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Tax credit programs key to Nebraska's affordable housing production • Nebraska Examiner

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Tax credit programs key to Nebraska's affordable housing production • Nebraska Examiner


OMAHA — Set to rise in one of Nebraska’s oldest and changing urban neighborhoods is a 51-unit rental project aimed at keeping lower income residents from being priced out of midtown Omaha.

Not far away, a pair of obsolete downtown office buildings, each over a century old, are to be rehabbed into a total of 56 rent-restricted apartments on top of street-level commercial space.

Rendering of future housing at the Poppleton Project site in Omaha. The first phase of 51 units will rise on property centered at 2911 Poppleton Ave. (Courtesy of inCommon Housing Development Corp.)

Elsewhere in the state, in cities such as Beatrice, Schuyler and Hastings, dozens more residential dwellings will soon sprout for seniors on fixed budgets.

They’re all part of the latest round of Nebraska projects fueled by low-income housing tax credits — a tool experts say accounts for the state’s biggest chunk of affordable rental housing, or about 5,000 new dwellings added over the last decade and another 2,000 or so in various stages of development.

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Offsets tax liability

In essence, the credit allows investors to offset their tax liability in exchange for providing upfront funds to develop affordable housing. That money reduces a project’s overall debt, which allows rents to be more affordable at below market rates.

The Nebraska Investment Finance Authority, the entity that administers both federal and state tax credit programs, awarded the latest batch of credits to nine planned developments that are on track to produce 383 new rental homes. 

Shannon Harner, executive director of the Nebraska Investment Finance Authority (Courtesy of NIFA)

For those awardees, the credits translate into a total of nearly $111 million in funds to cover the bulk of construction costs for the planned projects, which then must remain affordable for 30 to 45 years, said NIFA executive director Shannon Harner.

“Investing in affordable housing is investing in the future of Nebraska,” Harner said.

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Housing — and ways to provide more of it at accessible prices — has been in the spotlight as business and community leaders have noted consequences, including rising numbers of eviction court cases and workers leaving the Cornhusker state.

Indeed, housing shot up as one of the top two priorities identified in a 2023 survey of lawmakers cited during the past two years by the Legislature’s planning committee, which exists to identify trends, challenges and goals for Nebraska.

A housing report issued in September by the Nebraska Legislative Research Office used Census Bureau data to look at how the state stacks up nationally: 

  • Nebraska ranked at the bottom of the pack when looking at how much state government spent on “housing and community development” projects, according to the bureau’s 2021 Survey of State and Local Government Finances.
  • Nebraska climbed to 39th among the 50 states when combining amounts that local communities spent along with their state governments on “housing and community development.”
  • In comparing per capita local and state government spending, Nebraska, with $137 per capita spending, ranked 28th. Massachusetts was at the top ($506) and Wyoming at the bottom ($35). 
  • In comparing per capita local and state government spending with neighboring states, Nebraska was behind Colorado ($275), but ahead of Missouri ($135); Iowa ($134), South Dakota ($128), Kansas ($81) and Wyoming ($35). 

Said the research report: “Many state housing funding programs exist in Nebraska, but the state ranks poorly in spending on housing and community development.”

It said that people interviewed for the research agreed that increased funding for construction and rehabilitation of affordable housing would improve the overall housing market and position Nebraska as “immensely more attractive” to potential businesses and job seekers.

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‘Robbing Peter to pay Paul’

While housing experts consider the tax credit programs the most prolific in creating affordable rental units, Harner said that COVID-19 supply chain challenges have led to a production backup.

As developers catch up, Nebraska lawmakers this past session fell short in other affordable housing related programs, housing advocates said.

The Legislature, for instance, shifted $25 million from the Nebraska Affordable Housing Trust Fund, which is funded by a portion of the documentary stamp tax from real estate transactions. That amount then was directed to two other housing funds, one that helps create rural workforce housing and another for urban, middle-income workforce housing.

