Non-profits

Hope Center

October 31, 2023 by

SA Hope Center began over 30 years ago as a benevolence ministry of Oak Hills Church. The SA Hope Center became a 501c3 nonprofit organization in 2001 and moved to its current location in the Westside on 321 N. General McMullen Drive in 2005. In 2014, the SA Hope Center’s program model took a shift from a food pantry program to a multi-faceted social service agency.

In 2014, SA Hope Center’s program model took a shift from a food pantry program to a multi-faceted social service agency that addresses the root causes of poverty to help the community become holistically sustainable.

The SA Hope Center has been serving the community on its westside campus in a donated 40+ year old portable buildings previously used for other purposes. These buildings have been “well-loved” and have served countless thousands over the past 16 years, but are currently falling apart and must be replaced.

In October of 2023, in partnership with PeopleFund Advisors and Capital One Bank, Crescent closed on a $8.0M Federal NMTC financing to construct the new Westside campus, which greatly expands SA Hope Center’s ability to serve the community in their greatest times of need, highlights of which are as follows:

400% increased capacity to provide transformational classes such as workforce training, financial literacy, and Parent University.
190% increased capacity to provide one-on-one case management services to an estimated additional 750 households annually.
New counseling room to provide clinical and spiritual counseling services.
Kids Club to fill a major gap in programming to ensure parents can focus on gaining new skills while children benefit from social, emotional, and educational programs.
Renovated food and clothing services building doubling capacity to provide services and adding climate-controlled storage and a new loading dock.
Covered interior courtyards
400% increase in administrative and support staff offices
2 new meeting spaces for visitors, meetings, and overflow programming.

SA Hope Center’s new facility plans on creating 14 jobs during the entirety of the NMTC Compliance Period, 100% of which pay above the living wage rate for Bexar County, Texas, and 100% of which that will offer benefits.

Allen University – Good Samaritan-Waverly

July 21, 2023 by

The mid-20^th century Good Samaritan-Waverly Hospital building represents the culmination of the efforts of Columbia’s Black residents to establish modern healthcare facilities amidst the Jim Crow system of segregation prevailing in South Carolina before the advent of the modern Civil Rights Movement. The long-anticipated fruit of the 1938 merger of the city’s Waverly and Good Samaritan Hospitals, the present building was completed as a state-of-the-art facility in 1952 and included operating rooms, x-ray equipment, fifty beds, and a nurse training facility.

Despite the hospital’s comprehensive suite of services, operating margins were tight, due to a high debt load and persistently low reimbursement rates for care. In the wake of desegregation, Richland County completed a new, racially-integrated general hospital, which prompted the closure of Good Samaritan-Waverly in 1973.

The shuttered hospital was acquired in 1987 by Allen University, an HBCU founded in 1870 whose main campus is across the street. A succession of plans were considered over the years, and in 2008 the building was individually listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Subsequent to the appointment of President Ernest McNealey, in late 2017, plans began to coalesce around an adaptive re-use for the hospital. Fundraising commenced, but by the end of 2019 a significant gap remained.

In August of 2020, Crescent Growth Capital was hired to provide historic preservation consulting and tax credit arranger services on a contingent fee basis. Crescent authored the Historic Preservation Certification Application for South Carolina State Historic Tax Credits and Federal Historic Rehabilitation Tax Credits, successfully advancing an argument to justify the corner addition proposed for the project by pointing to the mid-block siting of the hospital at the time of its completion.

From a structuring standpoint, as tax credit arranger Crescent sourced $12 million in New Markets Tax Credit allocation authority, combined the resulting subsidy with federal and state historic tax credits, and took advantage of the South Carolina Abandoned Building Tax Credit to bring over $4 million in bottom-line benefit to the project.

In 2023, Allen University inaugurated the Waverly-Clyburn Building, within the original hospital, along with the Boeing Center auditorium, constructed as an addition. Building uses include a home for Allen’s newly-established school of education, for teacher training; a permanent home for the Institute for Civility; a newly-established South Carolina African-American Hall of Fame; and a new home for the university’s seminary.

DePaul Community Health Centers

May 20, 2023 by

Ascension DePaul Services New Orleans (ADSNO) operates 11 Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs) as DePaul Community Health Centers (DCHC) in the greater New Orleans area that offer an array of primary and preventive services, optometry, dental, pharmacy, and behavioral health. ADSNO has more than 190 years of experience and a very sound relationship in the Metropolitan New Orleans Area, which brings a wealth of knowledge to provide services, care, and best practices for outreach to meet the needs of our vast multicultural community. ADSNO has provided health screenings and outreach services built on health literacy and access to health care for all people, particularly for those who are underserved or experience linguistic and cultural barriers to care and services.

