Debbie Burkart
Debbie Burkart has helped finance thousands of affordable homes for special-needs residents across the country.
Debbie Burkart, national vice president of supportive housing at National Equity Fund
National vice president of supportive housing at the National Equity Fund (NEF), she has steered more than $800 million in low-income housing tax credit (LIHTC) equity to developments serving veterans, homeless, and disabled individuals.
A passionate advocate for veterans housing, Burkart also serves as the director of Bring Them HOMES, an initiative launched by the Local Initiatives Support Corp. and NEF in 2012 in partnership with Citi Community Development, MetLife Foundation, and Northrop Grumman. Since then, the effort has raised $4.3 million, which includes $4 million in grants, to help build more than 60 developments with approximately 4,300 homes for homeless veterans and their families.
“Life is unpredictable and brings moments of suffering. No one is immune,” says Burkart. “We gather strength from our community and family to overcome life’s challenges. But not everyone has the same support network. It has been important to me, someone who has benefited from a safety net, to build one for others who do not, for any number of reasons, have access to a supportive community. To build housing where people can heal and receive services or design supports in their units to help them live independently again. Our veterans who have suffered, persons who are born or develop disabilities, I have seen healed by living in supportive housing and find hope again.”
In addition to financing and underwriting deals at NEF, Burkart works on policy issues related to supportive housing, including advocating for federal funding, project-based rent subsidies, and the use of vacant land owned by the Department of Veterans Affairs for housing.
Burkart has been at NEF, a nonprofit LIHTC syndicator, for 25 years. Seeing how residents are uplifted by supportive housing has been especially rewarding.
“There have been so many moments at grand openings where the residents speak about their struggles and how the affordable housing was a turning point in their lives,” she says. “Where the formerly homeless veteran says he is living now with his brothers and his sisters. Where the LGBTQ youth with mental illness, who had no family support, says she has found a new family in the community at the transition-age youth housing. The frail senior who was a shut-in because she couldn’t climb down the apartment building’s stairs of her former residence, saying Wii bowling is a favorite activity at her new affordable assisted living. I just wish it didn’t take so long to build these projects.”
She serves on several boards, including LA Family Housing, the National Coalition for Homeless Veterans, and CSH (Corporation for Supportive Housing). This allows her to bring her expertise to the organization and to further her own education.
For her work on veterans housing, Burkart received the Corporate Silver Star Award from Volunteers of America Illinois in 2016 and the Community Hero Award from New Directions in 2011.