“It was just basically robbing Peter to pay Paul, it wasn’t new funding,” said Amber Marker, executive director of the Nebraska Housing Developers Association.

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State Senator Wendy DeBoer of Bennington speaks on the floor of the Legislature
State Sen. Wendy DeBoer of Omaha. (Zach Wendling/Nebraska News Service)

The year before, Gov. Jim Pillen vetoed $40 million that had been proposed for workforce housing, saying that he wanted to protect the state’s cash reserves – the source of the housing funds – and didn’t want to “flood the market” with government-funded housing.

State Sen. Wendy DeBoer of Omaha, the chair of the Legislature’s Planning Committee, said housing continues to be a pressing and alarming concern for the state and its workforce needs, across both urban and rural communities.

Competition for money is fierce, she said, and much of the Legislature’s recent focus was on property tax relief. 

She said she’ll continue to push for improvements.

Areas of optimism

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Advocates say they are optimistic, however, about progress under the Nebraska Strategic Housing Council, a wide-ranging group of policymakers, legislators, community and industry leaders that aims to tackle the shortage of housing across the state.

Among top goals declared by the council last year was to create, by 2028, 35,000 affordable and attainable homes for low- to middle-income earners, which the council said would reduce the number of needed units by about a third.

Another positive sign, they said, are affordable housing action plans that Nebraska cities were required to adopt by the start of this year. Legislation required that the plans include, for example, intentions for construction of affordable housing and how cities plan to use government incentives for that purpose.

The federal American Rescue Plan Act also fueled affordable housing efforts by nonprofits such as Omaha Front Porch Investments, which got the financial boost from the City of Omaha’s ARPA allotment

The Legislative Research Office has put out two “backgrounder” reports this year on Nebraska’s affordable housing challenges. (Getty Images)

Two recent reports from the Legislative Research Office — including the September “Framing the Future: Altering the Affordable Housing Blueprint in Nebraska” and another issued in July, “The Good Life at the Wrong Price”  — intend to provide information for lawmakers as they consider future action and legislation.

According to the July report, “Relative to other states, the affordable housing supply in Nebraska is woefully lacking. A shortage of diverse and appropriate housing units in the market has increased both the cost of rent and home purchase prices of the available houses and apartments in the state.”

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Researchers cited multiple reasons for the difficulty, including interest rates, appraisal gaps, insufficient ready-to-develop lots, limited construction workers in rural counties, complex building regulations.

Market rate units sprinkled in

Meanwhile, developers selected by NIFA in the latest round of housing tax credit allocations are closer to creating 383 affordable units. 

An additional 57 market-rate units will be sprinkled within the nine project sites, according to their plans.

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Of the nine developments, five are in the state’s largest city of Omaha. 

One is a two-building, $27 million project by developer Neeraj Agarwal that is to create 56 affordable dwellings in historic structures — one that most recently served as office space for lawyers and another once owned by the inventor of a version of the modern parachute.

Part of the Howard Street Rehab project, the historic Standard Oil building is to be converted into affordable apartments with street-level commercial bays. (Cindy Gonzalez/Nebraska Examiner)

Dubbed the Howard Street Rehab, construction is to start next year at 1501 Howard St. and 500 S. 18t St., contributing to expected revival of a pocket just outside Omaha’s Old Market. The federal and state low-income housing tax credits are to cover about 42% of total development costs, NIFA said. Helping as well are sources including the historic tax credit.

Yet another Agarwal project —  a beneficiary of a previous tax credit allocation round — is underway and expected to produce 54 rental units along Omaha’s original main street.

That $25 million 1904 Farnam project is across the street from City Hall. For decades the seven-level building served as home to law firms and small businesses. Planned restoration of the Art Deco-style landmark is assisted financially by other sources as well, including historic tax credits.

Agarwal said the downtown projects would not be “financially doable” for his for-profit business if not for the housing tax credit and other public incentive programs.

