INHP secures more than $12M for affordable housing efforts in Indianapolis

The Indianapolis Neighborhood Housing Partnership has secured more than $12 million that it will use in coming years to support affordable housing strategies in Marion County, the organization announced Tuesday.

Most of that funding—$10.8 million—is in the form of loans from five Indiana-based banks: First Internet Bank, First Merchants Bank, Lake City Bank, Old National Bank and the National Bank of Indianapolis.

These banks took advantage of the Federal Home Loan Bank of Indianapolis’ CDFI Rate Buydown Advance program. The program provides a subsidy that reduces the cost of borrowing for participating Home Loan member banks, and those banks then lend the funds to Community Development Financial Institutions.

The INHP uses those loans to originate mortgages with below-market interest rates, making those mortgages more affordable to the low-to-moderate homebuyers the organization serves.

“The five banks that participated in that with us passed that capital through to us with very little margin for themselves,” said Gina Miller, CEO of the INHP. “And so that’s capital that we’re getting at a cost that we’ve never been able to raise.”

Miller said her organization plans to use this funding in three ways: mortgage lending for low-to-moderate-income Marion County homebuyers; lending to developers of affordable housing; and the INHP’s own development of single-family homes.

Most of the $10.8 million is in the form of 10-year loans, Miller said.

“That gives us 10 years to originate mortgages, and we sell those mortgages, and we originate more,” Miller said. “We’ll be able to revolve that money 10 to 20 times during that time frame and get people into home ownership.”

Borrowing money from partner banks is part of INHP’s operating model, Miller said, but the last time the organization did so was in 2016.

INHP offers homebuyer and financial education, mortgages, home repair loans and other programs for low-to-moderate-income Marion County residents. The organization also makes loans to affordable-housing developers, does its own housing development and makes grants to nonprofits working in affordable housing.

INHP also secured smaller amounts of funding from two other sources:

• A New Markets Tax Credit allocation that will support the development of about 20 affordable homes, half of which will be in the Arnold Place townhome development in the Reagan Park neighborhood and the rest throughout Marion County. The INHP invested about $5.5 million and received a net benefit of $1.7 million from these tax credits. The New Markets Tax Credit program is administered through the U.S. Treasury. This was INHP’s fourth such award. The allocation was awarded in December and is expected to close June 30.
• $325,000 raised via a Federal Home Loan Bank of Indianapolis program which provides matching grants of up to 10 times a member bank’s contribution for affordable housing development. Three different projects will benefit from this program. All three of the awards were announced in the first half of April. 

In 2024, the INHP provided more than $24 million in mortgage financing, serving 1,500 families.