OHFA – What is it and why should I care?
By: Bert Belanger//Guest Columnist//January 17, 2019
Still filling in for professor David Chapman as he campaigns for Edmond City Council, I wanted to expand on a brief mention of “OHFA” during my nostalgic Paseo trip of the past two weeks.
The Oklahoma Housing Finance Agency is sometimes confused with other housing or development authorities, but the OHFA has a statewide mission of administering federal and state programs that promote the creation and preservation of affordable housing. It is a public trust created over four decades ago, but does not rely on appropriations. Over the last 20 years, I have watched it morph into a self-sustaining steward of resources that helps families buy and lease affordable homes.
The need for affordable housing appears weekly in the news around the country. Even Oklahoma, with its “most affordable” tag, faces the problem of an ever-shrinking inventory of lower-cost housing.
The OHFA has proven an effective deal facilitator and manager of tools (with acronyms like LIHTC, MCC and HOME) to help create housing suited for a growing range of incomes, from the chronically poor to those families who earn incomes that are above federal poverty definitions, yet still challenged. At the higher-income end of Oklahoma residents whom the OHFA seeks to serve are those who some term as the workforce. I have never been a fan of labels, but workforce housing is now, in fact, on the radar of most cities.
As a developer, I saw the difficulty in building or preserving housing stock that is attractive and sustainable as a part of a community, yet still affordable for working households. It has become even tougher as costs rise, particularly in urban neighborhoods as they gentrify (think NIMBY), as well as in rural towns struggling to prosper (or to simply survive).
Currently, I serve with Bob Nance as outside co-counsel to the OHFA. Once focused on my own projects, I now get to help the OHFA’s board and dedicated staff work daily to fulfill this mission, from Guymon to Idabel, and points in between. OHFA Executive Director Deborah Jenkins relies on a savvy, nonpartisan, volunteer board of trustees appointed by past governors, led by Chairman Dick Lillard, along with Debbie Blackburn, Ann Felton Gilliland, Jeff Scott and Scott McLaws. The OHFA is a governmental body working like it should, and a model for others.
Bert Belanger is a broker with Adept Commercial Real Estate and a real estate attorney with Riggs Abney (bbelanger@riggsabney.com).