Global Citizenship Report 2017

A rendering of affordable housing complex Draper Hall in New York City AFFORDABLE HOUSING IN URBAN MARKETS Citi Community Capital helps developers fill crucial gaps in the affordable housing market. For example, The Watson on East Howard development in Quincy, Massachusetts, which CCC helped finance with a $35 million construction loan, aims to serve people who have incomes too high for subsidized housing yet are priced out of Boston’s expensive rental market. The 140-unit project includes the largest number of workforce housing units ever financed under MassHousing’s Workforce Housing initiative. Draper Hall, a 203-unit affordable housing complex for senior citizens, opened in New York City’s gentrifying East Harlem neighborhood in October. The complex, which won the Affordable Housing Finance Reader’s Choice award in 2017, helps fill an increasing need for affordable homes for older citizens. It also includes an adult day program with home health and medical services to help residents age in place. A construction loan from CCC helped bring the $85 million project to fruition. Preserving Homeownership Suffering a foreclosure can have serious effects on a home- owner’s credit score and financial health that can last for years. Citi works on foreclosure prevention through our Office of Homeownership Preservation. Nationally, the foreclosure rate has continued to decline and reached an 11-year low in 2017; however, foreclosure activity remains above pre-recession levels in many areas . 8 The Citi Office of Homeownership Preservation addresses this ongoing challenge through restructuring loans, training housing counselors, scaling technological efficiencies to coordinate loan servicing, and investing in shared equity models. We also work with partner organizations to prevent foreclosures. For example, in May 2017, CCD announced a collaboration with UnidosUS (formerly the National Council of La Raza) and local housing counseling agencies in Puerto Rico — PathStone, One Stop Career Center of Puerto Rico, Puerto Rico Neighborhood Housing Services and Ponce Neighborhood Housing Services — to help both struggling homeowners and those aspiring to buy. The funding helped expand these organizations’ existing capac- ity and support critical counselor training, which was provided by UnidosUS. Puerto Rico has not seen the same post-recession economic recovery as the mainland U.S., with unemployment sticking at 11 percent (compared to about 4 percent nationally) and nearly half of all residents living below the poverty line. According to the Commissioner of Financial Institutions of Puerto Rico, the housing foreclosure rate has risen by nearly 90 percent in the past decade. CCD also gave an additional $50,000 to the Puerto Rico Community Foundation to help nonprofit housing developers expand the housing stock for low- and moderate-income residents. Unfortunately, Hurricane Maria, which hit Puerto Rico in September 2017, has further exacerbated the island’s chal- lenges. In early 2018, CCD provided an additional $500,000 to these organizations to help thousands of families across the Commonwealth recover by providing free essential housing services, such as support for home repairs, free housing counseling, and other vital recovery resources. Citi remains committed to helping the island and for more on our response to the crisis, please see page 97 . 8 Attom Data Solutions, “U.S. Foreclosure Activity Drops to More Than 11-Year Low in Q3 2017” (October 2017), https://www.attomdata.com/news/foreclosure-trends/q3-2017-u-s-foreclosure-market-report/ . 100