Thursday, November 20, 2008

MHEHF :: Chair's Message

On behalf of the Board –

On behalf of the entire Board, as newly elected Chair, I want to express appreciation to Monice Hagler Moore for the leadership she provided to this body in the six and one-half years she served as Chair.  Big strides were made and thousands of Memphis families have greatly improved affordable housing opportunities because of her direction.  We are in her debt.

There are some significant trends in our community and in the national economy that must be recognized.   One is that we are facing inflation, and the costs of goods and services continue to rise.  Another is that there seems to be little to any growth in wages and earnings – at least for the working class (moderate income) households.   In addition, construction and rehab costs are rising faster than other costs.   While lending rates have dropped, financing is tighter.   Affordable housing transactions are being scrutinized closely by the developers and lending institutions.  and underwriting is more rigorous.  The result of all this is that construction and rehab are getting squeezed, and those in our community who need It to happen are getting squeezed as well.

Our local economy and our local housing market have been somewhat buffered from the national trends because of our conservative market.  In this time, the role of the Health, Educational and Housing Facility Board of the City of Memphis is more critical than ever.  It is important we do our best to make every potential transaction be as strong and creditworthy as possible.  It is also important we do our best to try to help developers and owners preserve all the affordable housing units they can.  Many homeowners are losing their homes and moving back to the rental market.  We want to see their credit be protected as well as possible, and their options be preserved as well.  This could be a time when multifamily owners are tempted to forget the economically disadvantaged renters who depend on affordable opportunities and whose choices are limited.

Our Board will try to be pro-active in this time and communicative with the developers and owners to see what we can do to help stabilize and preserve the best affordable options available for our community.

The Health, Educational and Housing Facility Board recently had a change of leadership.  The new officers are Daniel T. Reid – Chair; Deborah Cotney – Vice-Chair; Monice Moore Hagler – Secretary; and Mabra Holeyfield – Treasurer.  We look forward to this new re-alignment and think it will provide us the opportunity to move into a new phase of ever greater service to our community.