Peterson to Start New Venture
Affordable housing industry veteran Jeanne Peterson announced that she will be leaving CohnReznick, where she has been a partner and director, at the end of January.
She is launching Peterson & Associates Affordable Housing Connections and will continue to be active in the industry through consulting, teaching, and policy advocacy. Prior to joining CohnReznick, Peterson had been executive director of the California Tax Credit Allocation Committee. She also oversaw the low-income housing tax credit (LIHTC) program at the Michigan State Housing Development Authority.
Peterson was inducted into the Affordable Housing Finance Hall of Fame in 2013.
Churchill Stateside Adds to Team
David Carr has joined Churchill Stateside Group (CSG) as vice president, investor relations, to further develop and manage the growing tax credit equity investor base, and Edward “Skip” Santos has joined the firm as senior vice president to focus on originating Federal Housing Administration (FHA) multifamily and other CSG loan products.
Carr brings 25 years of experience as a senior financial manager focused almost exclusively on tax-structured investments. He was most recently principal and CFO of Hunter Chase & Co., a real estate private equity company. He had primary responsibility for Hunter Chase’s New Markets Tax Credit (NMTC) program, where he was accountable for raising and managing $134 million in NMTC structured investments.
Prior to joining Hunter Chase, Carr held the position of COO for Key Housing Capital’s Tax Advantaged Equity Group, where he had direct responsibility for syndicating, structuring, and negotiating in excess of $1 billion in LIHTC investments.
Santos, who is based in New Orleans, began his banking career at Hibernia National Bank in 1989 in credit analysis. As a commercial lender, he specialized in mortgage warehouse and commercial real estate lending. During 2000, Santos became the bank’s chief originator for a partnership between Hibernia National Bank and Standard Mortgage of New Orleans focusing on the origination of multifamily loans to be placed in the permanent market through Fannie Mae and conduits. Since 2001, he has concentrated on multifamily loan requests processed through the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Multifamily Accelerated Processing program with responsibilities including origination, underwriting, and issuance of Ginnie Mae securities.
WinnCompanies Names Development VP
Meade Curtis has been named vice president of WinnCompanies’ development arm.
As a member of the WinnDevelopment team, Curtis will be based in New York City and will be responsible for executing business and fostering institutional investment relationships throughout New York and New Jersey, where he has invested in nearly 5,000 units of housing ranging from market-rate and rent-stabilized apartments to Mitchell-Lama, Sec. 8, and LIHTC properties.
Curtis comes to the firm after nearly four years as a vice president at AllianceBernstein Real Estate Partners, where he was responsible for sourcing investments on the behalf of the $1.2 billion real estate opportunity fund. Previously, he worked in the real estate acquisitions group at Blackstone and the real estate investment banking group at Merrill Lynch.
NEF Names VP for Public Housing
National Equity Fund (NEF) has appointed a top federal housing expert to lead its work on public housing and ramp up its focus on the Rental Assistance Demonstration (RAD) program, which taps private capital to help revitalize deteriorating developments.
Catalina Vielma recently stepped in as NEF’s new vice president for public housing. She was most recently the branch chief at HUD, overseeing $1 billion in RAD construction activity since the 2013 launch of the program.
This is Vielma’s second stint at NEF. She previously worked as a senior underwriting analyst for the Chicago-based nonprofit, before moving on to HUD’s Office of Multifamily Housing and, subsequently, the Office of Recapitalization, where she and her staff facilitated approximately 400 RAD transactions across the country.
HUD developed the RAD program to address more than $26 billion in unmet capital needs for subsidized housing—a level of rehab that cannot be funded by public dollars alone, Vielma said.
NEF, one of the country’s largest syndicators of LIHTCs, serves as a bridge between institutional investors and local housing authorities that need to raise capital and manage complicated housing deals to take advantage of RAD. Over the last three decades, NEF has raised and invested more than $11.4 billion in public housing developments—leveraging LIHTCs to support the effort.
Walker & Dunlop Boosts Multifamily Team
Hal Reinauer has joined Walker & Dunlop as a vice president in its multifamily finance group, where he will focus on originating Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac loans out of the company’s Boston office.
Reinauer recently served as production director at Holliday Fenoglio Fowler where he was an in-house expert on multifamily financing. He previously served as an originations director at Arbor Commercial Mortgage and as a senior underwriter for Fannie Mae.
Though he currently concentrates on government-sponsored enterprise loan originations, he also has experience originating FHA, commercial mortgage-backed securities, bridge, mezzanine, and preferred equity transactions nationwide.
Basgal Set to Retire from HUD
Ophelia Basgal will retire from federal service at the end of February after nearly 40 years of work in affordable housing.
Since 2010, Basgal has been HUD’s regional administrator for Arizona, California, Hawaii, Nevada, the territory of Guam, the commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, and American Samoa. She brought a national reputation to HUD as an expert on housing and community development issues having served 27 years as the executive director of the Housing Authority of the County of Alameda,alif.
She also served on the bipartisan congressional Millennial Housing Commission and was a member of, and held leadership positions in, several national housing organizations.
“I want to personally thank Ophelia for her deep dedication and commitment to the people and places HUD serves,” said HUD Secretary Julián Castro in a statement. “Her passion, savvy, and interpersonal skills set her apart. She is the consummate public servant who brought her vast knowledge and passion to work every single day.”
Furman Center Appoints Executive Director
Jessica Yager has been named executive director of the NYU Furman Center.
She succeeds Mark Willis, who agreed to step into the role two years ago in an interim capacity. He returns to research work full time as the Furman Center’s senior policy fellow.
Yager has led the center’s policy work since 2012, first serving as policy director. She spearheaded the NYU Furman Center’s work on building resilience in multifamily housing following Superstorm Sandy.
