THE BUZZ >>PEOPLE

AFFORDABLE HOUSING FINANCE • July 2008

Matthew O. Franklin has been named president of Mid-Peninsula Housing Coalition, a leading nonprofit affordable housing developer in Northern California.

Franklin has been the executive director of the San Francisco Mayor’s Office of Housing since 2004. He also served as director of California’s Department of Housing and Community Development.

He takes over the reins at Mid- Peninsula from Fran Wagstaff, the group’s longtime leader who was set to retire July 1. The organization has developed more than 6,000 affordable housing units at more than 90 properties in nine Northern California counties.

Franklin was selected after a nationwide search.

Kamilah Parker McAfee has been named director of real estate for Wesley Housing Development Corp., a leading nonprofit affordable housing developer in northern Virginia.

McAfee will direct and manage the organization’s affordable housing development pipeline.

Before joining Wesley Housing, she served as a development associate with Forest City Washington, supporting several large-scale mixed-use projects in Washington, D.C. She also served as director of public finance at the District of Columbia Housing Finance Agency.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has named Robert Graham to serve as executive director of the Virgin Islands Housing Authority (VIHA), which HUD took over five years ago.

An expert in working with large troubled housing authorities, Graham will be responsible for day-to-day operations and will help prepare the agency to be returned to local control. He is currently a principal of APM Management, Development and Consulting Services, where he consults with public housing authorities and redevelopment agencies. Previously, he was executive director of the Newark Housing Authority in New Jersey.

VIHA has had a history of failing to submit balanced budgets, violating financial reporting requirements, and letting properties deteriorate, said HUD, which took control of the agency in 2003.

Nate Kredich has joined the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), stepping into the newly created post of vice president for residential market development. He will oversee USGBC’s LEED for Homes program.

Kredich has experience in the residential construction business. He spent the last five years with Creative Touch Interiors, a national turnkey provider of design center services to the nation’s largest homebuilders.

LEED stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design and is a third-party certification program for the design, construction, and operation of green buildings.

FHA Commisioner Earns Award

HUD Assistant Secretary and Federal Housing Commissioner Brian Montgomery is the 2008 recipient of the Robert J. Corletta Award for Achievement in Affordable Housing.

The award is presented by the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) and the Neighborhood Development Collaborative. The groups cited Montgomery’s efforts to keep Federal Housing Administration (FHA) programs viable for the production and rehabilitation of rental housing.

He is credited with listening to the concerns of industry groups last year when the administration proposed increasing the mortgage insurance premiums on certain FHA affordable housing programs by as much as 16 basis points. After seeing the potential negative effects of an increase, Montgomery supported holding the line on those premiums, said the NAHB. In January, HUD announced that it would not implement the increase.

AHF Series Wins Award

AFFORDABLE HOUSING FINANCE has earned a second award for its series “The Trouble with HUD and How to Fix It.” Published in the June and July 2007 issues, the articles won the Western Publication Association’s Maggie Award for best series in a trade publication.

Written by former editor-in-chief Andre Shashaty, the series earlier had won a Jesse H. Neal National Business Journalism Award from American Business Media.

The magazine’s staff was also recognized with a second Maggie Award this year when its sister publication, APARTMENT FINANCE TODAY, won for best real estate and housing trade magazine. AFFORDABLE HOUSING FINANCE was a finalist in that category.