HAC is Hiring a Financial Controller

The Financial Controller is responsible for day-to-day management of HAC’s finance and accounting processes, applying technical and leadership skills to determine proper application of accounting policies, practices, activities and recording of transactions in accordance with GAAP and applicable industry standards. The successful candidate will have experience in a complex organization, demonstrate a strong customer service orientation, balanced communication style and robust critical and strategic thinking skills. The position will report to the Chief Financial Officer and will serve as advisor in all accounting, controllership, financial planning, analysis and reporting matters, including analysis and interpretation and application of FASB and related technical accounting standards and codifications.  In addition, this role partners with other members of the Senior Leadership Team in tactical implementation of HAC’s mission and strategic plan.

Read the position description and application instructions.

HAC is Hiring a Senior Human Resources and Payroll Administrator

The Housing Assistance Council, (HAC), is seeking a Senior Human Resources (HR) and Payroll Administrator to oversee all aspects of human resources and payroll practices and processes, reporting to the Chief Financial Officer.

People are our most important asset and you’ll be an impactful contributor to ensure we have a happy and productive workplace where everyone is inspired to bring their best work, realize their professional growth aspirations, and participate in helping HAC accomplish its noble Mission. Promoting corporate values and our positive culture is a vital aspect of HAC’s Senior HR and Payroll Administrator role.

Read the position description and application instructions.

HAC is Hiring a Rental Housing Development and Preservation Housing Specialist

Updated: 9/12/23

The Rental Housing Development and Preservation – Housing Specialist will work under the guidance of the Rental Housing Development and Preservation – Senior Housing Specialist and will be responsible for providing technical assistance (TA) and support to nonprofit organizations involved in multifamily housing programs, with a specific focus on USDA 515 and HUD rural housing programs. The role involves assisting in managing a pipeline of 515 transfer technical assistance requests and offering hands-on support to TA recipients in acquiring USDA-funded affordable multifamily properties. The Rental Housing Development and Preservation – Housing Specialist will also collaborate with stakeholders, conduct training sessions, and contribute to the success of affordable housing initiatives while ensuring program compliance.

This position is remote work eligible and comes with a competitive salary, generous benefits, and the opportunity to work in a fun and mission-focused environment

Read the position description and application instructions.

HAC is Hiring a Senior Accountant

The Senior Accountant is responsible for applying technical and leadership skills to guide accounting practices and recording of transactions. The successful candidate will have experience in a complex organization and demonstrate a balanced communication style and strong critical thinking skills. The position will report to and work closely with the Financial Controller.  The Senior Accountant must thrive in a deadline-oriented and evolving workplace. In addition, this role partners with other HAC Team members in tactical implementation of HAC’s mission and commitments to meeting the organization’s strategic plan.

Read the position description and application instructions.

HAC is Hiring a Rental Housing Development and Preservation Housing Specialist – Senior Level Position

Updated: 8/29/23

The Rental Housing Development and Preservation Housing Specialist is a senior-level role that combines expertise in multifamily housing programs, specifically focusing on USDA 515 and HUD rural housing programs, with the responsibility of providing technical assistance (TA) and guidance to staff and TA recipients, with a particular focus on transfers of USDA 515 properties. This position plays a leadership role in offering specialized knowledge on USDA 515 transfers and affordable housing preservation, supporting the success of affordable housing initiatives, and ensuring program compliance. The Senior Housing Specialist – Multifamily Housing collaborates with stakeholders, delivers training sessions, and provides customized support to enhance program effectiveness.

This position is remote work eligible and comes with a competitive salary, generous benefits, and the opportunity to work in a fun and mission-focused environment.

Read the position description and application instructions.

HAC Welcomes Leonel Parra as Chief Financial Officer

Leonel Parra, CFO

Leonel Parra, CFO

The Housing Assistance Council (HAC) is excited to welcome Leonel Parra as our new Chief Financial Officer (CFO). With extensive expertise in the non-profit, financial, and professional services, technology, and manufacturing sectors, Leonel brings a wealth of knowledge that will help HAC sustain our unprecedented growth and deepen our impact.

