Request for Proposals
Project Overview
Hope Community’s Community Ownership Project provides training and one-on-one support to aspiring
owner-occupant landlords. Many nonprofit developers own small multi-family properties (2-4 units) and
are interested in selling to their current tenants or other Community Ownership Project graduates.
However, given that these units are often financed as part of a larger portfolio, many funders need to be
involved in the unwinding of these structures.
Hope seeks to establish a precedent and develop a model for unwinding the subsidies attached to small
multifamily buildings within larger portfolios, allowing them to be sold to their current tenants or other
low- and moderate-income buyers. We seek a consultant with affordable housing expertise and
knowledge of the local funding environment who can work directly with entities that have debt and/or
other regulatory requirements on these properties to understand how we might separate them from
larger portfolios as needed and, ultimately, sell them directly to community members. As a
test/demonstration project, the consultant will work with Hope and its partners on a collection of small
multifamily properties in South Minneapolis.
Goals and deliverables
- Meet with relevant stakeholders
- Understand limits and opportunities – under what conditions can these properties be separated from the larger portfolio and sold?
- Work through the particulars of creating an approval path for these conversions of rental to ownership out of their existing debt structures
- Create a model for sale of small multifamily units that are financed as part of a larger portfolio to their current residents or other low -income buyers, with a preference given to graduates of Hope’s Community Ownership program
- Time permitting, gain approvals from relevant stakeholders for sale of the properties
- Strategize with Hope staff around potential roadblocks along the way
Terms
Project must be complete on or before September 30, 2023. Hourly rate cannot exceed $150 (loaded).
To submit a proposal, please include:
- Confirmation of a current account in the System for Award Management (sam.gov)
- Estimated schedule/number of hours needed to complete project
- Resume/CV detailing relevant experience
- Short description (1-2 paragraphs) of your approach to this project
Proposals must be received by Friday, August 12 th at 5:00PM CDT to be considered. Please send
required materials and any questions to Maggy Otte at motte@hope-community.org. All qualified
applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual
orientation, gender identity, or national origin.
About Hope
Hope Community creates connections that strengthen the power of community members and
communities. We cultivate community leaders, build community capacity, care for the housing and
community spaces we develop, and pursue equity and diversity in all we do. For more than 40 years,
Hope Community has been a neighborhood hub in the Phillips Community at the intersection of Franklin
and Portland Avenues in Minneapolis. We began as a hospitality house and homeless shelter for women
and children in 1977; more than 8,000 people found shelter and community at the house during its 15
years of operation. By the mid-1990s, decades of disinvestment and neglect had devastated the
neighborhood. In 1995 we closed the shelter and took on a new mission focused on community,
equitable development, and systems change. Today, Hope is a strong, nationally recognized community
development organization, known for our visionary integration of neighborhood revitalization and
extensive community engagement.
All Hope’s work relates to what we call Placekeeping – a development and engagement approach that
recognizes, amplifies, and leverages the stories, practices, and collective assets already found within the
neighborhood and the community. We actively listen and engage in ways that are not merely
transactional but also transformative. Our primary organizational goal is to facilitate and support
community-centered visioning, decision making processes, and projects that increase community
stability, vitality, resilience, and power while also reducing indirect negative consequences such as
displacement and gentrification. Now Hope staff and community leaders create spaces where racially
diverse, low- and moderate-income community members can come together to learn about, build, and
share power. A growing network of community leaders, most who are people of color, work on dozens
of community-based partnerships and projects. As our networks grow, the impact builds in our
neighborhood, across the city, and beyond.
Download — RFP: Housing Finance Consultant [PDF, 81KB]