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This structure at 1904 Farnam St. in Omaha is being renovated in part with a boost from low-income housing tax credits (historical image on the right). Top floors are to become rent-restricted units reserved for residents with incomes between 40% and 60% of the area median income, the developer says. (Courtesy of Neeraj Agarwal, CBRE)

West of downtown Omaha, the $19 million first phase of the Poppleton Project is to create 51 units for people with household incomes at 50% or below the area’s average median income. 

The target tenant population is working class and service employees at risk of being squeezed out by rents rising with the popularity of the area that’s situated between a reviving downtown business district and a job-magnet University of Nebraska Medical Center.

According to the nonprofit inCommon Housing Development Corp., the project is on the “front lines” of the housing crisis, subject to the impact of “gentrification over the past decade” and the lingering financial stress of a pandemic.

An estimated $24 million future phase is to bring 69 additional dwellings of various sizes and styles to the same acre of land, reserved for residents and families earning under a certain income. 

‘Post-COVID economics’

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In “post COVID economics,” the housing challenge is greater, and “it’s going to take all hands on deck” to solve workforce housing gaps, said Sheryl Garst, project manager at inCommon Housing Development.

The inCommon history offers an example of the greater focus needed to produce affordable housing, Garst said. The nonprofit started serving the midtown Omaha area nearly 20 years ago, initially offering leadership and job training for residents and eventually taking on housing rehabilitation projects. Just recently, its board helped launch the inCommon Housing Development Corp., led by Garst, to concentrate on affordable housing efforts. 

With increased labor, material and other costs, a project such as the Poppleton would not be feasible without the boost from federal and state tax credits, Garst said. 

Tax credits are expected to provide about 67% of development costs for the first phase. Other sources including public tax-increment financing and HOME funds will buttress traditional conventional loans to fill the gap.

Underlying efforts, said Garst, is the belief that affordable housing, generally defined as paying no more than 30% of income on housing, helps build success by preserving money for emergencies, home ownership and other life goals.

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“When you’re living paycheck to paycheck, that doesn’t help anyone in that generation or future generations,” she said. “It all starts at the home.”

Latest round

The other projects and developers awarded federal and state tax credits to help produce affordable housing were, according to the announcement by the Nebraska Investment Finance Authority:

  • The Stephen Center HERO building, Arch Icon Development, South Omaha, 64 units.
  • 3030 Upland Parkway, Brinshore Development, South Omaha, 57 units.
  • 192 Q project, Foundations Development, Omaha, 70 units.
  • Benjamin Villas, Mesner Development Co., Norfolk, 22 units.
  • Whitetail Villas, Mesner Development Co., Schuyler, 16 units.
  • Cedar Park, Hoppe & Son, Hastings, 27 units.
  • Stoddard Place, Hoppe & Son, Beatrice, 20 units.  

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Everything Nebraska Cornhuskers Coach Matt Rhule Said About USC Trojans

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Everything Nebraska Cornhuskers Coach Matt Rhule Said About USC Trojans


The 4-5 USC Trojans face the 5-4 Nebraska Cornhuskers on Saturday, and the Trojans are making a quarterback change and attempting to become bowl eligible. The Cornhuskers are just one win away from bowl eligibility but have made changes of their own on the offensive side of the ball.

Cornhuskers coach Matt Rhule spoke in the weekly press conference about the matchup with USC. The Nebraska quarterback starting against the Trojans is still up in the air. Rhule said the team will see how quarterback Dylan Raiola is doing but is preparing Heinrich Haarberg. 

When asked about how the team is preparing both quarterbacks with their different playing styles, Rhule’s response remained ambiguous.

Nebraska coach Matt Rhule

Sep 28, 2024; West Lafayette, Indiana, USA; Nebraska Cornhuskers head coach Matt Rhule high fives quarterback Heinrich Haarberg (10) during the first quarter against the Purdue Boilermakers at Ross-Ade Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Marc Lebryk-Imagn Images / Marc Lebryk-Imagn Images

“That’s why I’m not gonna let anybody talk to you guys tomorrow because you guys are really good at your jobs, and I appreciate that,” Rhule said. 

