Posted on December 11, 2003
Since 1972, Morville House in the Fenway has been home for elderly residents like Eva Monteiro. Now, it will remain affordable and more units will be built for Boston’s senior citizens.
“This has been a wonderful place to live,” said Monteiro, who moved here from Roxbury in the early 1980s. “It’s been like a United Nations. I was sitting at a table the other day and people were speaking five different languages. It’s a place where everyone gets along.”
That tradition and spirit will continue and grow as a unique combination of banks and public agencies have combined to preserve Morville House’s 145 existing units and finance 33 new units of affordable rental elderly housing.
MHP, MassDevelopment, Fleet and the Federal Home Loan Bank are combining to provide Morville House with a $14 million loan through a new program that enables non-profit owners to access low-cost bond financing.
The financing program - known as the Massachusetts Tax-Exempt Credit for Housing Program or MATCH – combines MassDevelopment’s ability to raise money through the sale of bonds with MHP’s ability to bring in private-sector financing, in this case crucial letters of credit from Fleet and the Federal Home Loan Bank, which back the bonds and enable them to yield the lowest possible interest rates for non-profit borrowers. The interest rate for Morville at closing is expected to be set at around 5 percent.
“The good news is that we’re creating affordable housing with money from the private sector,” said MHP Deputy Director Judy Jacobson at ceremonies held last month.
This is the second time MATCH has been used to finance affordable housing. Last year, Caritas Communities of Braintree received a $5.4 million MATCH loan to refinance a substantial part of its portfolio of single-room apartments, which serve extremely low-income people. In this deal, Caritas was able to lower its long-term 20-year interest rate by more than two percentage points.
Renovations at Morville House will include renovation of a first-floor commercial space into a senior center and the conversion of the facility from electric to gas heat. The 33 new units will be built in an adjacent 12-story tower.
MHP is a quasi-public agency that uses funds from the banking industry to provide much-needed long-term financing for affordable rental housing at below-market rates. Bank acquisitions similar to the proposed Bank of America/Fleet transaction trigger the state statute that funds MHP. Since 1990, its loan pool has grown to nearly a half-billion dollars. MHP has used this money to finance over 10,000 units of rental housing.
For more information, call 1-877-MHP-FUND.
(PHOTO INFORMATION: MHP Deputy Director Judy Jacobson shares a moment with Morville House resident Eva Monteiro at a ceremony held to mark the preservation and creation of elderly housing at Morville House in the Fenway).