Five individuals who have helped shape affordable housing by championing key policies, including the low-income housing tax credit (LIHTC), creating thousands of units, and raising critical equity will be inducted into the Affordable Housing Hall of Fame this year. Affordable Housing Finance’s 2014 inductees are:
Paul Fate: Fate has 35 years of leadership in housing and community development. CEO of St. Paul, Minn.–based CommonBond Communities for the past seven years, he led the nonprofit’s first ever capital campaign, which raised more than $21 million and resulted in an endowment fund for CommonBond’s Advantage Centers of nearly $7 million. In addition, he oversaw an increase in flexible working capital resources from $2 million to $15 million. Fate announced his retirement earlier this year.
Rick Goldstein: A partner in the Tax Credit Finance and Syndication Group in the Washington, D.C., office of law firm Nixon Peabody, Goldstein has been involved with the LIHTC program since its creation in 1986 and continues to be one of its biggest champions. As a transactional lawyer, he has worked with syndicators, investors, developers, and other participants involved in the housing tax credit. He has also been instrumental in lobbying for the program. Goldstein is the longtime general counsel of the Affordable Housing Tax Credit Coalition (AHTCC), a major trade association in the LIHTC industry.
Hal Keller: Active in affordable housing for more than 30 years, Keller has been with the Ohio Capital Corporation for Housing (OCCH), a Columbus-based mission-driven nonprofit that works with private and public developers to create affordable housing, since its inception; first as director of development and then as president since 1993. Since OCCH’s creation in 1989, the organization has raised over $3 billion in private capital and invested in over 33,500 units of affordable housing in over 675 developments in Ohio and Kentucky.
Al Scott: Co-founder of Cleveland-based The NRP Group, Scott, along with partners J. David Heller and Rick Bailey, grew the firm into one of the nation’s top affordable housing developers since its creation in 1995. Scott has helped to develop more than 200 single-family and multifamily developments that include more than 23,000 units in 13 states. He has been a champion for the improvement and preservation of the LIHTC program over the years and has been active in the National Association of Home Builders and the Ohio Home Builders Association. He retired as principal of the for-profit developer in May.
Ronne Thielen: With a 35-year real estate finance and investment career, Thielen has been a central figure in the LIHTC industry since the program’s start. She is executive vice president of syndicator R4 Capital, where she is responsible for running West Coast operations. Prior to that, she had been a managing director in Centerline Capital’s Affordable Housing Group. During her diverse career, Thielen has held several other notable posts, including executive director of the California Tax Credit Allocation Committee and deputy director for program and policy development at the National Council of State Housing Agencies. She is a past president and current board member of the AHTCC. Thielen also serves on the boards of the National Housing & Rehabilitation Association, AHF Editorial Advisory Board, and Abode Communities, a nonprofit developer.
The inductees will be featured in the October issue of Affordable Housing Finance and honored at AHF Live: The Affordable Housing Developers Summit, which will be held Nov. 19-21 at the Fairmont Millennium Park in Chicago.
