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Biggest Class of Affordable Housing Grads Expand Skills Toward Solutions

By Kathleen Kelleher

The largest class ever of affordable housing developers graduated from LISC’s Advanced Housing Development Training Institute in October, and will now be ready to implement HDTI’s invaluable start-to-finish roadmap for building and preserving affordable housing in California where a crisis-level demand doggedly outstrips supply.

Most of the 56 graduates already work as project managers, but the class included a manager of capital markets, a development analyst, a director of capital assets, a senior manager of acquisitions, and a director of development.

They came from 36 different affordable housing corporations across the state. The Advanced HDTI program, sponsored by a grant from MFUG Union Bank, is a rigorous 3 ½-day training designed for affordable housing developers who have been working in the field for a few years.

LISC with Perica Bell and Elizabeth Van Benschoten with Union Bank
LISC with Perica Bell and Elizabeth Van Benschoten with Union Bank

Advanced HDTI is part of the highly respected, premier affordable housing training launched in 1988 by LISC to fill educational voids in development skills. Since its inception, HDTI’s unique comprehensive program has become the state’s premier training ground for affordable housing professionals. Each year, the number of HDTI’s participating developers has steadily increased.

“I would love to do one of these every quarter if I could,” said graduate Victor Ansley, a project manager for Community Corporation of Santa Monica, a nonprofit organization that develops, restores and manages affordable housing in West Los Angeles and Santa Monica. “All the instructors are top level, very aware of what is changing in the future and how to gain funding. Completing the training gave me a level of confidence in parts of my job I had not dealt with before in the development process like meeting with financiers, getting city permits and negotiating construction contracts.”

The skills that affordable housing developers gain from HDTI training are increasingly critical. Public pressure to build is unrelenting as the numbers of people experiencing homelessness, 151,000 in California according to 2019 numbers, and people falling into homelessness climb.  LISC and HDTI graduates’ mission is to help. The 56 graduates had completed 11,540 housing units combined pre-program and are projected to complete another 15,091 housing units in the near future, partly due to enhanced effectiveness via HDTI training.

LISC’s HDTI program is essential for any project manager working in the field of affordable housing development in California
— Alexandra Dawson, LISC LA Program Officer

HDTI instruction covers all aspects of affordable housing development--from conception to acquisition to construction to occupancy. Instructors focus on multiple financing avenues, how to negotiate with a general contractor, closing an escrow deal, formulating strategies for funding with a team and working with partners to keep projects moving. The program’s trainers are veterans of affordable housing development who use case studies and role-play as city officials, lenders and nonprofit leaders in simulations of complex development project scenarios. Project managers make valuable connections to one another and with program trainers, later tapping those professional connections for counsel about a project, a particular contractor or city permitting processes.

“The most valuable part was the exercises, which forced you to do a lot of the same problem solving on the job, but now in an environment where you have a little more freedom to try new solutions,” said Michael Raley, a project developer for Mercy Housing California, an affordable housing nonprofit based in downtown Los Angeles, part of a large national organization. “You get a concept of how a project is supposed to go; it is a proper model.  When you learn on the job, you learn project to project.”

Raley, who works in affordable housing acquisition and rehab, said Mercy Housing had not done rehab acquisition for sometime. HDTI Advanced covered the process of buying existing affordable housing, relocating tenants during construction, rehabbing and dedicating units as affordable, a critical step in preserving affordable housing against market forces.

“I was able to bring home how to do that.”

Like Raley, more affordable housing developers will enhance and grow their development skills this year in the collective mission to bolster the affordable housing stock in the state. Union Bank has generously recommitted to funding HDTI Fundamentals and HDTI Advanced for 2020.

LISC LA Team with Perica Bell of Union Bank
LISC LA Team with Perica Bell of Union Bank

“LISC’s HDTI program is essential for any project manager working in the field of affordable housing development in California,” said Alexandra Dawson, LISC LA’s program officer who oversees HDTI and a graduate of Advanced HDTI 2015. “The training days are long but allow participants to dig deep into topics they may not otherwise have the time to explore in their day-to-day work. Additionally, participants have a chance to collaborate and develop professional relationships with their peers, which is a critical component in the work we do to provide affordable housing in our communities across the state.”