By
Lily Bryant
Kenneth A. Willis, vice president of the Federal Home Loan Bank of Boston (the
Bank), was recently named director of the Bank’s Housing and Community
Investment Department (HCI), replacing John Eller, who retired in July.
Born and raised in the city of Boston, Mr. Willis has a distinctly personal perspective
on housing and community development.
“I grew up in a triple-decker in Dorchester, Massachusetts, so I understand
the societal issues – violence, poverty, housing.
I see how our housing programs can work in these neighborhoods because I grew
up in similar neighborhoods. Today, kids might have i-pods and MP3 players, but
the underlying issues are still the same.”
Just as Mr. Willis takes care to apply the lessons learned in his youth to the
work he does today, he also embraces the legacy of his predecessors in HCI. “David
Parish and John Eller did a great job of establishing the framework for this
department and mainstreaming the housing issue, which is really an economic issue.
This is regular lending with a particular purpose.”
As Mr. Willis looks at the upcoming year in HCI, he keeps these issues top of
mind while tackling new challenges that have emerged. “We have two areas
to focus on this year. First, there’s smart growth and green building.
People are starting to realize that this is the only planet we have. Just like
the auto industry is offering more fuel-efficient or hybrid cars, you see the
same thing happening in housing.
“At the Bank, we want to help bring this issue to the forefront through
proactive outreach. We held our first green building trending and lending forum
last year, which was very successful and well attended. We’re going to
build on that success and host another forum this year.”
One of the primary goals of this type of outreach is to dispel the frequently
held notion that green building is cost-prohibitive. “People often assume
it costs more because you have to buy specialized materials, but you actually
wind up saving money in the end in terms of operations and utility costs.
“We’ve also built green considerations into the scoring framework
for the Affordable Housing Program. The program awards extra points to projects
that use green building techniques such as low-VOC carpeting, LEED certification,
Energy Star appliances, just to name a few. This is one way we can encourage
developers to use smart/green growth principles.”
In addition to green building and smart growth, the third big issue in 2007 is
antipredatory lending. “Our members are seeing an increasing number of
people coming to them for help because they are going to lose their homes.
“I’m serving on a task force with the Massachusetts Division of Banks
that looks at how organizations – federal, state, and local – can
come together on topics such as antipredatory lending and how to stave off foreclosure.” The
task force is compiling a list of recommendations that can help reduce foreclosure
rates, and hopes to make this available for replication in other states.
“Foreclosures
have a ripple effect on the community. Property values drop, crime increases.
So we are looking at options like specialized funding, intervention, and outreach.
It’s all linked to community
development and outreach. We’ll be hosting another forum on
antipredatory lending – we want to make this type of information
accessible to our members and our community.”T
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