Q: Tell us about your role and what Red Stone Equity Partners does.

A: Red Stone is a syndicator of tax credits, which is a fancy way of saying that we broker relationships between the institutional investors of the Low Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) and the developers that have the tax credits. We also underwrite, close and asset manage funds on behalf of our investor partners.

I joined Red Stone in 2019 and my specific role is to find opportunities that we want to place our equity in across the Northwest, Midwest, and part of the Great Lakes.

Q: What does that entail?

A: The first piece of my job is finding opportunities, and that means I am taking coffee with folks in the city, at IHDA, with developers, consultants, etc. I’m trying to get a handle on who is applying for credits, who is successful, who is someone I want to work with, who is moving up and exciting, who might be a good pairing to work with someone else I know. I’m trying to give people a value add in the tax credit application process.

The second part of my job tends to be very Excel heavy because those are the opportunities I am currently looking at where they have credits in hand and they are looking for an equity partner. It is my job to think about the investor partners that we have and determine who would be a good match for this development.

The third part of my job is a lot of negotiating and underwriting on deals that we have secured.

Q: It sounds like there is a big learning curve for your job. How did you get into this work and how did you learn the skills you needed?

A: There is a big learning curve and everyone is on it because there isn’t a LIHTC course. What was really helpful for me and my career trajectory was working within HUD. I started on the equity side at the National Equity Fund on the underwriting side which was helpful because I saw a hundred deals every year. I saw so many different types of deals, developers, and places.

At HUD, because I was young, and curious, and I knew a little bit about LIHTC, they really threw me into things.

Those opportunities made me feel more empowered and at my next job I asked more questions, I pushed back, and I was more direct about wanting to learn, versus waiting for someone to pick me up and teach me. I think that is still the case today. I learn so much from my peers, from our underwriters, from my boss, etc. It’s an ever evolving program that requires constant learning.

Everyone knows pieces of [LIHTC], but there is not one single person who can say “I know everything about LIHTC there is to know.” We’re all in the same boat and I think that makes LIHTC equity an equalizer of different skills sets. If you’re curious, thoughtful, kind, and focused, you can do really well - regardless of if you have a planning degree, a finance degree, or an art degree.

Q: We’ve talked before about the need for increased diversity in the industry. Can you share with me what you see as the value of making this a priority and what your thoughts are on how we get there?

A: On why I think it is an urgent need - selfishly, because the industry needs to survive and needs to thrive. Every month, I read an article about people in the industry retiring and I don’t see an equal amount of young people entering the industry.

I also think that the industry has done really well creating different little facets out of this weird tax widget. Out of the tax credit program, we have created housing for young adults with intellectual disabilities, housing for seniors, women, etc. I think that there is a lot more power if you have people coming out of the community who have benefited from LIHTC and have a real passion for it because they know it, to be the ones helping to create a development. I think this would only serve to make the developments better and more tenant focused. I think the program has reached the stage where we are pretty good at housing people – we don’t house enough people, so how do we house people well enough that they don’t stay in LIHTC forever? Are there people we can help stabilize, get their next job, and their next, next job, and save for a house? Being able to do that is maybe something we can only do when we have more people who understand the deep need for housing because they have lived it.

In the last 18-months, a lot of institutions, agencies, funders, etc. have been throwing money at trying to find a developer who is a person of color because that feels like the most obvious solution. But I think that the actual answer is much more complex and it’s hard. It’s going to local colleges and schools and talking to people in finance and development programs, telling them about the tax credit program, and saying “we know you’re learning about development, but have you heard about this really cool, stable, decently paying tax program where you can take your skill set and do really well while also doing good.” It’s a pretty easy pitch, but we need to start with young people.

Q: What's a project you have worked on that you are most proud about?

A: There’s one that’s local, it’s a deal called Grace Manor and it is designed by JGMA which is a minority architecture firm. It’s along Ogden on Route 66 in Lawndale, which has historically been under capitalized, and as a kid from Pilsen, it feels pretty personal to me. The City, the developer, and the architect, are coming up with a unique vision to not just build affordable housing, but to build something really beautiful that will beautify the space and draw people into it. 

One project that I’m excited about that is not local is a deal in Denver that is one hundred percent permanent supportive housing for transitional aged youth (18-24 yrs). There is a huge homeless problem in communities like Denver and the state more broadly. About a third of the young homeless population in Denver are LGBTQ+ whose families had kicked them out of their homes in neighboring states, and Denver felt like the closest safe haven for them. As a same-sex parent it speaks to me personally as trying to house young adults who are starting out in their lives and being dealt a really bad hand. It’s really great when you get to tour a development like this and they are fully occupied because you know that everyone living in that development has had the arc of their life has changed based on living in that development, and that is really exciting to me.