This Our Time:
New People, New Tools, and New Funding

 

 

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St. Luke’s Episcopal Church
435 Peachtree Street NE
Atlanta, GA 30308

Thursday, March 19, 9:30 a.m. – 11:45 a.m.

 

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Will 2020 be a tipping point for opportunities to impact the supply of affordable housing in metro Atlanta? Despite the near-universal agreement that housing affordability is reaching a crisis point, the region has a growing deficit of more than 300,000 affordable units. But an emerging alignment of public and private sector partnerships is beginning to take shape and show promise. The New Year has ushered in new housing sector leaders, innovative collaboration, new tools for assessment and strategy, and most importantly - new funding sources.
    
In 2020, the Atlanta Regional Housing Forum will discuss many of these opportunities — new tools from ARC’s recently unveiled Metro Housing Strategy; the City of Atlanta’s new Housing Affordability Tracker; Atlanta Housing’s new leadership and renewed commitment to development; and a new regional report enumerating the gap in housing affordability from ARC and The Bleakly Advisory Group. We will kick off the year focusing on new capital sources for housing development.
    
On March 19 the Forum, we will welcome presentations from those representing new and emerging funding opportunities and those who are deploying such capital to address the affordable housing shortage in the city and the region. Our presenters will include:

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• The HouseATL’s Funders Collective -- Meaghan Shannon-Vkolvic of Enterprise Community Partners will share the detail of a new collaborative effort between funders. The Funders Collective provides for a group vetting of proposed development projects. The “Shark Tank”-like approach allows funders to learn more about how each other operate, coordinate, and mitigate risk while providing the applicant with immeasurable feedback. 
   

• The Atlanta Affordable Housing Fund - Recently named as its executive director, Ashani O’Mard will explain how AAHF will raise $25 million to support affordable housing projects in the region. The fund was recently announced by its founders, prominent developers David Allman, Marc Pollack, and Egbert Perry. The fund will deploy low-cost capital to developers and financial partners. 
   

• CDFI Coalition Revolving Fund (CCRF)  -  John O’Callaghan of ANDP represents one of five Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFI) across Georgia working together to deploy $8M in capital while introducing borrowers to the additional capital available from each of the five. The coalition includes ANDP Loan Fund, Enterprise Community Loan Fund, NeighborWorks Columbus, Reinvestment Fund and Southwest Georgia United. CCRF is powered by a grant from The Georgia Department of Community Affairs.
   

• Westside Future Fund (WFF) - John Ahmann will share how his organization is leveraging innovative funding opportunities to deploy development capital in Atlanta’s Westside neighborhoods.

 
Additional emerging capital? A number of efforts are underway to bring significant capital to address housing needs. We look forward to sharing these announcements as they occur.

Join us as we explore these tipping point opportunities and discuss action needed to move the needle on affordable housing in 2020.

 

 

Our Presenters:

 

Bill Bolling, Moderator, Founder; Atlanta Regional Housing Forum

John Ahman, President & CEO; Westside Future Fund

John O'Callaghan, President & CEO; Atlanta Neighborhood Development Partnership

Ashani O'Mard, Executive Director, Atlanta Affordable Housing Fund

Meaghan Shannon-Vkolvic, VP & Market Leader, Southeast;  Enterprise Community Partners

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