Posted on October 25, 2010
BOSTON, Oct. 25, 2010 - The US Treasury's Community Development Financial Institutions Fund has awarded the Massachusetts Housing Partnership (MHP) a $4 million grant that will help secure hundreds of millions of dollars in affordable rental housing financing for Massachusetts.
The award - from the US Treasury's new Capital Magnet Fund - will help MHP to fully utilize funds in its $1.1 billion bank-funded loan pool. MHP's loan fund is supported by 18 banks doing business in Massachusetts, including Bank of America, TD Bank, Sovereign Bank, Citizens Bank and BNY Mellon.
"Thanks to the US Treasury, MHP can expand its innovative financing solutions at attractive interest rates to both non-profit and for-profit developers who are looking to provide deeper levels of affordability for their rental housing properties," said Mark Curtiss, MHP's Managing Director of its loan fund.
In its application, MHP said that the US Treasury Award would provide the seed capital needed to leverage $100 million in private financing, $300 million in affordable housing development activity to create 1,800 rental units of which 70 percent would be affordable to low-income households.
MHP was one of only 23 organizations in the country to receive a Capital Magnet Fund award. The first-ever funding round attracted 230 applications from community development financial institutions and non-profit organizations. MHP's application for funding was supported by Congressman Barney Frank.
"As a strong supporter of the US Treasury's Community Development Financial Institutions program, and a great fan of the work done by the Massachusetts Housing Partnership, I am especially proud to have played a role in winning this grant for affordable rental housing in Massachusetts," said Congressman Frank. "This is a great example of a cost-efficient federal program helping an extremely well-managed Massachusetts agency for a desirable purpose."
MHP is a state non-profit housing organization that uses private bank financing to provide permanent loans for affordable rental housing development pursuant to a 1990 state law that requires companies that purchase Massachusetts banks to make loan funds available to MHP. Since then, MHP's has provided $649 million in loans and commitments for the financing of over 15,000 units of rental housing.