Leonel joins HAC from his most recent role as CFO at United Way Worldwide. Before that, Leonel was at mortgage giant Freddie Mac as a Head of Business Management and Chief of Staff charged with integrating Risk and Finance operations. Much of Leonel’s early career was with General Electric where he held various CFO and financial leadership positions across five business units, three industry sectors, and four countries. Notably, he was CFO for GE Capital Commercial Lending with their $5.5B loan portfolio.

“HAC has been building momentum and expanding our work. As we forge ahead, the demand for HAC to be a more sophisticated organization increases. We aim to meet the needs of small-town housing organizations across the country that rely on HAC for support and guidance.,” said HAC CEO David Lipsetz. “We are incredibly excited to have Leonel join the HAC team and help us build the systems to sustain and supercharge that progress.”

Leonel is a licensed CPA, with a degree in Accounting from Universidad Autonoma de Chihuahua, Mexico. He volunteers for organizations that promote financial literacy and has a passion to leverage his extensive experience to help communities in need. Leonel lives in North Potomac, MD, with his wife and three children.

HAC is Hiring an Executive Assistant

The Executive Assistant supports the work of HAC’s Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Senior Leadership, and Board of Directors. The position is a blend of administrative work and project assignments. The candidate’s duties and responsibilities include maintaining an effective and well-organized Executive Office, serving as the primary point of contact for the CEO, and managing the meetings, materials, and other needs of HAC’s Board of Directors. This role helps drive a responsive and positive work culture for the entire organization.

Read the position description and application instructions.

HAC 2022 Annual Report Featured Image

HAC’s 2022 Annual Report

HAC would like to present its Annual Report for the year 2022.

2022 Annual Report

A Message from HAC President & CEO and Board Chair

The Housing Assistance Council (HAC) is soaring to new heights. For our 50th anniversary last year, we turned our attention to building a launch pad for rural prosperity over the next 50 years. We are proud to report that in 2022 HAC blasted off from that launch pad, broadening the ways we help rural communities build a better future.

In 2022, HAC lending and technical assistance built the capacity of 166 rural housing organizations across 43 states. We published 24 editions of HAC News and 13 new research products, including 3 guides to resources needed to recover from a natural disasters. We invested more than we ever have before: $22.2 million to finance the construction, preservation, or rehab of 787 affordable homes. Plus, more than 37% of our loans were made in counties that have had a poverty rate of at least 20% for the last three decades. At the same time, we increased our staff by 21%, expanding the footprint of our work.

Last year, HAC enhanced our position as the Nation’s source for independent, non-partisan policy solutions for rural housing and community development. With the help of our first-ever Director of Policy, HAC led the effort to secure historic federal investment in manufactured housing communities. We met with House and Senate leadership, testified before Committees, worked with the White House and continued to be the go-to source for research and analysis on rural housing markets and living conditions in small towns.

2022 was also a big year for HAC’s “housing-adjacent” work on community facilities and placemaking. We’ve always known that community is more than a collection of houses. By finding new ways to engage small towns as they develop community facilities—such as parks, libraries, and childcare centers—HAC has helped them cultivate a feeling of belonging while providing tangible benefits for every resident. Also in 2022, we more than doubled our work in placemaking, which uses design and the arts to bring communities together, as a catalyst toward sustained community betterment and economic growth.

Additionally, we spent 2022 deepening our impact on affordable housing development. Combining both financing and technical assistance, HAC opened new avenues of work supporting rural rental preservation, ensuring that more existing affordable homes remain high-quality and rent assisted for years to come. Plus, we redoubled our efforts to better understand our impact and identify areas of growth through data and metrics.

HAC has been hard at work increasing the depth and breadth of our impact across rural America. As we reach greater heights and do more, we thank you for boosting our work. We’re excited to show you what this momentum will help all of us achieve.

