Leveraging the power of nonprofits to create affordable housing

The parent company was formed with the same sense of urgency as felt today – what with soaring property values that have made homeownership elusive to so many. It was founded as a direct response to the is­sues of property abandonment and blight that New York City was facing at the time, according to its website. Each year, between 20,000 and 30,000 rental units were being lost to abandonment, fire, or demolition, as the city took ownership of hundreds of buildings through foreclosure and forfeiture.

In response to a 1972-73 study conducted by the New York City Clearing House, an association of com­mercial banks, and the banking community, led by David Rockefeller, stepped up with a pro­posal to address the problem, the company’s website recounts.

“Perhaps, focusing a small amount of pooled capital on a few neighborhoods – namely Crown Heights in Brooklyn and Washington Heights in Manhattan – would improve building quality and people’s living conditions, and help pre­vent the blight in surrounding neighborhoods from de­stabilizing them. CPC was founded in 1974 to be a self-sustaining vehicle, a departure from many non­profits, which rely on regular injections of charita­ble support, officials further note on their website.

The strategy has paid off. Today, the parent company stands as the largest CDFI (community development financial institution) solely committed to investing in multifamily housing, having invested more than $11.9 billion to finance the creation and preservation of more than 220,000 units of quality housing in neighborhoods across New York and beyond.

Cannon told MPA the current effort in joining the collaborative is to expand its reach: “The whole thesis behind this partnership for CPC Mortgage was to expand our geographic reach and bring some Agency – large, capital A – products to customers beyond our normal geographic reach,” he said.