Education

Center for Transforming Lives

May 20, 2023 by

The Center for Transforming Lives (“CTL”) traces its origins to 1907; under various names its mission has always been to serve women in need. In the 1930s, CTL recognized that it could help most effectively by aiding both women and their children. While the following decades saw CTL’s steady development of a variety of programs and partnerships targeting poor and homeless women and their children, the need for such services increasingly outstripped the ability of the organization to provide them. By the start of the coronavirus pandemic, waiting lists for services were common, and CTL’s 1920s-era building in downtown Fort Worth was poorly located, woefully undersized, nowhere near able to accommodate all of CTL’s services and personnel, and with maintenance costs spiraling out of control.

Notwithstanding its dire facilities needs, CTL today offers a targeted and rare approach to boost poor and homeless women and their children into independence, financial security and, if necessary, psychological well-being. CTL engages with 1,500 Tarrant County families annually; its typical client is an African-American or Hispanic woman with one or two children experiencing poverty or homelessness. Household income for these clients averages only $20,000. Given the effectiveness of its approach, and in light of ever-increasing demand, scaling up became the chief imperative of the organization.

CTL’s board considered several alternatives and decided upon a wholesale relocation to a thirteen-acre site in east Fort Worth. Here, an existing commercial warehouse dating to 1959 will be repurposed into a modern, 102,000 SF facility. The combination of services offered in one location will permit single mothers to access counseling, housing assistance and resources for economic mobility all in one day, with drop-in daycare provided for their children and a robust early childhood education program also on offer.

In May of 2023, in partnership with Capital Impact Partners, People Fund, Pacesetter, McCormack Baron Salazar, and Capital One Bank, Crescent closed on a $39.5M Federal NMTC financing, to construct the Center for Transforming Lives’ planned Early Childhood Education & Economic Mobility Center (Riverside Campus) in Fort Worth, which will enable a quantum leap in capability and capacity for the 115 year-old organization, tackling Tarrant County’s entrenched debilities of high, multi-generational poverty and homelessness via a state-of-the-art facility perfectly sited for optimum accessibility and programmed to shatter the devastating cycle of poverty and homelessness experienced by so many single mothers and their children.

All programming will be organized around CTL’s potent two-generation approach, assisting both women in need as well as their children to disrupt the cycle of poverty and homelessness by arresting its otherwise likely intergenerational perpetuation. Key project elements will include an Economic Mobility Center, an Early Childhood Education Center, a Housing Connections Center, Counseling Rooms, and Play Therapy Spaces for children.

When complete, the new facility will increase childcare availability by 57%, grow by 27% the number of homeless women to be served, boost the capacity of economic mobility services by 65%, and provide to clients and the surrounding community a suite of behavioral health services currently unavailable. 52 new jobs will result, and 119 jobs will be relocated to the new campus.

University Charter School

May 8, 2023 by

University Charter School (“UCS”) is a non-profit charter school that first received charter authorization from the Alabama Public Charter School Commission on 10/26/17, serving PreK-8^th grade. UCS has a place-based and STREAM (Science, Technology, Reading, Engineering, the Arts and Math) curriculum with an emphasis on college and career readiness, community partnership, and technology integration to provide a balanced learning environment.

The school currently operates out of a building on the University of West Alabama campus that it shares with the Department of Education. UWA College of Education undergraduates routinely participate in the UCS K-12 in-class curriculum, providing UCS teachers with unparalleled professional development opportunities. Furthermore, UCS 9-11^th grade students earn Dual Enrollment (DE) credits by taking UWA courses, earning up to 40-48 college credits prior to their high school graduation. UCS students pay half the UWA tuition for the DE classes, and so far, UCS has been able to offer scholarships for most of its students to cover these costs.

As UCS’ enrollment has grown, however, the shared building space has become increasingly insufficient for the Charter’s needs. Additionally, the University desperately needs UCS to expand to offer a full PreK-12 curriculum so it can attract and retain strong professorial candidates, who view strong, local K-12 schools as a necessity when considering relocation.

In April of 2023, in partnership with Empowerment Reinvestment Fund, National Community Fund, United Bank, and PNC Bank, Crescent closed on a $31.9M Federal NMTC financing to construct a new 70,000 SF school facility that will provide adequate space for the Charter to grow into a full PreK-12^th grade enrollment. The new facility will allow UCS to increase its enrollment from 578 to 700, and provide 20 general instruction classrooms, office/meeting space, a cafeteria with a Farm-to Table Educational Garden, and a gymnasium/auditorium.

The building design includes multiple elective and lab spaces that can house fine arts, visual arts, computer and health sciences, foreign languages career training education, literacy STREAM and various support labs for core curriculum coursework. A special needs classroom and related support spaces are also included in the design. Finally, the newly-constructed school will also offer students a full-size gymnasium that can be converted into an auditorium, as well as locker and storage room areas, and weight room.

