TCB Names VP of Community Life
Elizabeth González Suárez has been named vice president of community life at The Community Builders (TCB), one of the nation’s top nonprofit affordable housing developers.
González Suárez will serve as a member of the leadership team and advance the role TCB and partner institutions play in providing access to opportunity for families and seniors in TCB communities across 14 states and Washington, D.C.
Previously, she served as the director of community health practice at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute (DFCI) and the deputy director of the U54 Partnership Outreach Program. Most of her 20-year tenure with DFCI was dedicated to designing and implementing evidence-based programs that promote public health among high-risk and underserved populations. She was also active in the DFCI diversity initiative to increase the representation of people of color in health professions.
González Suárez’s new appointment advances Boston-based TCB’s strategic plan to facilitate opportunities for residents and neighborhoods to achieve improved educational, personal, social, and economic success.
Walsh Joins NOAH
Affordable housing industry veteran Dee Walsh has a new role—COO at the Network for Oregon Affordable Housing (NOAH), a certified nonprofit community development financial institution that was established initially by Oregon banks to increase the state’s supply of affordable housing while fostering smart development and community revitalization. NOAH offers a variety of loan products to support the acquisition, renovation, and construction of affordable housing properties throughout the state.
The COO is a new position charged with overseeing NOAH’s internal operations to advance organizational systems and processes and help lead the implementation of the organization’s new strategic plan, which includes an ambitious agenda to grow and diversify products and programs over the next five years.
For the past three years, Walsh was executive vice president for network and corporate affairs at the Housing Partnership Network (HPN), a collaborative of the 100 leading nonprofit community development organizations in the United States.
For the 22 years prior to her work at HPN, Walsh headed REACH Community Development, a nonprofit housing and community development entity based in Portland, Ore., which she grew from a small neighborhood-based nonprofit into a regional housing development and property management agency with a staff of 100 and an operating budget over $14 million.
R4 Capital Names EVP
K. Nicole Flores has joined R4 Capital, a national affordable housing tax credit syndicator and asset manager, as executive vice president.
She will open and run R4 Capital’s Austin, Texas, office, expanding the firm’s national presence to four office locations, including Boston, New York City, and Newport Beach, Calif.
Flores will be responsible for building and managing a new acquisitions team focused on the Southwest and mountain states, including Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, Texas, and Utah.
She has held senior management positions throughout her 25-year career in the affordable housing industry during which she has financed more than $1 billion in LIHTC transactions. Most recently, Flores originated investment opportunities across a 13-state region in the southwestern United States for another LIHTC syndicator.
BRIDGE Housing Adds to Team
BRIDGE Housing has created two positions under its new Community Development Initiative, which will leverage the nonprofit’s role as an affordable housing developer to partner with and enhance neighborhood institutions and communities, focusing on the social determinants of health that affect residents’ quality of life and long-term outcomes.
Marco Ramirez joined BRIDGE as senior manager, community development for Jordan Downs. He will oversee implementation of community development and program-related activities at Jordan Downs—a large-scale revitalization effort that BRIDGE and its partners are undertaking in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles, which will transform 700 units of distressed public housing into a mixed-income, mixed-use community with approximately 650 additional homes and no loss of public housing.
Ramirez’s responsibilities will include developing and maintaining relationships with existing neighborhood institutions, service providers, key stakeholders, and community members; supporting the creation of a jobs pipeline in partnership with service leaders; and leading data sharing, communications, and other community-building activities.
A seasoned community and economic development practitioner, he most recently served as director, community building and neighborhood revitalization, for the Cabrillo Economic Development Corp. in Ventura, Calif.
Kassie Bertumen recently took on a new role as BRIDGE’s community development manager. Previously, she had been a project manager at BRIDGE, where she worked on a number of developments, including the recently acquired Oceanview Senior Apartments in Pacifica and the newly constructed multifamily Rivermark apartments in West Sacramento.
In her new role, she is responsible for providing initiative design, development, implementation, and evaluation support, as well as managing the ongoing research and advancement of the Trauma Informed Community Building model at two key sites: Jordan Downs in Los Angeles and Potrero Hill in San Francisco.
CREA Appoints VP to Cover Texas
Rachel Thomas has been appointed to vice president of acquisitions and will cover Texas and surrounding states for City Real Estate Advisors (CREA).
Active in affordable housing finance since 1998, she brings extensive experience to CREA’s acquisitions team.
