The Iowa Finance Authority board of directors recently awarded more than $15 million in federal housing tax credits and HOME program loans to support the construction and rehabilitation of 410 affordable Iowa rental homes.
Eleven rental housing projects throughout Iowa received the awards, including a project in Mount Vernon. The Cottonwood Trail, a new housing project for individuals 55 and older in Mount Vernon, received a $675,000 tax credit award and a $1.1 million HOME award. The project will consist of 30 rental units.
Additional awards went to housing projects in Ames, Burlington, Davenport, Des Moines, Dubuque, Keokuk, Sioux City and West Burlington.
“Housing is foundational to the economic mobility of Iowans and the strength of our communities,” Iowa Finance Authority Executive Director Debi Durham said in a release. “The financing announced today will provide hundreds of Iowa families and seniors with homes in which they can thrive in communities all throughout the state.”
The organization also awarded more than $11 million in December to local housing initiatives.
Housing tax credits for affordable options
The Internal Revenue Service makes an annual per capita allocation of federal tax credits to each state for the Federal Housing Tax Credit program.
The Iowa Finance Authority is charged with allocating those credits to affordable housing developers. The developers who receive tax credits sell them to investors to generate equity for the housing developments.
The Iowa Finance Authority received 24 applications requesting more than $22 million in housing tax credits in the 2023 tax credit round. The organization had a total of approximately $10 million available to allocate. The actual awards total nearly $100 million because the credits are committed annually for a 10-year period.
