Changemaker: Jim Roberts
Born and raised in Michigan, Jim Roberts attended Yale College and Yale Law School, returning to his home state to serve as an attorney at a private firm in Detroit. Shortly thereafter, one of the attorneys at the firm was appointed to serve as Executive Director of the newly formed Michigan State Housing Development Authority (MSHDA), a quasi-public agency established by the Michigan state legislature to support the development and financing of affordable housing. Jim accepted a role at MSHDA, working on the Executive Director’s staff for four years.
At MSHDA, Jim worked closely with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to implement a pilot program for Operation Breakthrough. This initiative was led by HUD Secretary and former Michigan governor George Romney to test innovative housing manufacturing and building methods partly inspired by Romney’s experience in the automotive manufacturing industry in Detroit. Roberts also served as MSHDA’s legislative liaison and spent time briefly working in MSHDA’s multifamily housing division.
Having caught word that CHFA had been established by the Colorado General Assembly, Jim wrote a letter to Chuck Henning, the first Board Chair at CHFA, expressing interest in coming to Colorado to work for the organization. Jim was hired by CHFA as the Director of Legal Operations in 1974, its first year of operation.
“At the time I moved out to Colorado and joined CHFA, we were still being legally represented by the Colorado Attorney General,” Jim recalled. “It was clear at that time that both CHFA and the office of the Attorney General wanted CHFA to have in-house counsel since it was not a state agency.”
Jim became CHFA’s fifth employee working in a historic mansion on Grant Street in Denver just a few blocks from the State Capitol. The staff worked under the leadership of Walter Kane, CHFA’s first Executive Director.
“We were operating on a shoestring budget,” Jim explained. “We were given a modest appropriation in 1975 from the legislature that kept us going until we began generating our own revenue under the Loans to Lenders program.”
Loans to Lenders issued $28 million in bonds in 1975, working with Colorado’s existing network of home mortgage lenders to support Coloradans in achieving responsible and affordable homeownership. In 1978, CHFA launched the Single Family Mortgage Purchase program, enabling CHFA to act as a secondary market by purchasing mortgages provided by participating lenders to low- and moderate-income buyers.
“One of my initial tasks at CHFA was to hit the road and talk to mortgage brokers and lenders around the state about CHFA’s mission to do good things in housing,” explained Jim.
One of my initial tasks at CHFA was to hit the road and talk to mortgage brokers and lenders around the state about CHFA’s mission to do good things in housing.
Reflecting on important milestones from CHFA’s early years in operation, Jim recalled CHFA’s entry into the business finance sector as a major turning point for the organization. Responding to challenging economic conditions and the difficulty local businesses faced in accessing capital, CHFA worked with lawmakers to devise a program to support local economies across the state.
“It was a major effort to get the appropriate legislation in place,” Jim recalled.
In 1982, the Colorado General Assembly passed House Bill 1240, which was signed into law by Governor Richard A. Lamm, authorizing CHFA to provide financing for small and moderate-sized businesses. In 1984, CHFA launched its first business lending program called the Quality Investment Capital Program (QIC).
Later in the decade, President Ronald Reagan’s administration established the federal Low Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) to incentivize the investment of private capital in the development and preservation of affordable rental housing. CHFA began administering the program in 1987.
Jim would continue to serve as CHFA’s in-house General Counsel until he retired in 2005. Over that time, he took part in tremendous organizational evolution and considerable growth. Having joined CHFA in its early formative years that were marked by financial uncertainty, Jim’s work bolstered CHFA’s transition to becoming fully self-sustaining, as well as its growth into an organization with multiple lines of businesses supporting housing and economic development across the state.
“I was just a lawyer,” said Jim. “I was mostly at my desk with papers that reflected what we were doing in the real world, but it was satisfying to watch it grow. I was always interested in doing public work of some kind. I really kind of fell into housing by accident while I was in Michigan. But the need for housing, which is very dramatic again today, was enough of a public purpose that it kept my interest for all those years.”