Bob Simpson is founder and CEO of the Multifamily Impact Council, a national nonprofit responsible for establishing and maintaining the first common framework of impact principles and reporting metrics for the multifamily industry.
Simpson is an expert in affordable, green, and healthy housing with more than 25 years of experience working at the highest levels of housing finance and public policy. He enjoyed a 20-year career at Fannie Mae, where he served as vice president and head of its affordable rental housing business. During his tenure, he helped increase affordable housing investments on Native American reservations and in underserved rural areas, established tenant pad lease protections for manufactured housing communities, and created the industry’s first green bond program.
He discusses a key development in his career.
Name of Development:
Blackfeet Homes I
Location:
The Blackfeet Native American Reservation in Browning, Montana
Briefly describe the development:
Completed in 2003, Blackfeet Homes was a 20-unit new-construction low-income housing tax credit (LIHTC) development targeted to low- and very low-income families. The community consisted of 10 two-bedroom and 10 three-bedroom units. Fannie Mae made a $2 million LIHTC equity investment in this project with partner Raymond James Affordable Housing Investments.
Your role in the development:
Blackfeet Homes I has brought new housing opportunities to the Blackfeet Native American Reservation in Browning, Montana.
Head of Fannie Mae’s Native American investment initiative.
Share why this development is meaningful to you:
I will always remember this development because it was one of the first deals we did as part of Fannie Mae’s broader nationwide commitment to increase investments in underserved rural areas and Native American communities.
We partnered with Raymond James to create the industry’s first national Native American Tax Credit Fund. This development is meaningful to me not only because it was one of the first deals we financed under this initiative but also because it helped us better understand how we could effectively drive more private capital to create affordable housing in some of our nation’s most underserved and overlooked communities.
On a personal level, as a young guy in his 30s without much experience at the time who was given the opportunity to lead this initiative, I felt a lot of pressure to succeed.
Lesson learned from this development:
What I learned most from this deal was how our investment added value by leveraging the Tribe’s existing resources and expanding their capacity to do more. In the past, the Blackfeet Nation had relied heavily on federal tribal housing funds to pay for new housing projects. These funds were limited and also needed to pay for maintenance at existing units and support other housing assistance programs. Consequently, their ability to build new units and plan for future developments was constrained.
Fannie Mae’s LIHTC investment allowed the tribal housing authority to increase their leverage of federal funds by a factor of five, which made it possible for them to increase funding for ongoing property maintenance and other programs. This development also set the foundation for tribal housing officials to develop their own financing expertise and build relationships with the broader investment community.
How has this development changed your life?
This development changed my life in two fundamental ways.
First, it reinforced my belief that capitalism works best when it works for everyone. And when that happens, we can improve lives, make more efficient use of public subsidies, and create investment opportunities that solve tough problems and deliver strong returns at scale.
Second, it made a profound impact on my career. This deal opened my eyes to the possibility that I could do this kind of work for a living. When I started working at Fannie Mae, I was not interested in having a traditional career in real estate. All I wanted to do was get paid to find ways to make it easier for the private sector to invest in poor and underserved communities, and to do so in a way that made them better places to live. It wasn’t until this project that I realized a career like this was actually possible.
