DAVID SMITH BioGRAPHY
Founder
Revised 7/06
David A. Smith (dsmith@affordablehousinginstitute.org) is the founder of the Affordable Housing Institute, a non-profit international consultancy specializing in affordable housing program design and development, financial innovation, stakeholder capacity-building, best practice dissemination, and information outreach. A 1975 Harvard College graduate, David uniquely combines the roles of practitioner and theoretician, participant and policymaker:
International policy advisor/ program developer. Ongoing program development engagements active in South Africa, the UK, and Ireland:
- Egypt. Specialist consultant on strategy and structure of Guarantee Subsidy Fund set up by the government to promote access to housing finance and subsidies.
- Kenya. Lead consultant to Ministry of Lands and Housing on the design of a program for slum upgrading in Kibera, Nairobi, to lever private funding and available public resources.
- US/Italy. Member of core team from Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies, for the Bellagio Housing Conference, which braught together senior government and private sector leaders from four developing countries – Kenya, Mexico, South Africa, Thailand. Led to Landmark Bellagio Housing Declaration.
- South Africa. Principal consultant to the Low Income Housing Working Group of the Banking Council implementing the Financial Sector Charter, which among other things commits upwards of R75 billion into four sectors, including affordable housing.
- UK. Lead program designer and advocate for a proposed Housing And Regeneration Tax (HART) Credit (www.hartcredit.org.uk), modeled on and improved from US best practice tax credits for housing production.
- Ireland. Conceptualization and preliminary design for 'soft debt' appropriated financial incentives to create key worker affordable rental housing in Dublin's regenerating downtown
Policy innovator and program developer. Staff consultant to the Congressionally selected Millennial Housing Commission (www.mhc.gov).
Program analyst/ advisor. Prolific author (former contributing editor of Real Estate Review) and sought-after speaker or symposium co-chair (more than 50 events) on affordable housing issues. Testified before Congress on many occasions, and has provided studies to Congressand many Federal entities.
Educator and advocate. Featured speaker at national conferences in the UK, South Africa, US, Canada and Turkey. A Senior Research Scholar at the University of Maryland's School of Public Affairs, he is also on the faculty of Fannie Mae's International Housing Finance Symposia series (delivering presentations to housing officials from more than 30 nations), as well as occasional guest lectures at Harvard and MIT.
Successful businessman. Founder of Recapitalization Advisors, LLC. (www.recapadvisors.com), today a fifteen-person firm that is the US's foremost specialist on the finance of existing affordable housing, nationally recognized and widely cited, having closed more than 365 transactions on more than 45,000 apartments with more than $1.5 billion in value. Clients include Federal and state government agencies, non-profit and for-profit owners and acquirers of affordable housing.