A nonprofit that raises capital for affordable housing developments in northern New England says funding for seven projects is in jeopardy.
Evernorth has informed several developers that it might not be able to raise enough money from tax credits awarded to several multifamily housing projects in Maine. That means developers might have to find another way to raise the money.
Tax credits are often a key component in lower-income housing financing. Maine awards federal tax credits to developers, which are then sold to help fund construction. Evernorth, which came about after the merging of the Northern New England Housing Investment Fund and Housing Vermont, acts as a broker by agreeing to sell those credits on the market for developers.
The Maine State Housing Authority Director Daniel Brennan told the authority's commissioners during a Tuesday meeting that the loss in investment could total over $10 million dollars. He called it a "big concern." In a later interview, he said he was planning to talk to Evernorth about the challenges it was seeing on Wednesday.
Nancy Owens is Evernorth's president. She said Evernorth still hopes to raise the money, but that factors like traditional tax credit investors pulling out of the market and higher construction costs are making that task difficult. She said it was important to inform the developers as soon as possible so they could choose to work with other brokers if they wished to do so.
"That array of issues has gotten to the point where we are concerned about how many more transactions we can close this year. And so we needed to communicate that to our development partners," she said.
Mainebiz reported in July that Evernorth planned to invest in five Maine projects after raising $54 million in capital, including those in Portland, Lewiston, Bangor, Scarborough and Bridgton. Owens said between 50 to 60 percent of the nonprofit's investment portfolio is in Maine.