Thomas will be responsible for identifying, structuring, and closing affordable housing equity opportunities throughout her region. She will be based in CREA’s Austin, Texas, office. CREA is a full-service tax credit syndicator, specializing in LIHTCs.
Love Funding Promotes Folkers to Chief Underwriter
Angela Folkers has been promoted to senior vice president and chief underwriter at Love Funding, a leading provider of FHA multifamily, affordable, and health-care financing.
In her new role, Folkers is responsible for overseeing Love Funding’s underwriting team and procedures. She will train and manage the underwriting staff, loan production specialists, and analysts. Folkers, who previously served as Love Funding’s deputy chief underwriter, has extensive experience working with loan originators and the underwriting department, overseeing transactions from concept through to closing. Since joining Love Funding in 2005, she has underwritten more than 40 transactions in excess of $600 million.
Folkers’ career in mortgage banking began in 2002 with Prudential Mortgage Capital Co., where she worked as a senior investment analyst in the portfolio management group.
ACRE Capital Adds to Affordable Housing Platform
Sean Cullen has been hired to lead ACRE Capital’s affordable multifamily housing platform. As senior managing director in the New York City office, he is responsible for the origination of the firm’s full range of affordable multifamily loan programs nationwide, including Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Federal Housing Administration (FHA) loan products.
Cullen comes to the company from RBC Capital Markets, where he was a director and served as an investment banker to affordable multifamily housing developers and public housing authorities on over $1 billion of affordable housing projects financed with tax-exempt bonds. Earlier in his career, Cullen spent 10 years at Moody’s Investors Services as a senior vice president and team leader focused on analyzing Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and FHA-insured tax-exempt multifamily bonds.
Ronnie Gyani has also joined the affordable multifamily housing platform as a director in the New York City Office.
Gyani is also from RBC Capital Markets, where he was a senior associate in the housing finance group focused on investment banking services for multifamily and single-family affordable projects nationwide. Prior to his six years at RBC, he served as an analyst at the New York State Housing Finance Agency, where he assisted in the due diligence, pricing, and closings of affordable multifamily tax-exempt bond issuances.
ACRE Capital is a commercial real estate lender and servicer that primarily originates, sells, and services market-rate and affordable multifamily loans, senior housing loans, and loans for health-care facilities under programs offered by government and government-sponsored enterprises.
Arbor Appoints VP
Collin Downey has been appointed vice president, sales, at Arbor Commercial Mortgage, a national, direct commercial real estate lender. He will be in the company’s Irvine, Calif., office.
With more than 10 years of real estate finance expertise on a range of products and assets types, Downey will be responsible for originating loans under all of Arbor’s multifamily and commercial product lines, including Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, FHA, bridge, CMBS, and mezzanine financing.
Prior to joining Arbor, Downey served as a senior loan officer at Fidelity Commercial Funding.
Cinnaire Promotes Frank
Susan Frank has been promoted to senior vice president, business development, at Cinnaire.
In this role, she is responsible for directing and implementing the company’s growth strategy in the Mid-Atlantic region, including debt, equity, and community development lending. In addition, she is part of companywide initiatives to enhance the company’s marketing strategy and to expand the availability of lending products.
Frank joined Cinnaire in March 2014 as vice president, business development. Prior to joining the firm, she worked for 25 years in the affordable housing industry, including as a director in Fannie Mae’s multifamily and community lending divisions and executive director of the Delaware State Housing Authority, the state’s housing finance agency. Frank also served as a legislative adviser to then-U.S. Rep. Tom Carper on housing and banking issues.
Century Housing Adds VP
Josh Hamilton has joined Century Housing as vice president of lending, bringing more than 15 years in affordable housing finance to the organization.
In his new role, he will be responsible for loan originations throughout Century’s Southern California footprint.
Hamilton was previously with PNC Real Estate, where he originated over $300 million in loans through Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and the FHA.
M&T Realty Appoints Agency Program Manager
M&T Realty Capital Corp. has appointed Michael L. Edelman as program manager for its Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac lending platforms. He will be responsible for the company’s annual production in these programs on a national basis.
Edelman joins the firm with more than 25 years of mortgage banking experience. His most recent appointment was at Meridian Capital Group, where he served as a senior managing director leading the group’s national multifamily origination network.
Prior to this appointment, Edelman served as a senior vice president of production management at Beech Street Capital/Capital One Multifamily.
