a blue
state can help out a project in Nashville that needed
funding to convert two aging motels into affordable studio apartments.
Local lenders weren't interested. They were more comfortable financing high
end new construction. That's where the Blue Hub Loan Funds
(16:23):
stepped in. Based in Rock Spray, Massachusetts, Blue Hub has
invested over one hundred and fifty million dollars there in
affordable housing, healthcare, education, and more. But in recent years
they've expanded because there are underserved communities everywhere across our country,
including places like Nashville, where flexible financing can make all
the difference. Here is Karen kelleher, president of the loan fund.
Speaker 2 (16:50):
I do think we're not necessarily you're out of the
box CDFI. We were originally Boston Community Capital. We are
and have been for decades based in Roxbury, Massachusetts, which
is a low income community in Boston. And so you
know a decade or two ago, Blue Hub, you know,
started to grow. We are in twenty three states in
(17:15):
the District of Columbia, and deals are really different in
different places. And these ones in Nashville that you've focused
on are really interesting. I've never developed, I've never worked
on anything like them, and that they are motels, you know,
from a bygone era that have been repurposed for the
needs of the specific community that they are located in.
Speaker 1 (17:37):
And they are mixed income, right.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
They have some deed restricted affordable housing units and some
more sort of workforce level, but they're small units that
are there to meet the workforce needs of that community.
The downtown areas being built out by the market players.
As you said, this is a little further afield, but
still you know, really close to downtown and available for
(18:00):
that are you know, flocking to new jobs that are
happening in Nashville because it is striving economically, but the
people who want to participate in that economy need an
affordable place to live.
Speaker 1 (18:11):
They're kind of.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
Cool looking too. They're very sort of retro, kind of
mid century modern trendy.
Speaker 3 (18:18):
Right they are. Yeah, I sell photos. It took two years,
I guess from the time that the developers in Nashville
closed on the purchase of the property to actually wrapping
up construction at least on the first motel to apartments
called the Wilder and still adaptive reuse of scene is
the faster way to get to affordable housing than you know,
(18:39):
starting from scratch essentially, What do you think about this
as a trend, not only adaptive reuse but motel conversions,
because we've been talking about motil conversions. I feel like
at least since the pandemic, there was a large push
for it, right, and I wonder, you know, a few
years into it, do we think this is lasting.
Speaker 1 (18:57):
I think it's very place.
Speaker 2 (19:01):
We haven't seen an influx of a lot of deals.
We have actually sought to promote this deal so people
could see what's possible or these two deals.
Speaker 1 (19:11):
I think adaptive reuse.
Speaker 2 (19:13):
Is so local, right, and there are global trends that
make this. I think the era of the greatest need
for adaptive reuse, certainly in my lifetime, technology has changed
so much about the way we live in the way
we use real estate, right, and so technology changed where
(19:34):
we shopped and that puts, you know, main street businesses
at risk. Technology made it possible for white collar workers
to work from home. For us to do this podcast
remotely sitting in very different places. That means we don't
need the buildings that we used to do office work
and meet in person, and those buildings are increasing, you know,
(19:57):
heavily in downtown areas are the economic heart of larger communities,
and the vacancies in those buildings threaten the economy and
many of the major players who've invested in those buildings,
which have been safe investments for decades. Cities are trying
to get creative to take the space that was used
(20:20):
for one thing and turn it into something else and
respond to the current need. And in almost every place
that current need is housing, more housing and more affordable housing.
So we get excited about adaptive reuse, mostly because it's
meaning that critical need, but also focusing on trying to
(20:41):
revive communities where there is distress because there's an asset
that's not being used. We've funded schools in malls because
malls increasingly are not where people are doing their shopping.
We have funded you know, well, this is more typical
of the kind of historic adaptive reuse we've done before.
(21:01):
But you know, the city hall being turned into housing
because it's a bigger need for housing in.
Speaker 1 (21:05):
The downtown than that building.
Speaker 2 (21:09):
I find the unique examples of it some of the
more fund puzzles.
Speaker 1 (21:13):
That we get to work with developers to put together.
Speaker 3 (21:21):
You are rooted in Roxbury, the Boston area and still
serving the community there. And then, like you say, there
are communities everywhere in the country that have these needs
around affordable housing and more that the Loan Fund can
help with. One of the developers in Nashville told our
reporter that a local Nashville lender is more comfortable lending
(21:42):
money to build a brand new high end development, and
he said when he told the lenders that he wanted
to turn a motel into apartments, the door would shut.
