White House Announces HUD Nominees
President Joe Biden announced his intention to nominate Arthur Jemison for assistant secretary for public and Indian housing and Alanna McCargo for president of the Government National Mortgage Association at the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).
Jemison has been serving as principal deputy assistant secretary for the Office of Community Planning and Development at HUD. He joined the agency in January from the city of Detroit, where he was the top planning executive. Earlier, he served as deputy undersecretary and deputy director at the Department of Housing and Community Development for the commonwealth of Massachusetts under Gov. Deval Patrick.
McCargo has been serving as senior adviser for housing finance at HUD. Her career in housing spans decades and has centered on how America’s housing finance system can equitably provide credit and capital to households and affordable housing stakeholders. She joined the Biden-Harris administration after serving as vice president of the Housing Finance Policy Center at the Urban Institute. Before that, McCargo was head of CoreLogic Government Solutions, working with federal and state government agencies, regulators, think tanks, and academia to deliver custom data and technology solutions to support housing and consumer research. She also spent a decade at Fannie Mae, where she led policy development and secondary mortgage market programs.
Camber Property Group Names Head of Development
Karen Hu has joined Camber Property Group as executive vice president and head of development.
She brings nearly two decades of experience in real estate development to the New York-based firm, spanning both the public and private sectors. Most recently, she was a principal at The Hudson Cos., where she focused on both affordable and market-rate housing, including the One Clinton project, a $470 million, 38-story project that redeveloped the Brooklyn Heights branch of the Brooklyn Public Library system into a 134-unit market-rate condominium and a state-of-the-art library.
Hu grew up on the Lower East Side in the New York City Housing Authority’s Vladeck Houses and got her start in real estate at the city Department of Housing Preservation and Development as a city planner in the agency’s Bronx Planning Unit. She later worked at nonprofit Phipps Houses as a development project manager on new construction multifamily deals in both the South Bronx and Harlem.
Camber Property Group has been active in developing affordable housing in New York City for years, developing innovative projects and preserving much-needed affordable housing in communities across the five boroughs.
Dixon Joins Lument
Thomas Dixon has joined Lument as a director in its affordable multifamily housing production group. Based in Charlotte, North Carolina, the industry veteran will be responsible for originating affordable multifamily loans nationwide, specializing in tax-advantaged investments for multifamily housing.
Before joining Lument, he was a vice president in acquisitions at Boston Capital, where he managed the origination and structuring of equity investments in multifamily and low-income housing tax credit (LIHTC) projects across the Southwestern and Mountain state regions. He also previously worked at Boston Capital Partners, where he analyzed real estate underwriting and Section 42 tax issues for affordable housing properties.
Dixon is a board member of several organizations, including the Novogradac Journal of Tax Credit Developments, the California Housing Consortium, the Rainbow Housing Assistance Corp., and Lakeview Community Capital.
Walker & Dunlop Expands Affordable Housing Team
P.J. McDevitt has joined Walker & Dunlop as a managing director, with a focus on affordable housing. He brings extensive experience with the finance products at Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, HUD, and the Federal Housing Administration (FHA), announced the company.
Based in New Jersey, McDevitt will drive loan origination growth nationally.
Since 2018, he has been involved in the origination, underwriting, and closing of nearly $1 billion in affordable housing transactions. He recently served as a director at Greystone, where he was responsible for the origination of affordable multifamily housing loans for five years. McDevitt, who began his career in commercial real estate at Walker & Dunlop as a senior analyst, previously held positions with PNC.
Walker & Dunlop is one of the largest affordable housing lenders in the United States with $17 billion of affordable financing volume over the past three years.
CPP Adds to Team, Announces Rebranding
Tom Gibson, senior development manager, and Michael Anderson, senior acquisitions associate, have joined Community Preservation Partners (CPP) to support the growth of the firm’s East Coast division, which has a portfolio that includes $450 million in investments toward 2,000 affordable housing units in eight states.
Gibson joins CPP with extensive experience structuring and managing complex multifamily developments through creative financing strategies and public-private partnerships. He leads CPP East’s in-house team of developers through the successful completion of preservation projects. He is responsible for assembling and managing all external team members across various stages of development, including financiers, architects, designers, engineers, and contractors.
Anderson has more than 10 years of real estate experience spanning commercial brokerage, investment sales, and multifamily development in Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. In his role at CPP, Anderson is responsible for identifying, analyzing, and structuring the acquisition of affordable housing opportunities to grow CPP’s investment portfolio, expanding the company’s footprint east of the Rocky Mountains.
Both will be based in CPP East’s Reston, Virginia, headquarters.
CPP has also announced a brand relaunch, including a new logo, messaging platform, visual identity, and revamped website.
Positioned with the new tagline, “Creativity. Performance. Purpose. A Different Way to Home,” the new branding underscores the company’s mission of revitalizing, rehabilitating, and preserving affordable housing communities across the U.S., said firm leaders.
CPP was formed by WNC & Associates as its development arm to promote the preservation of low-income housing and to assist existing owners and general partners with recapitalizing and revitalizing their affordable housing portfolios. In under 10 years, the firm has experienced 450% growth in its overall total portfolio, which includes more than 11,000 low-income housing units across the country.
In Memoriam: Robert Verrier
Prominent architect Robert Verrier, founder of Boston-based The Architectural Team (TAT), died Aug. 23. He was 81.
He and his firm designed a number of prominent projects, including award-winning affordable housing developments, across the Northeast.
TAT celebrated its 50th anniversary this year, having completed more than 155,000 units of housing, adapting over 300 historic developments, and receiving at least 200 awards for design excellence.
Among Verrier’s notable works are housing conversions for such projects as the Voke Lofts in Worcester, Massachusetts, Loft Five50 in Lawrence, Massachusetts, and the Livingston Middle School near Albany, New York.
The conversion of an 1891 jewelry factory into Sterling Lofts was undertaken near Verrier's birthplace in Attleboro, Massachusetts, and an 1871 former steam-powered textile mill listed on the National Register of Historic Places became Knitting Mill Apartments in Fall River, Massachusetts.
Verrier earned more than 50 honors, including a National Historic Preservation Award bestowed by President Ronald Reagan in 1988, and he became a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects, its highest recognition, in 2011.
He is survived by his wife, Carmen Rios Verrier, and three children and their families.
