POLESKI

MARQUETTE — While the Grandview Marquette development on Fisher Street is unique due to its historic aspect, it’s an example of the kind of project the Michigan State Housing Development Authority makes possible, according to MSHDA Executive Director Earl Poleski.

Poleski visited Grandview Marquette, formerly the blighted Holy Family Orphanage, during a visit to the Upper Peninsula with Gov. Rick Snyder this week.

Poleski sat down with The Mining Journal on Tuesday to talk about housing challenges locally and around the state and what MSHDA is doing to help address them.

Poleski was appointed to head up the authority in February after serving in the state House of Representatives for the 64th district, which includes the city of Jackson, from 2011 to 2016. Previously, he worked as a certified public accountant and as a financial officer in the oil and gas industry, according to the Jackson News/MLive.

Poleski said MSHDA’s goal is “making sure that folks have good affordable, safe, decent places to live.”

“We’re kind of the bank with a social conscience,” Poleski said.

He said what he’s heard in Marquette is what he has heard around the state.

“Much of the low-income housing is rented up, much of the market rate rental is rented up, and that the prices of housing are in general increasing faster than incomes are, so it becomes more difficult for folks to afford good housing,” Poleski said.

A study MSHDA conducted that was released in June shows lack of savings for a down payment was a top concern among respondents who said they were more than a year away from purchasing their first home.

For those individuals, MSHDA’s Michigan Down Payment program is available to qualifying first-time home-buyers, allowing them to borrow up to $7,500 toward the down payment on a home.

“(Many people) don’t even think they can be in the housing market because they haven’t got a down payment saved up,” Poleski said. “That’s where our Michigan Down Payment program product comes into play. We can lend up to $7,500 for a down payment and it’s a 0 percent, zero-amortization loan. In other words, people don’t have to make a payment on it.”

However, it does remain as a lien against the property, he added.

“So someday, they’ll have to pay it back, but so long as they stay in that house, no payment’s due on the down payment, (and) no interest accrues on the down payment,” Poleski said. “It’s a nice deal.”

He said over 90 percent of their borrowers are using the product.

“So we encourage folks to be homeowners because, you know, we think that makes for a committed citizen, a good taxpayer,” Poleski said. “And we want to continue to try and grow our single-family lending because we make money doing that, but we also do it, we think, in a way that works well for lower income borrowers.”

MSHDA requires anyone getting down payment assistance to take a class to learn about what’s involved in owning a house, he said.

“Because a lot of folks who are buying a house for the first time, … they don’t know about property taxes and roof repairs and who fixes the washer if it breaks, and what about this sewer assessment and all of this other stuff involved in owning a home,” Poleski said.

On the multi-family housing side of things — as in the case of Grandview Marquette — MSHDA administers about $23 million a year in federal low-income housing tax credits, which are awarded through a competitive bid process twice a year, Poleski said.

It was created under the Tax Reform Act of 1986 and gives incentives for the use of private equity in the development of affordable housing aimed at low-income Americans.

“We decide how that gets divvied up,” Poleski said. “We get $3 or $4 worth of applications for every dollar that we can allocate, so we can afford to be kind of picky about how taxpayer’s dollars are spent.”

The tax credit is about 9 percent of the total qualifying cost of the project, so over 10 years, that means 90 percent of the cost of a project can be covered.

For instance, the Grandview Marquette development will receive $1.4 million per year, Poleski said. At 10 years, that covers about $14 million of the $16 million project.

He said the project would have been too expensive to be completed without those public funds.

Poleski said his goal as executive director is to ensure MSHDA remains financially sound. Since it exists as a separate authority from the state, it doesn’t receive state appropriation and the state does not guarantee the debt MSHDA issues.

Another major goal of Poleski’s is ending veteran homelessness, he said.

Mary Wardell can be reached at 906-228-2500, ext. 248. Her email address is mwardell@miningjournal.net.