Seventy-three community development entities (CDEs) have been awarded $3.5 billion in New Markets Tax Credits (NMTCs) in the program’s 2018 round.
The recipients were selected from a pool of 214 applicants that requested $14.8 billion in tax credit allocation authority and are headquartered in 35 different states, Puerto Rico, and the District of Columbia, announced the Treasury Department’s Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFI) Fund.
Several of the CDEs receiving awards, or their affiliates, are involved in affordable housing, including CAHEC New Markets, Capital One Community Renewal Fund, Cinnaire New Markets, Corporation for Supportive Housing (CSH), Local Initiatives Support Corp., MBS Urban Initiatives CDE, PNC Community Partners, and U.S. Bank’s community development entity, USBCDE.
“This NMTC allocation will help forge new partnerships and new beginnings in communities by fulfilling our goals of expanding access to affordable housing and vital health-care services,” said Deborah De Santis, president and CEO of CSH, which received a $55 million allocation. "The positive results and impacts we see in neighborhoods because of NMTCs are proof of how valuable these awards are in creating more resilient, healthier communities."
McCormack Baron Salazar affiliate, MBS Urban Initiatives CDE, received a $60 million allocation this year, bringing the firm's total NMTC allocation to $410 million. Through its previous awards, it has provided key gap financing for 46 projects across the United States that have provided community goods and services to help educate over 45,000 students a year and assist over 280,000 low-income individuals according to company officials.
This latest allocation round brings the total amount awarded through the NMTC program to $57.5 billion.
”The New Markets Tax Credit is a powerful economic development tool that attracts private capital into hard-to-finance businesses in distressed communities nationwide,” said CDFI Fund director Jodie Harris. “Today’s awards will finance projects ranging from large manufacturing plants to grocery and retail stores that will create jobs and provide critically needed goods and services to residents of low-income communities. One-fifth of the investments resulting from today’s awards will be made in rural communities.”
Historically, NMTC program awards have generated $8 of private investment for every $1 invested by the federal government. Through the end of fiscal year 2017, the most recent data available, recipients deployed more than $48.6 billion in investments in low-income communities and businesses; with impacts such as the creation or retention of more than 800,000 jobs and the construction or rehabilitation of more than 205 million square feet of commercial real estate.
