Human Resources: FHL Bank Atlanta's Affordable Housing Effort Is Creating Thousands of Jobs

Atlanta, GA (Vocus/PRWEB ) March 12, 2010 -- The Federal Home Loan Bank of Atlanta’s affordable housing funds are a significant driver of job growth, housing production, and expanded tax bases, according to a research study recently completed by The Hendrickson Company and The Shimberg Center for Housing Studies at the University of Florida.

The Federal Home Loan Bank of Atlanta (The Bank) released the study today that highlights and quantifies how member financial institutions and the developers they work with use the Bank’s Affordable Housing Program (AHP) to finance housing construction and rehabilitation that serves low- and moderate- income families and individuals. By creating more jobs, catalyzing taxable transactions and building tax bases as well as developing affordable housing, the Bank is having a unique and very positive economic impact that goes far beyond the units it helps fund or the dollars it awards, researchers found. (To download the report, visit www.fhlbatl.com/multiplier.)

The study, entitled “Beyond Units: Economic Benefits of the Federal Home Loan Bank of Atlanta’s Affordable Housing Program,” analyzed how the Bank’s funding of housing development projects results in broader multiplier effects in state and local economies. Since its inception in 1990, the Bank’s Affordable Housing Program has provided more than $380 million of funding to help build more than 60,000 units of rental and homeownership affordable housing, and the study sought to quantify the “ripple effect” of those dollars in employment, broader development spending, and growth of municipal tax bases.

“The results of this research are noteworthy because the Bank traditionally focuses on the direct benefits of our funding in unit production,” said Richard A. Dorfman, FHLBank Atlanta President and Chief Executive Officer. “Now, researchers have captured the broader economic impact of our investment in communities throughout the Southeast. Given the demand for jobs in the current economy, the study underscores how our affordable housing funding benefits local economies, thousands of public and private corporations, lending institutions, and the customers and citizens they serve.”

Key findings from the study include:

For each $1 million of AHP funding, $14.3 million of housing is built or rehabilitated.
Housing with a total development cost of $4.1 billion has been built or rehabilitated with an AHP investment of only $290.5 million. (Note: The study examined data that included $290 million of the $380 million funded by AHP over the past 20 years.)
For each $1 million of AHP funding, 158 jobs are created. AHP has helped create more than 46,000 jobs during its 20 years in operation.
Since 1989, AHP funding has generated more than $811 million of federal, state and local taxes. This represents $2.79 in taxes for each $1 of AHP funding.
The total economic activity far exceeds the value of housing built or rehabilitated. Because of the multiplier effect and leveraging AHP’s funding, each $1 million of AHP funding generates $24.6 million of economic activity, with about $8 million going towards workers’ earnings.

“Our findings clearly suggest that Federal Home Loan Bank of Atlanta funds circulate through the Southeastern economy multiple times and produce significant economic value,” said Mark Hendrickson, President of The Hendrickson Company and former director of the Florida Housing Finance Agency. “These dollars are seen hard at work throughout the scores of neighborhoods and towns developed or revitalized, and through the jobs and incomes created since the program’s beginning.”

About the Study
The study, “Beyond Units: The Economic Benefits of Federal Home Loan Bank of Atlanta’s Affordable Housing Program,” reviewed and analyzed data from 1990 to September 15, 2009, to determine the historic and current economic benefits of AHP. The data included AHP projects from the Bank’s region including: Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia and the District of Columbia. The study was conducted by the Hendrickson Company and The Shimberg Center for Housing Studies at the University of Florida.

About FHLBank Atlanta
FHLBank Atlanta offers competitively-priced financing, community development grants, and other banking services to help approximately 1,200 member financial institutions make affordable home mortgages and provide economic development credit to neighborhoods and communities. The Bank’s members—its shareholders and customers—are commercial banks, credit unions, savings institutions, and insurance companies headquartered in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, and the District of Columbia. FHLBank Atlanta is one of 12 district banks in the Federal Home Loan Bank System which since 1990 has contributed more than $3.6 billion to the Affordable Housing Program.