Enterprise's Gulf Coast Technical Assistance Cohort will take part in their sixth session this month and will enter the second phase of the program. The cohort is made up of six diverse groups from Community Development Corporations (CDCs) and Community Development Housing Organizations (CHDOs) across the Mississippi Delta and hurricane-impacted southwest Louisiana.

Our Rural and Native American Program (RNAP) and Gulf Coast office collaborated to create the cohort in early June with the purpose to increase the preservation of rental housing and production of new resilient housing in these communities.

Central to Enterprise’s work is improving the capacity of CDCs and CHDOs to build a sustainable community development and affordable housing production system in Louisiana and Mississippi.

Over the past six months, the cohort has been trained on operational topics such as project proformas, cashflows, assembling project sources/uses and disaster recovery and rebuilding through monthly workshop sessions.

Members were also introduced to new affordable housing design models and community-engaged design processes that add affordable housing development options for participating organizations.

Sessions included the introduction of the Mi Casita Model, the CHDO certification process, how to seek funding to build their organization’s capacity and cashflow management.

“Each session I was able to participate in gave me lots of great information, as did the discussions. I am thankful for the opportunity to have participated,” says one cohort participant.

In the next phase, Enterprise will continue to provide on-on-one technical assistance and focus on the implementation of customizable models for homeownership in their communities.