Download 2022 Annual Report View on the Web

Old Historic Carnation, LP: A HAC Success Story

HAC’s patience and flexibility help convert a vacant Carnation milk plant into homes for seniors in Tupelo, MS

Rendering of carnation plant developmentThe Carnation Milk plant in Tupelo, Mississippi, has sat vacant since 1972. In about a year, that will change when 33 low-income senior households move into new affordable homes in this old factory. This May, Old Historic Carnation, LP broke ground on Carnation Village, a $16.8 million adaptive reuse project to convert the abandoned factory into 33 units of affordable senior housing. These units are sorely needed in Tupelo, a high-poverty community which needs over 1,500 additional senior affordable housing units. With a $325,000 loan from The Housing Assistance Council (HAC)—and two sixth-month extensions to that loan—the developer successfully navigated a predevelopment process mired in construction cost increases and unexpected funding gaps. Here’s how:

Photo of vacant Carnation plantThe original project scope called for 50 units: 25 from an adaptive re-use of the plant itself and another 25 in a second building to be constructed next door. When our loan closed in July 2021, the project budget totaled about $12.7 million, to be funded by Low Income Housing Tax Credits, Historic Tax Credits, and a $1.6 million equity investment. Our financing covered the predevelopment costs of the work required to get to construction financing closing including environmental testing, historic preservation approvals, tax credit application and reservation fees, a market study, and an appraisal.

In the fall of 2021, increases in construction costs left Old Historic Carnation with a $3.8 million funding gap. By the time they applied for and received more tax credits from the Mississippi Housing Corporation (MHC), added a $1 million mortgage, received approval from the National Park Service, and updated the construction bids, costs had increased by a further $4.5 million. In the space of less than a year, the construction cost for the project nearly doubled.

Because HAC can be a patient lender, we extended our loan by six months to give the developer time to solve the problem. Old Historic Carnation applied for and received another tax credit increase from the state, reduced costs with value engineering measures, and increased the deferred developer fee by almost $2 million.

Construction costs increased again in the summer of 2022, causing the equity investor to back out of the project. The developer went back to the drawing board once again and reduced the project’s scope to 33 units, all affordable to households making less than 80% of the area median income (AMI). Plus, 26 would also be affordable to households under 60% AMI. With an additional loan extension from HAC, Old Historic Carnation secured approval of the new scope by MHC, obtained the necessary building permits, and have now begun demolition.

HAC Loan Office Alison Duncan (center) breaks ground for Carnation Village.

HAC Loan Office Alison Duncan (center) breaks ground for Carnation Village. Photo by Adam Robison, the Daily Journal.

On March 21st, Old Historic Carnation, LP closed on construction financing and repaid our predevelopment loan in full. And on May 31st, the project broke ground. Old Historic Carnation’s persistence and creativity made this project a success. But it was HAC’s flexibility that supported them as they went through the process of raising additional funds three times to make the project work. The Carnation Village project showcases how the ingenuity of a local housing developer, solid working relationships with private, state and federal funders, and flexible and patient HAC financing all add up to bring difficult and important projects to fruition. Fifty-one years ago, Carnation Milk closed its factory in Tupelo, Mississippi. Soon, thirty-three low-income, senior households will be able to call it home.

HAC is proud to be a critical part of this project and we look forward to watching it develop.

Rural Recap – Promoting Prosperity

Rural communities need—and deserve—a coherent, national policy strategy that promotes prosperity. For such a strategy to move the needle, it must end the housing affordability crisis and build the capacity of rural communities to make the most of every opportunity.

Our homes are part of the foundation of thriving families and communities—they are pathways to realizing America’s full potential. With decent, healthy, and affordable homes, kids can succeed at school, seniors can age in place, and families can build wealth. Economics, health, education, and many more components of prosperous communities are all intimately tied to our homes.

The capital needed for a housing market to function is a lot like water: it flows down the path of least resistance, and it pools. For over 50 years—whether intentionally or not—public policy has channeled capital’s flow into sprawling metropolitan regions and allowed it to pool in suburbs and downtown commercial centers. This has deepened inequality and stifled opportunity in the communities that have been left out.

Building rural prosperity will happen one nail and one funding application at a time. Turning those into a national renaissance for rural America will take strategy. If we want investment to flow to a broader set of places and especially to the people and places which need it most, then we need public policy specifically designed to drive resources in their direction. To make the most of that capital, we must also build the capacity of those communities.

HAC builds the capacity of small towns and rural places to create thriving, prosperous communities. If you share our mission, please advocate on behalf of public funds for capacity building programs. We also hope you will consider making a gift to HAC to help us do more in rural America.

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