What's New at FAHE

FAHE Wins the Wachovia NEXT Award for Innovation

At a ceremony in December, the Wachovia NEXT Award for Opportunity Finance presented its Innovation award to FAHE.  The award acknowledges FAHE’s pioneering application of Low-Income Housing Tax Credits to support citizens with special needs in rural areas. This marks a huge accomplishment as these funds historically have been used in cities, seldom touching rural communities. In under two years, FAHE attracted more than $17 million in private equity investments to develop multiple rental housing projects for the disabled. Through its inventive strategy, FAHE bridges market gaps by offering a market-rate return to mainstream financial institutions that want to create opportunities and spark growth in hard-to-serve markets.  Click here to read the full story. 

Three New Members Join the FAHE Network

At a meeting of FAHE's Board of Directors in December, three organizations were approved as Members of the FAHE Network.  The newest FAHE Members are:  Southern Appalachian Labor School in Kincaid, West Virginia;  Kentucky River Community Care, based in Hazard, Kentucky; and Total Action Against Poverty of Roanoke, Virginia.  To learn more about FAHE's Members and how they are changing lives in Appalachia, visit our Members page. 
 

Lodestar Foundation Announces FAHE Among Semi-Finalist for Collaboration Prize

On November 12, 2008 the Lodestar Foundation announced 30 semi-finalists, including FAHE, for The Collaboration Prize, a cash award of $250,000 presented to the most successful collaboration in the nonprofit world. FAHE’s nomination for The Collaboration Prize is in recognition of its “Berea Performance Compacts,” coalitions formed between FAHE and other nonprofits with the help of renowned management and leadership author Douglas K. Smith. FAHE and its affiliated organizations matched work duplicated among them with their specialized skills to decide which services and functions could be centralized to maximize efficiency, letting individual nonprofits focus on providing services to more needy families. FAHE’s nomination also recognizes the “compact” leaders: Frontier Housing, Morehead, KY; Community Housing Partners, Christiansburg, VA; and Appalachia Service Project, Johnson City, TN.

To read more about the Collaboration Prize visit: http://www.thecollaborationprize.org.

You can learn more about the Berea Performance Compacts by visiting our Collaboration Page.
 

FAHE Honored with Award for JustChoice Lending

In October, FAHE’s JustChoice Lending mortgage division was presented the 2008 Homeownership Award by Kentucky Housing Corporation at the 2008 Kentucky Affordable Housing Conference in Lexington. This award recognizes JustChoice Lending’s innovative achievement in providing affordable homeownership solutions. By launching JustChoice Lending, FAHE is one of the first regional non-profit lenders in the country to step up to the plate in today's home lending crisis.  Read the full story here or learn more about how FAHE is delivering innovative homeownership solutions by visiting JustChoice Lending's website.