Katie Moore, East Tennessee liaison for the Tennessee Housing Development Agency, can sum up the mission of the state’s housing division with a few succinct words: “We are tasked with creating safe, sound, and affordable housing for all Tennesseans,” she says.
What Moore cannot do in a few words is explain how they accomplish this mission. Housed in the Andrew Jackson Building in Nashville, the 220-person agency works with a dizzying number of local partners to administer dozens of programs.
Moore provides an example: “We have a mortgage program that utilizes partners in Hamilton County,” she says. “So, for instance, someone can go to Mortgage Investors Group to get a loan through us.”
THDA offers a low interest mortgage (3.99 percent) with downpayment assistance, so it’s easy, even for someone with a low credit score, to be approved for a loan, says Moore.
“You simply walk into one of our lenders, and they’ll evaluate your options,” she says. “Our loans are great for a low- to moderate-income person who might need downpayment assistance.” (A list of THDA’s local lenders can be found on www.greatchoicetn.com.)
THDA does more than provide financial assistance; it also educates the public, partly in an effort to help people understand whether or not they’re ready to buy a home. “We do an eight-hour class that covers the basics of home maintenance, budgeting, and affordability. We want people to understand what being a homeowner is about and help them to make sure they’re ready,” Moore says.
THDA does more than engage homebuyers; they also work with city and county governments, housing authorities, and for-profit developers to build affordable housing by securing low income housing tax credits. Alton Park in Chattanooga is one such development.
“The idea behind the tax credits is to create amazing apartment complexes for low-income folks,” Moore says. “We have people in our community – servers, bank tellers, teachers, police officers – who are not low income per se, but according to our guidelines, they are. We want to make sure they have access to safe, sound, affordable housing.”
Moore says this form of housing is good for a community because it generally looks great, increases property values, and builds up the portion of the community in which it resides. “You’d never know it’s affordable housing,” she says.
THDA also has a community grants division that administers nine Federal programs that provide funds for utility payments, weatherizations, energy evaluations, emergency repairs for the elderly, and more. Moore likes solutions that help people in the long run. “We can pay your utility bill once a year, but is that a long-term solution?” she says. “If we can do some weatherization, you might not need help paying your bill.”
Perhaps surprisingly to some people, THDA doesn’t rely solely on funding from outside sources; rather, the mortgages they sell generate revenue they pump back into their programs. “We’re taking the money we make and putting it into our programs,” Moore says. “This is a good thing for our lenders because they’re giving a great mortgage to a customer, and most of the proceeds that mortgage earns will go back into the community.”
Owing to the size of THDA and the numbers of programs it adminsiters, the agency not only relies on its local partners to carry out its services but also to keep them informed about what’s taking place within a community. “We’re not boots-on-the-ground everywhere,” she says, “so we depend on our local partners to tell us what their community needs.”
Moore says Chattanooga needs rentals. “For some reason, millenials are renting,” she says. To address this issue, THDA is interested in doing more tax credit deals in Hamilton County, and is “having conversations” to that end.
That said, Moore is impressed with the quality of the housing in Chattanooga. “You have a beautiful housing stock. It’s an aging housing stock, so a lot of the work we do here is centered around rehabs. You have a neat and thriving community.”
Moore also urges Realtors to tell their low- to moderate-income clients about the help THDA can provide. “Realtors are always trying to stay current and do what’s in the best interest of their client,” she says. “So if they have someone who has a lower credit score and might need some downpayment assistance, or maybe someone who can benefit from a homebuyers education class, have them visit greatchoicetn.com. It has information on everything we can do.”
At the end of the day, everything THDA does goes back to their mission: creating safe, sound, and affordable housing for all Tennesseans. “We want to help everyone, no matter what their walk of life might be,” she says.