Matt Reilein
Matt Reilein
President and CEO

A LETTER FROM THE CEO

At NEF, we have clearly defined our mission to create and deliver innovative, collaborative financial solutions to expand the creation and preservation of affordable housing. We strive to be a diverse, equitable and inclusive place to work so that our team has the experience and knowledge to effectively support our partners and communities. Our vision is that all individuals and families across the country have access to stable, safe and affordable homes that provide a foundation for them to reach their full potential.

Throughout 2020, we had more of an opportunity than ever to put these guiding principles into action - and in doing so, we became stronger for the long term, both strategically and financially. We leveraged that strength to become more innovative and creative in our approach to the market, we expanded our core LIHTC business to create wider and deeper impact across the country and invested in our people, both new and long tenured, to fortify our mission driven culture.

You don’t have to look far to see those commitments in action. They are evident in our approach to asset management and dispositions—which are focused on the well-being of residents, local nonprofits and communities—just as they are in our leadership of supportive housing and the way we work with investors and key partners. We aren’t just closing deals and writing checks. We are solving problems, filling gaps, creating jobs and opportunities—and, most importantly, looking ahead to help deliver a lasting, positive impact to the communities we serve.

And we do it all while producing record results.

So, with that in mind, I want to point out just a few highpoints of 2020 that speak to some of these larger, long-term opportunities.

In the wake of the George Floyd murder and renewed focus on combatting racial inequities, we were inspired to do more to address social and racial injustice and inequality. We committed to providing resources to take productive, inclusive, and sustained action – while also acting with a sense of urgency. Internally, we launched an employee-driven council as a new platform and space to discuss how racism and discrimination impacts our organization - and more importantly, to actively fight to eliminate it within NEF, in our industry and in our society at large.

At the top of the list externally is our new $100 million Emerging Minority Developers Fund (EMDF), which we launched in the second half of last year. EMDF is a new approach to building the capacity of smaller, less established development firms, especially those led by people of color, that show great promise but have historically been sidelined by LIHTC rules that reward long-time developers. We are working to close the first deals right now and will continue to offer new opportunities to break down old barriers and drive affordable housing forward while openly addressing and fighting racism, discrimination and inequity.

We also expanded our commitment to our preservation loan funds. The reality is that there is a systemic shortage of affordable housing today that will continue to affect families, businesses and local economies in every county in the country. Our ability to create and preserve existing affordable housing now is critical to solving the long-term problem.

Our affordable housing preservation team not only finances individual deals, but also works to build and support unique partnerships as well. In Atlanta, for instance, we are managing a new transit-oriented preservation fund led by the city’s Metropolitan Area Rapid Transit Authority (MARTA). And in California, we are collaborating with investors, foundations and municipal leaders to advance large-scale preservation efforts in the Bay Area, one of the highest-cost housing markets in the country.

In an example of the way we connect our internal resources to fuel external opportunities, our preservation and supportive housing teams are working together to develop strategies that rapidly convert underutilized and out-of-market developments into permanent supportive housing. A recent collaboration with the city of Seattle, Washington State Housing Finance Commission, and local developers to flip a new market-rate development shows this in action. These new models have been part of our COVID-19 response efforts and will carry over into our broader scope of work throughout the rest of 2021 and beyond.

This short letter just barely scratches the surface of our ongoing commitment to affordable housing. It doesn’t describe our new charitable subsidiary and its success in raising pandemic relief grants or our first Opportunity Zones investments. It also doesn’t fully reflect our significant internal work to make sure our efforts around equity and inclusion include a close look at our own operations, as well as conversations with investors about theirs.

But it does illustrate the combined power of innovation, expertise and mission. NEF has proven through year after year of record results that an impact-driven approach can be a profitable one — even in one of the most difficult years any of us has ever encountered. We also have a new strategic plan in place to help us to carry those lessons forward, with ambitious goals for the future.

2020 was both a challenging and a remarkable year for our organization and for our communities. But there is much, much more to come.

Matt Reilein