This course will simultaneously build participants' confidence in basic financial modeling of affordable housing using common capital structures, while also exploring the relationship of finance with policy and regulation, real estate and urban planning objectives, design, and program limitations.
While the course will focus on current US programs, some historical context and occasional discussion of non-US examples will allow participants to understand the evolution of finance and policy in the US and to form a broader view on, and opinion of, our system.
Subject matter of the course will include, but not be limited to: definitions of affordability and target populations; rationale for intervention by government; subsidy and tax incentive programs at Federal, State and Local levels; role and motivations of various actors (government, quasi-governmental, non-profit, for-profit and philanthropic); the power and place of capital subsidies vs. operating subsidies; efficacy of financial tools for social engineering and outcomes.