Protecting Affordable Housing Communities: Right of First Refusal in the Housing Credit Program

The Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (Housing Credit) program is the largest federal resource for creating and maintaining affordable housing. Since its inception, the program has helped to finance nearly 3.5 million affordable homes.

Recently, sources of outside capital have acquired control of investor partnerships and begun systematically challenging general partners’ rights and disrupting the normal investor exit process in hopes of generating windfall returns. This has led to a growing number of troubling legal disputes and litigation that threatens the long-term affordability of valuable affordable homes.

Many state and local jurisdictions, including the District of Columbia, have recently taken action to mitigate the potential loss of valuable affordable housing in their communities.

Please join CNHED, the National Housing Trust, and a panel of local experts to discuss:
• the nonprofit Right of First Refusal
• Impacts of disputes at Year 15
• Recommended best practices for allocating agencies and developers to avoid such problems or to deal with them when they arise, and
• A summary of the newly implemented policies in D.C.

Following their presentations, panelists will engage in discussion and Q&A with attendees.

Moha Thakur
National Housing Trust

Moha Thakur first joined the National Housing Trust in 2018 and now serves as the Public Policy Manager, after previously serving as a Policy Fellow. Her duties include building and maintaining a network of regional alliances across the country, each with the goal of increasing civic engagement among residents of affordable housing and to share their unique stories. These alliances are designed to change the way we advocate, shifting beyond traditional housing stakeholders through coalition-building and community engagement with affordable housing residents and property staff across the nation. Moha also focuses on state and federal public policy initiatives to preserve affordable housing to create sustainable, vibrant communities for low-income families. She is the NHT policy contact for D.C. affordable housing policy.

Hank Brothers
Hank Brothers Law

Has been involved substantially in each significant federal housing and community development program in the past 30 years, including HUD/FHA/GNMA multifamily mortgage insurance, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and conventional loan production and securitization programs (conduits, pools, funds), tax-exempt mortgage revenue bonds, federal subsidies (Section 8, Housing Choice Vouchers), public housing, mixed-finance and grant

Hank has substantial interaction with multiple agencies and instrumentalities of the District of Columbia government with respect to operation, development and finance of community-focused projects, including but not limited to property (improved and unimproved) for use as low-income housing and/or for mixed-use development with community focus.

Aaron O’Toole
Klein Hornig

Aaron O’Toole has represented clients in connection with numerous multifamily rehabilitation projects involving the full range of affordable housing finance tools.  In addition to low-income housing tax credit and tax-exempt bond financing, he has been involved in the preservation of expiring use properties, the restructuring of troubled HUD-financed properties, and in public housing/mixed-finance developments.  Many of these projects have involved a mix of residential and commercial uses.  Aaron also represents nonprofit organizations utilizing New Markets Tax Credits to finance community development facilities such as charter schools and health centers.  A considerable part of Aaron’s practice involves projects in the District of Columbia, and he is intimately familiar with the District’s funding agencies as well as local laws governing cooperative and condominium conversion, rent stabilization, tenant purchases, tax exemptions, and general landlord/tenant issues.

Robert Rozen
Public Attorney

Robert Rozen is a policy consultant with his own firm concentrating on legislative and regulatory tax issues relating to affordable housing and community economic development.  He retired in 2016 as a partner from Washington Council, a unit of Ernst & Young that provides advocacy services to clients on a range of federal regulatory and legislative issues.

Over the years, Mr. Rozen has represented a number of clients on affordable housing and community economic development and currently represents the National Association of State and Local Equity Funds, the Local Initiatives Support Corporation, and Enterprise Community Investment.

For his many years of work in and out of government in support of the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit program, Mr. Rozen was selected in 2006 as one of the five original members of the Affordable Housing Hall of Fame by Affordable Housing Finance Magazine.  He has also received other awards for his work in support of the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit program, including the “Friend of Housing Award” in 2016 from the Washington State Housing Finance Commission, and the “Industry Impact Award” in 2018 from Community Affordable Housing Equity Corporation.