UCS’ enrollment is 51.9% minority, and 52.8% eligible for free or reduced lunch, and the school will be the only PreK-12 school in the area. Furthermore, the University of West Alabama relies heavily on UCS as a vital cog in its efforts to attract top-notch professorial candidates to Livingston.

The new school facility is expected to increase total FTE’s by 20-40 over the 7-year compliance period. This NMTC subsidy will provide UCS with the additional equity necessary to build up to 6 additional classrooms, which would allow the entire enrollment to fit in the new facility. As currently designed, the new school building could hold grades 4-12 only.

Autism Community Network

April 3, 2023 by

Autism Community Network (ACN) was founded in 2008 through a consortium of healthcare funders led by Palmer Moe and the Kronkosky Charitable Foundation. The primary purpose of ACN is to improve the health and quality of life of children with autism by providing early, uniquely tailored diagnostic services to children suspected of having autism, therapies to families impacted by autism, and support through training for caregivers and providers whose interaction with autistic children is critical to their success. Additionally, ACN works diligently to educate the community about autism and to the best of their ability, the experience of the impacted family and autistic individual.

ACN serves children ages 0-7 through its clinical diagnostic program, and ages 0-9 for occupational therapy and speech language therapy. The organization currently offers the following programs (a) diagnostic services for children, (b) therapies for children and families affected by autism, (c) classes for caregivers affected by autism, (d) professional development for professionals serving children with autism, (e) continued care coordination, (f) community outreach and awareness, (g) quality of life programming (Camp AUSOME!, Family Events, Community Collaborations).

ACN is currently one of two agencies serving the Medicaid populations in Bexar, and surrounding counties, with clinical diagnostic services. ACN’s current waitlist is 6 months for their Earliest Connection Clinic (0-29 months of age) and 18 months for their Diagnostic Clinic (30 months to 6 years of age).

Since its inception in 2008, ACN has served over 27,000 individuals – an estimated 75% of whom are Medicaid eligible. In 2021 alone, ACN served 2,150 children, caregivers and other professionals through its unique programming options, 85% of whom are below the poverty line.

In March of 2023, in partnership with Broadstreet Impact Services (formerly Local Initiatives Support Corporation), Crescent closed on a $5.5M Federal NMTC financing to purchase, renovate and expand an existing facility into the new home of the Autism Community Network (“ACN”). The new 10,346 sf ACN headquarters facility will provide the organization with adequate clinical space to serve a growing referral base, as well as a large sensory gym, a playground and a community center.

The new facility will decrease ACN’s diagnostic waitlist by 3-6 months, increase the amount of therapy offerings, expand education and training for autism service providers and caregivers and improve upon quality-of-life offerings by including appropriate play areas, both indoor and outdoor, for the autistic community, all in a safe, sensory-friendly and warm facility.

The NMTC net benefit will provide ACN with the ability to reduce its fundraising target by nearly $650K and facilitate ACN’s expansion of its existing programming by 63% over the next five years. The project is expected to create at least 10 FTE’s over the next 7 years.

Fisk University

January 19, 2023 by

Conceived in the hopeful aftermath of the Civil War to help satisfy the enormous demand for education on the part of Black Americans, Fisk University opened its doors on January 9, 1866. In subsequent decades Fisk University went on to bequeath to the nation a string of graduates constituting an unremitting procession of African-American firsts, including W.E.B DuBois, sociologist and the first Black recipient of a PhD from Harvard (1896); St. Elmo Brady, the first Black recipient of a PhD in Chemistry (1916); Hettie Love, the first Black female to graduate with an MBA from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School (1947); Mahala Dickerson, the first Black woman attorney admitted to the Alabama State Bar (1948); and Etta Falconer, the first Black woman to earn a PhD in Mathematics (1969). Today, over 1,000 undergraduates and graduate students are enrolled at Fisk University.

And yet while Fisk’s commitment to academic rigor and minority opportunity has never flagged, African-Americans as a whole remain disproportionately poor and suffer from higher rates of violent crime, inferior health outcomes and lower levels of educational attainment than the average American.

Fisk University is keenly aware of these yawning disparities but has been focused until recently on putting its own house in order. Conscientious leadership and hard work in the new century have righted the ship, allowing Fisk to embark upon a bold plan of enrollment growth, career support for its graduates, and unprecedented engagement with its surrounding, deeply disadvantaged community.

Fisk University is planning four projects to grow enrollment and retention, boost career development and embark upon unprecedented engagement with its surrounding, highly-distressed low income community, including the following:

Academic Excellence & Student Performance Center
Roland Parrish Career Center
Hope-Franklin Library
Driskell House (Social Justice/Race Relations)

In January of 2023, in partnership with Hope Enterprise Corporation and Wells Fargo Bank, Crescent closed on a $7.5M Federal NMTC financing which generate eight new permanent jobs, retain a further eight positions and increase enrollment by an estimated 15%.

