Sessions
Repositioning Public Housing: The latest on PACT RAD and Public Housing Trust
10:30 AM - 11:30 AM Thu
Meghan focuses on complex financings of affordable housing developments that include tax-exempt bonds, low-income housing tax credits, and often other federal, state, and local government subsidies. Typically, Meghan represents the purchaser and borrower to finance a development with multiple interconnected layers of financing, but she also represents lenders, investors, housing authorities, and clients disposing of affordable housing assets. Her practice covers all aspects of development from dirt real estate to securing regulatory approvals such as HUD RAD conversion approvals and nonprofit asset transfer approvals. Recognizing that the planning of complex transactions often involves significant time commitments and financial risks, Meghan enjoys working with clients to mitigate or reduce the risk of unpredictable legal costs and budgeting inaccuracies.
Affordable housing deals often involve partnerships, and Meghan helps her clients navigate public-private partnerships and joint ventures between nonprofit and for-profit firms. This includes structuring tax exemption eligibility and negotiating tax credit and debt guaranty obligations among partners in affordable housing transactions.
From her training as an urban planner to her initial legal work representing a tenant association to secure its rights under the DC Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act, Meghan has committed her career to thinking about how affordable housing can transform the lives of those who live in it. She is particularly interested in legal issues nonprofits face, supportive housing models, and various efforts to rethink public housing, such as the RAD program. Meghan is active with several affordable housing boards and advisory groups and serves as an adjunct professor at Georgetown University Law Center.
Since the start of the pandemic, Meghan has increasingly focused on the conversion of hotels to affordable housing and shelter development and financing. Many states and cities are creating innovative financing programs to capitalize on opportunities to transform distressed hotel assets into affordable housing resources. Likewise, the demand for transitional housing solutions has led to an increased focus on developing shelters for individuals and families experiencing homelessness.