The next venture for Buckeye Community Hope Foundation (BCHF), an Ohio-based not-for-profit developer of affordable housing, will be a 34-unit project for low- to moderate-income seniors in Falls Township, Ohio. The BCHF project is once again being facilitated by the Ohio Housing Finance Agency’s Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) program.
Valley View Pines will comprise 18 one-bedroom and 16 two-bedroom apartments in a row of single-level, ranch-style homes, which aids accessibility; the materials used in construction will be “eco-friendly.” BCHF will receive federal tax credits of $446,509 during each of the next 10 years to offset the cost of construction. The LIHTC program then requires owners to maintain an affordable, fixed rent and limit occupancy to residents with up to 60% of the area’s median income ($40,398 in the 2012 census) for up to 30 years.
Since its founding in 1991, BCHF has worked with numerous partners—developers, builders, bankers and other financing intermediaries, investors, government agencies, and community groups—to develop affordable housing. Access to the federal LIHTC program has been critical to the their success. The LIHTC program is “the largest driver of the production of new affordable housing in the state and nation,” according to the executive director of the Ohio Housing Finance Agency.
BCHF currently has 73 affordable housing projects located across Ohio, West Virginia, Virginia, Indiana, Kentucky, and South Carolina—and targeted investments in Pennsylvania, Illinois, and Tennessee. More than 80% of the nearly 3,000 units in these projects are located in Ohio. Nearly all of the projects were facilitated through federal tax credits.