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While speaking about Nebraska’s quarterback situation, Rhule changed the conversation to having to prepare for a new USC quarterback. Jayden Maiava will be making his first start for USC but has played numerous games in his career while at UNLV.

“We’re sitting here trying to figure what to do with, you know, they’ve changed the quarterback. You know, we’re watching UNLV film and spring film and all that,” Rhule said.

Rhule expanded on the challenges of preparing for Maiava. While there is film on him, Maiava has not played much under the USC offensive scheme. 

“It’s sort of the same thing, right? You’re sitting there looking at, you know, what do they do well, and they do a lot well.” Rhule said. “Maiava, you know, he has the ability to move.”

Nebraska coach Matt Rhule

Sep 20, 2024; Lincoln, Nebraska, USA; Nebraska Cornhuskers head coach Matt Rhule talks with officials after an interception during the second quarter against the Illinois Fighting Illini at Memorial Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Dylan Widger-Imagn Images / Dylan Widger-Imagn Images

Rhule also spoke about how well USC coach Lincoln Riley utilizes the run game each week. The Nebraska coach spoke highly about Trojans running back Woody Marks, who has been having a strong season.

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“The tailback is, I mean, like all Lincoln Riley offenses, you know, Marks is a fantastic tailback. He’s explosive, dynamic. They’re, you know, I’ve coached against Coach Riley for a long time. He’s going to find a way to run the football. He’s elite at what he does,” Rhule said. “Even in the last game against Washington, they got back in the game by just running the football at a high level.”

Rhule then spoke about the Trojans’ receiving core, highlighting wide receiver Zachariah Branch and his ability as the slot receiver.

“Branch is, you know, excellent excellent excellent slot,” Rhule said. “They have some guys that can really go on the outside.” 

USC’s offensive weapons make it more challenging for Nebraska to defend the offense. Being able to run the ball well and now having Maiava’s ability to run is difficult to contain. If USC gets the run game going early, that could open the passing game.

Nebraska Cornhuskers coach Matt Rhule

Aug 31, 2024; Lincoln, Nebraska, USA; Nebraska Cornhuskers head coach Matt Rhule reacts during the second quarter against the UTEP Miners at Memorial Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Dylan Widger-Imagn Images / Dylan Widger-Imagn Images

“Now as a defense, you’re having to defend the counter and the tackle trap and all these plays that they run. Plus, the opportunity for the quarterback to pull the ball and run because he, you know, he’s a dual threat player,” Rhule said. “And you don’t know exactly which direction they’re going to go with him.”

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The Nebraska fanbase is a loyal one. Rhule closed speaking to the media giving the Nebraska fanbase credit on the road, and how it will help them against USC.

“I think the impact of our fans on the road always is elite,” Rhule said. “When they do show up in mass it limits the need for the silent cadences and all the things that make being on the road hard.”

The USC Trojans and Nebraska Cornhuskers will kick off at 1 p.m. PT in the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. 

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Former South Carolina Gamecock Staffer Demoted at Nebraska

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Former South Carolina Gamecock Staffer Demoted at Nebraska


Former South Carolina Gamecock offensive coordinator Marcus Satterfield demoted at Nebraska.

The Nebraska Cornhuskers have had a bit of an up and down season this year and head coach Matt Rhule announced a coaching change. Former South Carolina Gamecock offensive coordinator Marcus Satterfield has been demoted and long-time college coach Dana Holgorsen will take over the play calling duties.

Satterfield was the offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach at South Carolina during the 2021 and 2022 seasons. He has since been the offensive coordinator at Nebraska, but now is just the tight ends coach as of this week.

Nebraska this season ranks 99th in points per game averaging just 23.6 per game. They also rank 96th for total offense as they are averaging 354.1 yards per game. Holgorsen was a long-time head coach at West Virginia throughout the 2010s, was head coach at Houston from 2019-2023 and most recently was a scout and advisor at TCU this season.