So you do more than thirty loans to projects like
this every year all over the country, Red States, Blue States, Massachusett,
it's Tennessee, everywhere. So what is it you're looking for?
(22:03):
And is that kind of what you hear?
Speaker 2 (22:05):
A lot? The market is profit driven, and to be honest,
it's expensive to build housing. It's incredibly expensive. It varies
by market, but it's expensive everywhere, and so pricing that
housing to make a reasonable profit means you're in a
market that is not the people that we serve. Generally,
(22:26):
we have a crisis across America, and it's not limited
to cities. It's in rural areas. It's not limited to
blue states or red states. It's almost everywhere. The cost
of housing is unreachable for lower income people and increasingly
moderate income people in our communities. It's, you know, I think,
(22:47):
now being recognized as a crisis. And I've been working
in housing for I don't want to say how many years,
long enough that we used to wish it was a
political issue. It's a political issue now, and it's not
for the reasons we'd hoped. It's because the crisis has
gotten worse and crept up the income scale into the
middle income, and so in places that used to be affordable,
(23:12):
people who've raised a family, their children can't afford to
live there anymore. They bought a home, their children can't
buy a home. In low income communities, gentrification is happening
and the people who you know are the heart of
that community are being pushed out. So we are a
useful partner in markets that may not be our home.
And it's in part because the kinds of deals that
(23:35):
we support often require subsidy. Right, we talked about how
they're affordable housing, and some of the other kinds of
assets we support, they don't often pencil out without subsidy.
That might be tax credits, it might be grants, it
might be state funds, it might be local funds. These
result in incredibly complicated transactions. There are risks associated with
(23:58):
them that are not typically under by market rate lenders,
and so we and other mission driven lenders CDFIs really
make it our business to understand those tools, those models.
We find ways to structure our financing so we can
take risk and be at the table with the community
or the developer who's trying to make something happen in
(24:20):
the market.
Speaker 4 (24:21):
Won't make happen.
Speaker 3 (24:26):
What I hear you saying is that like the market
will support and is interested in supporting these new luxury developments.
The market's there for that. And you said the market
won't make happen these other deals that are more about
affordable housing, and that's the case all over the country.
What do you think about CDFI's role in the solution
(24:48):
across the country to the housing crisis.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
Yeah, I think CDFIs have played an increasingly critical role
in working with local partners who are trying to rest
the crisis in their community. I don't see the need
for that going away. I would love to think that
there is a market solution that's going to you know,
our jobs should be to work ourselves out of a job.
(25:13):
I wish I could say I was worried about that.
There's not you know, and increasingly we have to advocate,
you know, for the resources that are critical to make
these deals pencil because without them that it doesn't happen.
Without a loan income housing tax credit. A lot of
the affordable housing that's been created over the last well
we can go back to nineteen eighty six, it would
not have been developed. The creativity is actually incredibly impressive.
(25:40):
It's really fun if you like, you know, complex transactions.
We don't ever get bored. There's always something new to learn,
you know. We have worked with a number of states
that have state low income housing tax credit programs, and
a couple of states have just added I just learned
recently that Rhode Island has added a state loancome housing
tax credit. Looking forward to playing with that. It's I
(26:02):
guess a professional hazard that you become like a puzzle.
Speaker 3 (26:06):
Yeah, a puzzle to put together all the different sources
of money and subsidy that can make affordable housing construction possible.
Speaker 2 (26:13):
But yeah, and I wouldn't say that banks don't come
to the table for affordable housing transactions. They do, and
in fact, in part due to the long coome housing
tax credit, there is a market for affordable housing lending
and investment, and their affordable housing projects once they're built, constructed,
and leastuff, they're really quite stable. There's very little market
(26:35):
risk because there's a crisis and there's a very very
very long waiting list for most affordable housing in most communities.
Speaker 3 (26:42):
The affordable housing crisis isn't just a big city problem.
