Wider Industry Impact of the Consortia

Overall Affordable Markets
Consortia ultimately serve the affordable housing markets in their respective states. Consortia are driven by both their return to investors and their ultimate mission to serve their markets. They serve as a bridge between the public and private sectors, and provide their states with a consistent, reliable and local source of permanent debt financing. Since community development lending is the only business of the consortia, they provide continuity through cycles, supporting the affordable rental housing market in ways and times that financial institutions directly might not be able to.

Public Policy
The consortia’s reputation and success in securing performing loans for the portfolio have made them an important voice in affordable housing program design at the state and national level. Consortia are routinely called upon to provide financial expertise to policy makers at the state and local levels. Their work involves an enormous commitment of time sitting on committees and preparing testimony and information to guide public policy, and has helped secure program funding, preserve threatened programs, and improve affordable housing statutes

Consortia speak for the industry in their policy role. They provide a “non political” focal point which allows them to represent both the development community viewpoint and the investor community desires and guidelines. The consortia provide educational opportunities to all banks in the state and serve on major task forces. The entire financial community and affordable housing industry benefit from this intensive involvement.

Technical Assistance
Consortia provide extensive consulting service to their customers, logging many unreimbursed hours to assist developers in structuring deals and securing government subsidies. This also helps developers to be better prepared when seeking construction financing from member banks. Another part of the mission of consortia is to provide technical assistance to borrowers and communities. This requires significant time commitments, but helps projects to be successful and often helps build the capacity of development entities in underserved areas, thereby providing an expanded customer base for the banks.