Time: 9:30-11:30am
Location: MassHousing, Board Room, 29th Floor (One Beacon Street, Boston, MA)

Registration Deadline: April 2, 2012

One of the major findings of the Innovation Forum in 2009 was the importance of enabling nonprofit housing organizations to earn more revenue from their existing portfolios so that their financial health would be less dependent on increasingly irregular and unreliable developer fees. Since that time a number of organizations have launched programs to move the field in this direction, including initiatives related to financial management, energy efficiency, professional development, collaboration, and policy reform. This Innovation Forum event highlighted some of these exciting developments and provided a forum to discuss how we can further advance and expand them.

Photos:

Materials:

• Asset Management: Scope of Work - Real Estate Finance Working Group of the Innovation Forum
• Asset Management: Strengthening Your Portfolio - Harold Nassau, NeighborWorks America
• Sample Monthly Property Report - Armando Perez,  Boston Financial Investment Management
• Vision for a Shared Asset Managent Center - MH Nsangou, Allston Brighton CDC

Moderator

• Susan Connelly, Director of Community Housing Initiatives, Massachusetts Housing Partnership

Susan Connelly joined MHP in 2004 after 17 years in real estate development and management. She is responsible for overseeing MHP’s support of communities and community-based non-profits in their efforts to build affordable housing. Her responsibilities include coordinating MHP’s Production Capacity Grant Program, which in 2005 awarded three-year grants totalling $2.5 million to 32 non-profit housing organizations. She is also managing MHP’s Targeted Community Initiative Program, which provides support and technical assistance to communities trying to build affordable housing.

Panelists

• MH Nsangou, Executive Director, Allston Brighton CDC

Mary-Helen Nsangou, who goes by “MH,” is the executive director of the Allston Brighton Community Development Corporation, in the Allston Brighton neighborhood of Boston. Over 18 years at Allston Brighton CDC, she has founded, led and strengthened programs that create stability, opportunity and community engagement through affordable housing, economic development and environmental initiatives.

MH began at the Allston Brighton CDC as a community organizer, established and grew its affordable homeownership education program, and went on to serve as the organization’s associate director. She also played interim roles as executive director and director of economic development.

MH’s interest in community development began as a college student at Wesleyan University, where she created her own major in ethics and led research on women in homelessness. This interest was deepened through service in the Peace Corps as a Community Development volunteer in Cameroon, where she organized rural women’s groups’ micro-enterprise projects. MH completed the General Management Program at Harvard Business School and is a current MBA candidate at the McCallum School of Business at Bentley University.

• Armando Perez, Executive Vice President, Investment Management, Boston Financial Investment Management

Mr. Pérez is the Executive Vice President responsible for Investment Management.  He directs asset management, fund management and client reporting activities for Boston Financial’s tax credit equity investments in more than 1,600 properties nationwide.  Mr. Pérez also is responsible for third-party asset management services and for the strategic management of Boston Financial’s proprietary Information Technology platform.  Mr. Pérez brings 27 years of real estate and affordable housing experience to his role, including 20 years of LIHTC experience.  Prior to joining the firm, Mr. Pérez was an Asset Management Officer at the Massachusetts Housing Finance Agency.  Mr. Pérez received a B.A. from Columbia University;  earned a Master’s in Regional Planning from Cornell University on a Cornell Graduate Fellowship;  and completed the MIT Center for Real Estate’s Minority Developers Executive Program.  Mr. Pérez is a member of the Cornell Real Estate Council and has served on the board of directors of several non-profit housing and community organizations in Boston.

• Harold Nassau, Senior Manager for Asset Management Programs, NeighborWorks America, New England District 

Harold Nassau is NeighborWorks® America’s Senior Manager for Asset Management Programs. For the past twelve years Mr.  Nassau has overseen asset management training and technical assistance for one hundred local NeighborWorksOrganizations who develop multifamily housing. He supervises and reviews the performance data collection for the 74,000 multifamily units owned by NeighborWorks®America members. In 2005 Mr. Nassau designed and launched Neighborhood Risk Management Corp and its insurance programs which now serve 43,000 units.  As  NeighborWorks®America  representative,  Mr. Nassau  is  President  of  the  Consortium  of Housing  and Asset  Management (CHAM®) and  heads  the  Curriculum  Development  Committee and,  of  course,  hold  the  CHAM® designation  as a professional  asset  manager  of  affordable  housing.

During the five years prior to joining NeighborWorks®America, Mr. Nassau was the Asset Manager for a Boston based regional non profit that developed 2000 units of affordable in partnership with 12 different CDCs. In this capacity he also developed a loan program for 5-20 unit buildings and an insurance program for affordable housing.

Before entering the world of non-profits and intermediaries, Mr. Nassau had fifteen years experience in the for-profit world as a property manager, Director of Property Management and as the owner of a management company.  Portfolios included rental housing, condominiums, co-ops and commercial real estate. Additionally, he has developed rental housing. Mr. Nassau currently serves on Board committees for asset management of two Boston CDCs.

Video from the event to be posted shortly.

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