Tina’s rental home in Cool Valley flooded in 2010. It was time to get out. Her sons suffered from respiratory problems that she connected to the nearby creek and the constant wet conditions. “Someone told me to call Habitat for Humanity,” she recalls. “I said, ‘I don’t have a shot because I don’t have that much money.’”
She was wrong. Within a month, Habitat for Humanity Saint Louis was building her a home in JeffVanderLou, one of the dozens it has built there and throughout the city over the past 13 years. Those homes—and more than $500 million worth of for-sale affordable homes nationwide—are the result of an innovative use of a tax credits program created by two St. Louis lawyers, Howard and Donna Smith, and their company, Smith NMTC. They have worked with Habitat to use $18.3 million in New Markets Tax Credits to build 103 affordable homes across St. Louis. The Smiths have singlehandedly created the vast majority of affordable housing funded by the program in about 30 cities nationwide. But they have endured years of skepticism.
Sid Hastings
10 Nov, 2022 - St. Louis - Attorneys Donna and Howard Smith, of the firm SmithNMTC, pose for a photograph Thursday, Nov. 10, 2022, on Thomas Street in the Jeff-Vander-Lou neighborhood of St. Louis, where their pioneering work with New Markets Tax Credits has enable non-profit groups like Habitat for Humanity to tap new funding for construction projects. The innovative program has bee used in around 30 cities across the country to fund low-cost housing. Photo copyright © 2022 Sid Hastings.
Howard was a real estate attorney and developer when he and a buddy, who was active in the St. Louis affiliate of Habitat, sat down with a glass of wine and a napkin in 2008 and outlined how to use an obscure federal tax credits program for housing. The program is designed to attract investors to distressed areas by offering them a 39 percent tax break over seven years.
But others proclaimed that the complicated New Markets Tax Credits Program could not be used for housing. Even the Treasury Department didn’t promote the program as an answer to housing needs. Local development entities said the program was too complicated—something the Smiths still hear today.
In response, the couple has created plug-and-play templates for nonprofits and community development entities that lower costs and cut through the mess of paperwork and regulations that deter local officials from applying. “Our local Habitat became our laboratory,” Howard says.
When the idea was germinating, Donna was a litigator. Now, she and Howard focus on building strong communities. They have stuck with the project because they’re passionate about closing the gap in home ownership. “There’s a 30 percentage-point differential between how many Blacks own homes and how many whites own homes today,” Donna says. “We really need to be doing a better job of increasing the opportunity for low-income folks and people of color to own homes.”
Creating housing that people can afford to buy is an enduring investment. Tina is an example of how owning a home transforms lives. Her mortgage is half the cost of her old rent. She plans to pay it off early. When Tina moved into her home, crime was rampant. The house next to hers was a drug dealers’ base, she says, until she and other neighbors banded together and got police to drive them out. The neighborhood is improving, though still healing from decades of neglect.
“We want to protect our little nest,” Tina says. “Everybody pitches in. We got people coming out and cutting your yard if it needs it. It’s all about helping one another in the community.”
MORE TO KNOW
ON THE HOUSE?
IT’S A COMMON MISCONCEPTION THAT HABITAT FOR HUMANITY HOMES ARE FREE HOUSING. THESE ARE SOME OF THE REQUIREMENTS TO PARTICIPATE IN THE HABITAT FOR HUMANITY PROGRAM, ACCORDING TO HABITATSTL.ORG.
$22,550–$37,565
For a family of four, you must have an income between $22,550–$37,565.
350 HOURS
You must be willing to provide 350 hours of “sweat equity” toward building your Habitat home and/or other Habitat projects.
TRAINING
You must attend homeownership training classes prior to, during, and after construction of the house.
$550–$600/MONTH
You must be able to pay a 30+ year mortgage (approximately $550–$600 per month).
NO BANKRUPTCY
You must not have filed for bankruptcy within the past three years.
