Every choice Catalina Vielma has made so far in her career has been to learn something new and add another tool to her tool box to help solve the affordable housing crisis.
“The key issue has always been the same—incomes are not enough for housing costs—but the resources we create and use are constantly changing,” she says. “I love being in the rooms where smart people are debating new tools, and I’ll always gravitate to that, whether it takes me into public housing policy or new federal tax incentives.”
Born in Chile and raised in Chicago, after her family emigrated for her father to receive his MBA, affordable housing was a natural fit for Vielma. Her mother, who had been a social worker in Chile, became interested in community development in Chicago and worked for The Resurrection Project, a nonprofit founded to address the rising blight in the Pilsen neighborhood, from 1991 to 2017.
“I got to grow up being part of that,” she says. “I had a path really early on, and I was very lucky to be able to follow it.”
Vielma, 31, recently joined Boston Financial Investment Management (BFIM), where she’s a senior vice president of equity production. Based in Denver, she originates equity and chases tax credit deals from Nebraska to Alaska. She says she’s also excited about being at the forefront of combining tax credit equity with Opportunity Zone equity, which was included in tax reform at the end of 2017.
“Opportunity Zones offer us a chance to harness the power of community development, not just through affordable housing, but through infrastructure, small businesses, and other private tools,” she adds.
Prior to BFIM, Vielma served as a vice president of originations and a senior underwriting analyst at National Equity Fund and worked at the Department of Housing and Urban Development, where she underwrote Secs. 223(f) and 221(d)(4) deals under the Tax Credit Pilot Program as well as Rental Assistance Demonstration transactions.
She also is a strong proponent and user of social media.
“As we see a younger group of leaders rise, we should talk to them in the language they speak—social media. We have to have a social media presence. It is a way to expand the number of people who care about affordable housing,” she says. “As an industry, it’s really crucial to bring in people who don’t know about affordable housing into our tent. We need everyone to understand the housing crisis for our tent grow and get more resources at the federal, state, and local levels.”