It affects communities everywhere in every state. After the break,
we'll talk with Karen about the tools communities are using
to create affordable housing and why protecting them is more
important than ever. Welcome back to next city. We've talked
(27:06):
about how many moving parts need to align in order
to make affordable housing happen. There are dozens of federal
and state programs that help build the gaps, from block
grants to housing tax credits, and every affordable housing project
relies on some patchwork of these tools. Now, Karen's going
to walk us through the tools that are working, where
she sees some real momentum and what gives her hope
(27:29):
that change is possible. I want to ask you, because
you would be someone really close to the problem and
to the solutions, how all of us should be feeling
about the fact that, yeah, it wasn't seen as a
political crisis until I don't know, somewhat relatively recently, the
(27:49):
housing crisis, And yeah, you can't see the moment in
which you're going to be working yourself out of the job, right,
that's not in a foreseeable future. And I'm not sure
how we should feel about whether or not it's getting
closer or much further away. Like, how do you feel
about the housing crisis right now?
Speaker 2 (28:10):
I feel optimistic, but might be because it's my nature.
Right There are sometimes things that have some negative economic
impacts have some positive ones too, So there's some softening
of housing markets that might lead to some movement in affordability.
(28:31):
I don't think we're poised on the precipice of solving
the problem. I do see really interesting things happening in
a lot of places right We see zoning reform happening
in a lot of communities where zoning has been a
barrier to building multi family housing. We see bipartisan support
for affordable housing financing almost across the country. And I
(28:55):
know we're in uncertain times now, and you know, those
of us who use those resources are geared up to
be prepared to talk with Congress about how important those
tools are. But that is a group that comes from
every state in the country. And we're not about the politics,
We're about the people. The affordable housing we create with
(29:17):
subsidies is not fixing the fundamental economic problem that housing
is not affordable. It is, you know, sort of carving
out affordability in a market with subsidies. So I think
there's a lot of awareness of the problem. It's affecting
a lot more people, that's unfortunate, but it does lead
(29:37):
to political change that leads to structural change.
Speaker 3 (29:41):
Yeah, I would never diminish the importance of you know,
local distinctions between communities that, yeah, everybody has a different
situation happening, but at the same time, we're all in
the same affordable housing crisis. And yeah, lulls are being
used less and office space is being used less all
over the country, and the tools for solving it are
(30:03):
very similar, if not the same, everywhere you look. And
I do wonder how we get everybody feeling like they're
in this together, right, because it doesn't often feel like that. Now,
what do you see as what needs to happen?
Speaker 1 (30:24):
You ask hard questions?
Speaker 2 (30:26):
Oh good, I feel like that question might be above
my pay grade, It may be above everyone's page.
Speaker 3 (30:33):
It's a hard one, right, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1 (30:34):
Yeah, it's hard. You know.
Speaker 2 (30:38):
I like to think about it from the role that
I play, right, which is trying to show up and
help communities build what they need. That's the case for
people who think real differently, who live in really different
places and where I personally live. You know, we financed
a really cool deal in Augusta, Georgia called Freedom's Path.
(30:59):
It's a adaptive reuse of a vacant VA like Veterans
Administration structure into affordable, supportive rental housing and that will
serve it'll have a leasing preference formerly hopeless veterans. That's
what's needed in that community in Augusta, Georgia, which is
a really different place.
Speaker 1 (31:20):
Than where I might sit.
Speaker 2 (31:21):
While I'm figuring out how to onderate that loan and
help make it happen. That's how we bridge it. Like,
we show up and we do stuff together and for us,
we do what's important to the community.
Speaker 3 (31:33):
Yeah, keep showing up, I think is how we'll get
there eventually. Thanks Karen, Thank.
Speaker 1 (31:39):
You appreciate the conversation.
Speaker 3 (31:56):
We hope you enjoyed this episode of Next City, a
show about chains and their stories. Together we can spread
good ideas from one city to the next city. Thanks
for listening this week. Thank you to our guest Karen Kelleher.
She's the president of Blue Help Loan Fund. Thank you
to Next City's Oscar pario Bello for his help understanding
this story. Our audio producer is Silvana Alcala, Our show
producer is Maggie Bowles, Our executive producer is Ryan Tillotson,
(32:20):
and I'm Lucas Grindley, Executive director for Next City. By
the way, Next City is a news organization with a
nonprofit model. If you like what we're doing here, please
consider pitching in to support our work. Visit nexcity dot
org slash membership to make a donation. We'd love to
hear any feedback from our listeners. Please feel free to
email us at info at nexcity dot org, and if
you haven't already, subscribed to the show on Apple, Spotify,
(32:41):
good Pods, or anywhere you listen to your podcasts.
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