Press Contact Only:
Margaret Matrone, NCHFA, 919-877-5606,
Connie Helmlinger, NCHFA, 919-877-5607,
Four hundred representatives of the state’s affordable housing industry will share the essentials of creating and managing affordable housing, Oct. 5, at a Housing Forum hosted by the N.C. Housing Finance Agency at the Sheraton Imperial Hotel in Research Triangle Park.
Lyndhurst Prize-Winning Photographer Bill Bamberger will keynote the event at 9:30 a.m. with “Stories of Home,” based on his successful 2003-2004 exhibit at the National Building Museum in Washington, DC. Bamberger will present photographic and oral histories examining the meaning of affordable home ownership in America. The presentation features residents of low-income housing efforts in Chattanooga, TN, San Antonio, TX, and rural Grifton, NC. The documentary was initiated by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in partnership with the Enterprise Foundation and the National Building Museum.
Bamberger also portrayed the final months of operation of the White Furniture Co. in Melbane, NC, in photographs exhibited at the North Carolina Museum of Art, the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History, and the Yale University Art Gallery. Other highlights:
- Yasmin Wurts Metivier will present two sessions on the intricacies of Hispanic culture as they relate to home buying. A native of Mexico, Metivier is president and co-founder of Panoltia, Inc., Cary, NC, a resource center for companies that employ or provide products or services to Hispanics. (10:30 a.m. and 2:00 p.m.)
- In-depth sessions will be held on how developers can use federal housing credits, which financed 25% of all the rental housing built in North Carolina last year. Discussions will focus on how applications for federal and state tax credits will be evaluated in 2005 and on understanding the federal rules governing the privately owned housing developments for 30 years. (10:30 a.m. and 2:00 p.m.)
- Winners of the 15th annual Housing North Carolina Awards will be honored during the Forum’s luncheon. This year’s awards recognize developments in Asheville, Chapel Hill, Gastonia, Salisbury, and Shallotte, as well as developers in Raleigh and Winston-Salem. (12:00 to 2:00 p.m.)
The N.C. Housing Finance Agency is a self-supporting public agency that has financed more than 158,000 homes and apartments statewide for working families and elderly North Carolinians.
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