Rapid City trust fund officials say $5 million Vision Fund allocation has leveraged $11 million for affordable housing

Chris Huber, CEO of the Black Hills Area Community Foundation, and Greg Litton, the foundation’s director of strategic housing, told the Rapid City Legal and Finance Committee on July 31 that a $5,000,000 allocation from the city’s Vision Fund has been deployed through the foundation’s Strategic Housing Trust Fund to catalyze affordable rental housing.

“The Strategic Housing Trust Fund is held at the Black Hills Area Community Foundation and administered by our team,” Huber said, describing the fund as a revolving source of low-interest loans or occasional grants to support below-market-rate multifamily development. Huber said the $5,000,000 city allocation matched a $5,000,000 challenge from the John Kivakurovich Foundation and an additional $1,000,000 from an anonymous private foundation, creating $11,000,000 in capital.

Litton laid out projects supported by the Vision Fund dollars. He said three projects were directly impacted: Springs Edge (a completed project near Walmart on the south side, $1,250,000 loan), Blackstone Flats (a Lloyd Companies partnership with wraparound services, $750,000 loan) and Camden Heights (a larger planned project behind Rushmore Crossing, $3,000,000 proposed loan). Litton said the combined activity has produced several hundred units: “3 28 total units thus far,” and the trust fund model counted “10 74 bedrooms” across projects, numbers he used to illustrate bedroom capacity rather than exact resident counts.

Litton said the fund’s loans are sized to be a small part of a project’s capital stack (no more than 5% of total project cost in the model) and typically mature in the 15–17 year window aligned with low-income housing tax-credit structures. "The $5,000,000 we got from vision funds into that number, we're able to impact 65 units per $1,000,000 loaned," he said.

Committee members asked about how repayments and interest are recycled back into the fund. Huber said the foundation takes a small management fee and the remainder of principal and interest returns to the Vision Fund so the money can be re-loaned. "We also do a 10% loan loss reserve to cover us in case something should happen," Huber added.

Council members asked whether the fund might support single-family affordable ownership projects in the future. Litton and Huber said the fund’s current focus on multifamily responses to immediate vacancy and affordability pressures could shift later; they described conversations with developers about ways the trust fund could be used for single-family projects, such as land purchases and subsequent low-interest loans.

The committee moved to acknowledge the presentation; the motion carried on a voice vote. Huber and Litton said they will present to the full City Council in September.