Ursuline Academy – SMART Lab/STEM Studio

December 28, 2021 by

Ursuline Academy has educated young women for nearly three hundred years. Founded in 1727, only nine years after New Orleans’ establishment, the school currently occupies an eleven-acre campus inaugurated in 1912. Nearly six hundred students attend grades Pre-Kindergarten through 12.

In recent years Crescent Growth Capital has repeatedly helped Ursuline Academy leverage its capital projects fundraising to generate tax credit subsidies, resulting in a more attractive and competitive suite of educational and programmatic offerings. In 2010 Crescent structured and closed a New Markets Tax Credit financing to enable a key element of Ursuline’s post-Hurricane Katrina recovery plan: the debut of a dedicated Early Childhood Learning Center. Another central institutional objective, the rehabilitation of the school’s circa 1935 gymnasium to accommodate its enlargement and conversion into a Fitness and Wellness Center, was achieved with the assistance of Crescent’s contingent fee-based historic preservation consulting and historic tax credit monetization services. Subsequent historic preservation consulting work was undertaken by Crescent on behalf of the Ursuline Sisters to subsidize improvements to the National Shrine of Our Lady of Prompt Succor, located on the academy’s campus but administered independently.

In January 2020, Crescent was again approached by Ursuline Academy to provide contingent fee-based historic preservation consulting and historic tax credit monetization services, this time in support of its development of a SMART Lab and STEM Studio within its 1912 academic building. The academy deleted a circa 1960 library space to allow for the installation of an IOT-enabled SMART Lab, a cutting-edge practice platform for STEM instruction, a robotics competition zone, an entrepreneurship space, and a media lab. An adjoining bathroom stack was also reconstructed to code, conditioned by the new central HVAC system installed for the SMART Lab and finished with salvaged marble partitions and historic wooden fittings.

Crescent Growth Capital’s in-house historic preservation specialist prepared a twelve-element Historic Preservation Certification Application over twenty-two months. Part 3 approval was received on November 16, 2021, with credit monetization accomplished by Crescent and tax credit sale proceeds delivered to Ursuline in December.

Audubon Gentilly Charter School

July 1, 2020 by

Public education in New Orleans is today wholly entrusted to non-profit charter schools. Multiple networks of independent charter schools are supervised by the elected school board, which functions as the disinterested enforcer of academic standards, provider of resources best offered in a centralized fashion, and owner of school buildings. The resulting highly entrepreneurial environment has transformed educational outcomes throughout the city and afforded to successful charter school operators the opportunity to take over operation of additional schools.

Audubon Schools began as a traditionally-administered public elementary school in the city’s Uptown neighborhood. Almost fifty years ago, four teachers attending Montessori training at Tulane University resolved to find a public school home for this unique pedagogical approach, then and now mostly present in private Montessori schools. The teachers successfully petitioned the Orleans Parish School Board, which authorized “Audubon Montessori” in 1981. Five years later, the school started a French immersion track, which was formally sponsored by the French government in 1990 (The French Ministry of Education supports the program to this day). In the years leading up to Hurricane Katrina (2005), Audubon Montessori became widely referred to as a “public dream school” beloved by its parents (who affixed to their cars bumper stickers sporting this slogan). In the wake of Katrina, Audubon reopened as an independent charter school.

Under the leadership of Superintendent Henderson Lewis (2015-2022), the OPSB adopted a policy of encouraging successful charter school operators to grow by being awarded additional schools to administer. In Gentilly Terrace, an historic neighborhood of the city platted in 1909, the closure of the neighborhood’s charter elementary school was announced in 2016, a consequence of unimpressive academic results and dwindling enrollment. An unprecedented alliance of the Gentilly Terrace & Gardens Improvement Association, the leadership of Audubon Schools and the OPSB was formed to argue for the selection of Audubon as the new operator for Gentilly Terrace’s neighborhood elementary school. In the fall of 2018, Audubon Gentilly began operations, immediately ranking among the most sought-after public schools in the city.

Crescent Growth Capital was hired by Audubon Schools to provide contingent fee-based historic preservation consulting and historic tax credit monetization services, to subsidize the $2.7 million cost of readying the school building for its new operator. Gentilly Terrace School was constructed in 1914, to a design by architect E.A. Christy, and expanded in 1924. The wood-frame Craftsman style building boasts numerous flourishes which typify the Arts-and-Crafts movement, including scalloped rafter tails, decorative friezes and elaborate knee-brace brackets at the gable ends, A contributing element to the Gentilly Terrace National Register Historic District, the school received a rehabilitated ground floor and dramatically re-landscaped side yard play areas incorporating best practices in stormwater management.

Crescent Growth Capital’s in-house historic preservation specialist prepared a three-element Historic Preservation Certification Application over seventeen months. Part 3 approval was received on December 19, 2019, with credit monetization accomplished by Crescent and tax credit sale proceeds delivered to Audubon Schools in July of 2020.

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