ADSNO’s success is built upon its history and experience in health care in New Orleans since 1834. ADSNO’s history in New Orleans began with its founders, the Daughters of Charity, and their management of Charity Hospital from 1834-1992, ownership and management of Hotel Dieu Hospital from 1859-2015, and ownership and management of DePaul Hospital from 1865 to 1973. In 2019, Daughters became Ascension DePaul Services of New Orleans.

DCHC’s plan is to create long-term and sustainable ambulatory campus rooted in delivering high quality healthcare and improving the health and well-being of the Metro NO community members. The sites will include primary medical services, behavioral health services, pharmacy, after hours care, urgent care, as well as imaging and lab services. This financing will greatly assist in bringing needed healthcare services to the low-income population.

In May of 2023, in partnership with Stonehenge Community Development, PB Community Impact Fund, The Community Business Investment Fund, and US Bank, Crescent closed on a $23.0M Federal NMTC financing, to construct two new facilities:.

Algiers – A $15.8 million clinic will include primary care, behavioral health, pediatrics, a pharmacy, urgent care, and outpatient diagnostic imaging and laboratory services. This new 20,000 SF facility will replace a nearby leased facility possessing only 1,944 SF, growing ten-fold in size.
Harvey – A $4.2 million clinic will include primary care, behavioral health, pediatrics, and a pharmacy. This new 9,400 SF facility will replace a nearby leased facility possessing only 3,750 SF, representing a nearly triple increase in size.

DCHC’s new facilities plan on creating 34 jobs during the entirety of the NMTC Compliance Period.

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.

St. Thomas Community Health Center

May 9, 2023 by

St. Thomas Community Health Center (“St. Thomas”) was founded in 1987 by a small group of members of the Catholic and Episcopal religious communities, including Dr. Donald T. Erwin, who continues as the CEO today. The clinic began operations in the former St. Thomas Housing Development in the Irish Channel, moved to its current main clinic location on Magazine Street in 1991, and today has expanded to multiple locations throughout the Greater New Orleans area, on both the East and West banks of the Mississippi River.

STCHC offers a full range of healthcare services that includes primary care, pediatrics, perinatal care, mental health counseling, optometry services and women’s health care. STCHC also offers specialty care in the areas of child and adult psychiatry and counseling, gastroenterology, rheumatology, and cardiology. Of the community-based health care centers in New Orleans, St. Thomas is one of only a few providers with a dedicated team of infectious disease specialists, working to treat and prevent the spread of diseases like HIV and Hepatitis C. STCHC patient base is 86% minority, and 6 out of 10 board members are minority as well.

True to St. Thomas’ mission of providing health care services for those who need it most, St. Thomas’ overall clinical payer mix is 60.1% Medicaid, 19.1% Medicare, 9.2% commercial insurance, and 11.6% uninsured. The vast majority of St. Thomas’ patients are Black, with a growing Latinx patient population. Annually, St. Thomas (STCHC) serves approximately 20,000 distinct patients and handles approximately 76,000 patient visits.

In May of 2023, in partnership with Gulf Coast Housing Partnership and US Bank, Crescent closed on a $5.5M Federal NMTC financing, and in March of 2024, in partnership with Enhanced Capital Partners and US Bank, Crescent closed on a $5M Louisiana State NMTC financing to construct two new facilities to significantly expand services and improve accessibility:

Garden District – A $5.1 million clinic will include primary care, behavioral health at the site, pediatrics, access to the pharmacy next door at 2010 Magazine, women’s health, access to other services located across the street at 1936 Magazine Street and 1020 St Andrew including infectious diseases, optometry and mammography services. This new 6,092 SF facility is expected to serve 7,680 patients and handle approximately 19,200 visits on an annual basis.
Algiers – A $1.8 million clinic will include primary care, behavioral health at the site, pediatrics, and women’s health. This new 4,596 SF facility is expected to serve 4,800 patients and handle approximately 12,000 visits on an annual basis.

Without the NMTC financing it may otherwise be less fiscally viable to pursue such an initiative. This financing will greatly assist in bringing needed healthcare services to the low-income population. St. Thomas’s two new facilities plan on creating 17 to 22 new jobs as a result of the project.

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.

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