The old industrial mill in Waterbury, Connecticut, had radioactive contamination, historic preservation restrictions and financing challenges that stacked up during construction.
For James Crowder, it became the kind of housing deal that explained exactly why he likes the business.
While working as a project manager at Hunt Capital Partners, he helped steer the redevelopment of the site into affordable housing through a complex environmental remediation and a layered deal that required “10 different subsidy stacks” of financial programs and incentives to get across the finish line.
Now, TruAmerica Multifamily is betting that his problem-solving mindset can help scale a newer part of its platform. The Los Angeles-based firm hired Crowder as managing director of affordable housing, tasking the longtime specialist with expanding a national strategy built around acquisitions, development and preservation.
The move follows TruAmerica’s launch this year of Anchor Point Residential, a $1 billion venture with Manulife Investment Management that debuted with the acquisition of a 51-property, 6,000-unit portfolio across California, Texas and Washington.
Crowder’s mandate centers on what investors often call “Capital A” affordable housing — income-restricted apartments backed by government programs such as low-income housing tax credits, or LIHTC — with a focus on preserving properties rather than relying solely on new development.
He said he will focus on acquiring and recapitalizing older properties, particularly those reaching the end of their initial compliance periods, while selectively pursuing new construction. That approach reflects both the scale of the need and the realities of the market, where building new supply has become harder to finance and slower to deliver, Crowder said.
“We’re always trying to figure out how to get these projects done because the need never really goes away,” Crowder told CoStar News.
The U.S. faces a shortage of roughly 7.1 million affordable and available rental units for its lowest-income households, according to the National Low Income Housing Coalition. At the same time, higher home prices and elevated mortgage rates have pushed more people into the rental market, intensifying demand across a range of income levels.
Crowder comes to the role at TruAmerica with a background shaped by precisely those types of challenges.
“I really just accidentally fell into it through the Great Recession and luck,” he said. “And now I’ve been in it 16 years, which is shocking to say.”
Indiana roots
Crowder grew up in South Bend, Indiana. While his mother worked as a residential real estate broker, Crowder and his brothers renovated and sold properties across northern Indiana before the housing crash.
“My first real physical introduction into real estate was flipping homes in South Bend and Elkhart,” he said. “One of the finance guys we worked with was basically writing checks and taking 30% of the profit, and I remember thinking, ‘I really like what you do.’”
Then, in late 2007 and into 2008, the Great Recession hit hard, wiping out investor demand for those deals and pushing Crowder back to school just as commercial real estate entered one of its deepest downturns.
He enrolled at Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business and graduated as many firms had stopped hiring. By chance, he landed in Bank of America’s community development banking division in Los Angeles in 2010 — one of the few areas still financing housing during the downturn.
“Even though the Great Recession had crushed most of commercial real estate, we were still doing deals,” Crowder said. “We weren’t doing foreclosures. We were financing ground-up affordable housing construction.”
Over the next 15 years, he built a career across affordable housing finance, acquisitions and development and later worked at Hunt Capital Partners, LEDG Capital Partners and California Commercial Investment Group. He has been involved in more than $2 billion in transactions spanning tax credits, tax-exempt bonds, HUD financing and public-private partnerships.
Complex transactions
That experience, he said, is defined by complexity.
Unlike deals on conventional apartment projects, income-restricted housing often requires layers of financing — tax credits, public subsidies, debt and equity — assembled into a single capital stack.
“When you get used to these transactions, you start looking at market-rate deals and thinking, ‘Well, that’s too easy,’” Crowder said. “These deals constantly require problem-solving.”
"When you get used to these transactions, you start looking at market-rate deals and thinking, ‘Well, that’s too easy.'"
Some of those lessons came from projects that nearly unraveled.
At Hunt Capital, Crowder gravitated toward distressed developments, including the Waterbury mill project, where environmental issues and layered financing threatened to derail construction. Those experiences, he said, reinforced how persistence and the ability to align partners can determine whether a project ultimately moves forward.
“What I learned from that project was tenacity,” he said. “If you get the right people in the room and the right partnerships involved, you can move mountains or eradicate nuclear radiation.”
Other projects brought different challenges. Crowder worked on developments in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands damaged by Hurricane Maria in 2017, navigating insurance claims, financing delays and rebuilding timelines.
“I’ve had contractors go bankrupt. I’ve had projects stall out because of disasters,” he said. “You learn patience, and you learn how critical partnerships are in this business.”
Those experiences now inform his role at TruAmerica.
In the near term, Crowder is focused on integrating and stabilizing the company’s newly acquired portfolio while building a pipeline of additional deals. That includes recapitalizing older properties and reinvesting in upgrades designed to extend affordability and improve long-term performance.
“We’re looking at properties built in 2005, 2006, 2007 and asking how we reposition them for the next 15 or 20 years,” he said. “That means new bonds, recapitalizations and reinvestment into the physical communities.”
The company said it also plans to pursue additional acquisitions and selective development in high-demand markets.
Preservation as strategy
The emphasis on preservation reflects a broader shift in how investors are approaching income-restricted housing.
Many properties financed through tax credits are now reaching the end of their initial compliance periods required by government entities, creating an opportunity to step in, restructure financing and extend affordability restrictions.
Rather than waiting for new construction — a process that can take years and is increasingly difficult to finance — firms such as TruAmerica are focusing on maintaining and upgrading existing units.
It aligns with TruAmerica’s longer-standing focus on workforce housing, where the firm has invested heavily in older, more attainable apartments that serve middle-income renters.
In both cases, the goal is less about creating units from scratch and more about preserving housing that remains within reach in an increasingly expensive market.
Housing headwinds
Housing developers are grappling with elevated interest rates, rising insurance costs, labor shortages and construction inflation, all of which have made new projects harder to pencil, or work to ensure the financial investments pay off. At the same time, rent burdens have climbed across much of the country as affordability has deteriorated.
Crowder said the sector continues to function because of coordination across public and private players.
“The industry is extremely resilient,” he said. “You see how everybody works together to fill those gaps and keep projects moving.”
For TruAmerica, the expansion reflects a broader evolution.
Founded in 2013 as a value-add apartment investor, buying and putting money into upgrading properties, the firm has grown into one of the country’s largest multifamily owners, with roughly $17 billion in assets under management. Company executives increasingly see preserving housing — across both income-restricted properties and middle-income rentals — as a long-term strategy tied to structural undersupply.
For Crowder, the appeal remains both technical and personal.
“At the end of the day, you’re providing safe, decent and sanitary housing for people who need it,” he said. “That gives you a little extra push to keep fighting through the hard parts of these deals.”