[Predevelopment Seed Funding][Technical Assistance]
[Affordable Housing and Supported Housing][Housing Preservation]

CEDAC provides two key ingredients to help its non-profit partners develop and preserve affordable housing: professional expertise, and seed funding to cover a project's predevelopment costs.

Predevelopment Seed Funding

CEDAC manages over $23 million in revolving loan funds, which it lends to non-profit developers to help move their projects from concept to reality--from blueprints to buildings, plans to programs. Over its twenty-six years of operation, CEDAC has lent non-profit developers over $79 million in high risk, unsecured loans, with a loss rate of under 1%. CEDAC has helped non-profit developers preserve and produce over 20,227
housing units in the Commonwealth.

In its role as a "development lender," CEDAC starts the process on each project by lending funds to cover a developer's start-up expenses of gaining site control, analyzing a project's feasibility, and performing initial architectural and engineering studies. If a project proves feasible, CEDAC increases its loan amount to help developers prepare the financing and subsidy applications, and secure the regulatory approvals, that will make the project a reality.

Once preliminary financing commitments are secured, CEDAC will lend additional funds to cover the costs of advanced design work, appraisals, environmental testing, and project management expenses. CEDAC has also developed an Acquisition Loan Program, which makes loans to developers to buy sites if they must purchase them before all the project's financing can be secured.

Expert Technical Assistance

CEDAC staff work with both new non-profit developers, as well as those with significant development experience, to offer a guiding hand through the development process. With their collective experience in non-profit real estate development, CEDAC staff can offer borrowers the knowledge necessary to find their way through the complicated maze of assembling financing and bringing affordable housing projects to fruition. CEDAC staff can help assess the feasibility of a project, develop strategies about alternative development programs for a site, and advise on applicable state and federal programs.

Affordable Housing and Supported Housing

CEDAC serves as the Department of Housing and Community Development's (DHCD) underwriting agent for two loan programs which provide deferred-payment, subordinated permanent mortgage financing to help meet the costs of producing affordable housing. The loans are for amounts up to $500,000, depending on project size, and are structured with 30-40 year terms at five per cent interest, payment of which is also deferred. As underwriter, CEDAC recommends that DHCD make loans to community-based projects through:

• The Housing Innovations Fund (HIF), which supports limited equity cooperatives, single-room occupancy housing, housing for special needs populations, and other innovative projects.
• The Facilities Consolidation Fund (FCF), which finances community residences for clients of the Department of Mental Health and the Department of Developmental Disabilities, and permanent housing for the mentally ill.
• Community Based Housing (CBH) provides funding for the development of integrated housing for people with disabilities, including elders with priority for individuals who are in institutions or nursing facilities or at risk of institutionalization.

The HIF and FCF programs have helped finance the construction and renovation of more than 8,396 units of family rental, special needs and supported housing.

Housing Preservation

Much of the Commonwealth's stock of affordable housing units was built in the 1960s and 1970s. These projects now face the elimination of restrictions that they serve low-income residents due to the potential for owners to prepay their federally-subsidized mortgages, or opt out of their existing Section 8 rental subsidy contracts. To preserve these units requires a combination of resident and community initiative, public and private investment, and technical expertise.

CEDAC helps community organizations and municipalities leverage the resources they need to prevent these valuable housing units from being lost by helping negotiate the extension of current affordability restrictions or the sale of such projects to non-profit owners; securing new capital investment to meet deferred maintenance or systems replacement needs; and advocating for public policy which supports such outcomes. Given the high costs of new production, preventing the loss of existing affordable housing is a high priority for CEDAC.