About Joan Carty
President & CEO, Housing Development Fund
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As President and CEO of Housing Development Fund (HDF), a nonprofit bank providing funding for affordable housing and an array of homebuyer assistance programs, Joan Carty is totally devoted to expanding homeownership opportunities. She has established a track record of which any of her commercial banking counterparts would be proud. Since taking the helm at this unique Stamford, Conn.-based organization in 1994, Carty has grown its private funding pools from $8.5 million to more than $50 million. She has leveraged more than $55 million in first mortgage activity by conventional lending partners by loaning more than $35 million dollars for multi-family financing and second mortgages for first-time homebuyers – all without incurring a single loss!

Carty has achieved this record through a combination of sheer creativity (she is an artist with a BFA from the College of New Rochelle, New Rochelle, New York), intellectual curiosity and a desire to have an impact on solving housing needs. A voracious reader and self-described ‘tire kicker’, she tests out any new program idea through her own research, as well as through the eyes of other experts, to be as certain as possible that it is true to HDF’s mission and that it will work.

A native of Ireland, who emigrated to the United States with her family when she was seven years old, Carty’s dedication to creating more affordable housing units, while also closing the affordability gap for homebuyers, is based on her personal experience. Her family left a home they owned in a wonderful neighborhood in Dublin and, starting with a fifth-floor walk-up in the Bronx, the family rented apartments for seven years until they could afford to purchase a home of their own once again.

“When one owns a home, the sense of stability and belonging is such a positive experience,” said Carty. “Not only do I know this from my childhood, but I hear it over and over again at post-purchase seminars that we provide for the hundreds of individuals and families we have helped to achieve the American dream of homeownership. It is satisfying to know that in addition to these important intangibles we are also helping them to invest in a very tangible major asset.”

Several years after her 1973 college graduation, Joan Carty recognized a need to focus her natural creativity on a career that would help others. She enlisted in the Peace Corps where she spent the next two years on her own in El Salvador, developing vocational arts training programs, serving as an export agent for local artisans and on other projects that contributed to the viability of the community. This experience was pivotal in refocusing her interest in art as a career, although she does work on art projects today.

After her return, Carty entered Hunter College of the City University of New York to earn an MS degree in urban affairs in 1981. She went on to earn a juris doctor degree in 1984 from Fordham University School of Law, also in New York City. A born leader, she served as president of her class for three years of law school. Carty is admitted to the bar in Connecticut.

Two internships – with the Urban Homesteading Assistance Board and Morgan Guaranty Trust Company – served as a bridge to her present career that marries sound financial decision-making and lending practices with a nonprofit mission. A stint with the Institute for Social Analysis underscored the importance of data gathering, monitoring and analysis to nonprofit success – a discipline that she brings to HDF.

From late 1983 until 1993, Carty served with and headed three nonprofits devoted to community-based lending or actual development of affordable housing – Neighborhood Housing Services of Brooklyn, New York, Neighborhood Preservation Program and Bridgeport Neighborhood Fund in Stamford and Bridgeport, Connecticut, respectively. In these capacities, she established relationships with private lenders, government funding sources and corporate and foundation donors. Ironically, in 1989, she served on the committee that developed the concept for the Housing Development Fund, known then as Stamford Development Fund. She joined that organization as its Executive Director in 1994.

When Carty came to HDF, it had expanded and was known as Housing Development Fund of Lower Fairfield County. HDF’s current name reflects the fact that it has the capability to provide services regardless of geographic boundaries. Under her leadership, the organization now serves the entire southwestern portion of the state, and opened a satellite office in Danbury in 2004. Carty is exploring expansion into Litchfield and New Haven Counties.

Any HDF expansion, Carty explained, is preceded by a period of forging trusted relationships, collaborations and partnerships in the new markets. She accomplishes this by listening carefully to and embracing diverse opinions. Her goal is to create sustainable initiatives that transform lives in lasting ways. To accomplish this, Carty believes, requires that each participant understand how the effort stands to benefit them – a process that can require persistent patience, as well as effective communications.

“We create and manage public/private partnerships in the best interest of the community,” said Carty. “Going forward, we want to be key players in the dissemination of important land use concepts, including Inclusionary Zoning, where developers either include affordable units in market rate developments or make a compensating contribution to a fund for that purpose. This concept is a reality in a growing number of communities in our area and has become a workable solution.”

Her organization helps developers reduce marketing costs for affordable units by identifying and educating qualified first time buyers for these units and then putting together the financing for the purchases – often from both public and private resources.

Carty advocates for a two-pronged approach to solving housing needs – particularly in high-priced real estate markets. Creating additional affordable housing stock and bridging people into the normal market turnover in housing are equally important in her estimation. With its funding and its programs for first time homebuyers, developers of multi-unit housing and municipalities, Housing Development Fund has become the largest and arguably the most successful nonprofit organization in Connecticut addressing these solutions.

Joan Carty and her organization have received numerous recognitions for their accomplishments, including the 2003 Wachovia CDFI Excellence Award for Financial Performance and the 2005 Connecticut Mortgage Bankers Affordable Housing Award.

Carty serves on numerous boards of directors, committees and task forces including: the Stamford Partnership (Board Executive Committee, Chair of Land Use Planning Task Force); Connecticut Trust for Historic Preservation (Board); State of Connecticut Housing Trust Fund (Board); United Way of Northern Fairfield County Housing Opportunity Team (Advisory Board); New England Advisory Council of the Federal Home Loan Board of Boston (Advisory Board); Stamford Affordable Housing Action Collaborative (Executive Committee); Home Connecticut (Steering Committee for public awareness campaign on affordable housing).

Joan Carty resides in Bridgeport, Connecticut with her husband and their three children ages 16, 18 and 20.