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During Satterfield’s time at South Carolina, the Gamecocks averaged 22.6 points per game in 2021 and then 32.2 points per game in 2022. Satterfield would then resign from his position with the Gamecocks during the 2022 season before the team’s bowl game against Notre Dame.

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Big Ten Power Rankings: USC Trojans Outside of Top 10, Behind Nebraska Cornhuskers

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Big Ten Power Rankings: USC Trojans Outside of Top 10, Behind Nebraska Cornhuskers


The USC Trojans are coming off a bye week heading into Saturday’s matchup vs. the Nebraska Cornhuskers. What do this week’s Big Ten power rankings look like?

Oregon running back Noah Whittington carries the ball as the Oregon Ducks host the Maryland Terrapins at Autzen Stadium Satur

Oregon running back Noah Whittington carries the ball as the Oregon Ducks host the Maryland Terrapins at Autzen Stadium Saturday, Nov. 9, 2024 in Eugene, Ore. / Ben Lonergan/The Register-Guard / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

The Oregon Ducks remain at the top the Big Power rankings after their win over the Maryland Terrapins. The Ducks are now 10-0 and the unquestioned No. 1 team in the conference.

Next Game: 11/16 at Wisconsin

Ohio State handled their business against the Purdue Boilermakers in a shutout victory on Saturday. The Buckeyes are hoping to get another crack at Oregon in the Big Ten title game.

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Next Game: 11/16 at Northwestern

In a dream season for Indiana, the Hoosiers are now 10-0 and likely just need to win one of their final two games to secure a spot in the College Football Playoff. They held on to a 20-15 win on Saturday over Michigan. After the game, coach Curt Cignetti’s daughter got engaged on the field. It’s like a movie in Bloomington!

Next Game: 11/23 at Ohio State

Nov 9, 2024; University Park, Pennsylvania, USA; Penn State Nittany Lions players sing their alma mater following a game agai

Nov 9, 2024; University Park, Pennsylvania, USA; Penn State Nittany Lions players sing their alma mater following a game against the Washington Huskies at Beaver Stadium. Penn State won 35-6. Mandatory Credit: Matthew O’Haren-Imagn Images / Matthew O’Haren-Imagn Images

Penn State took care of Washington 35-6 on Saturday. The Nittany Lions do the same thing every season. They beat everyone except for any team that is remotely close to their level.

Next Game: 11/16 at Purdue

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Illinois moves up after neither winning or losing during the bye week.

Next Game: 11/16 vs. Michigan State

Minnesota flipped their season around and won four straight games but went right back to their old selves with a loss to a struggling Rutgers team. It is too difficult to get a read on this Golden Gophers team.

Next Game: 11/23 vs. Michigan State

Iowa lost a close road game on Friday night to UCLA. The Bruins have been playing well as of late, so Iowa will remain at No. 7.

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Next Game: 11/23 at Maryland

Nebraska is coming off of a bye week but still jumps up a couple of spots.

Next Game: 11/23 at USC

Nov 8, 2024; Pasadena, California, USA;  UCLA Bruins head coach DeShaun Foster shakes hands with running back T.J. Harden (25

Nov 8, 2024; Pasadena, California, USA; UCLA Bruins head coach DeShaun Foster shakes hands with running back T.J. Harden (25) after defeating the Iowa Hawkeyes at the Rose Bowl. Mandatory Credit: Jayne Kamin-Oncea-Imagn Images / Jayne Kamin-Oncea-Imagn Images

The UCLA Bruins are better than their 4-5 record would indicate. The Bruins took down a hot Iowa team 20-17. They looked lifeless after their 1-5 start, but they have rolled off three straight wins and have a legitimate opportunity to become bowl-eligible. First-year coach DeShaun Foster has surprised many with the turnaround.

Next Game: 11/15 vs. Washington

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The Badgers had a bye week. If they can compete against Oregon next week, they will likely stay in the top ten.

Next Game: 11/16 vs. Oregon

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