MINNEAPOLIS—Developers frequently encounter difficulties when cobbling together the financing needed to build affordable housing communities, but Jon L. Peterson, an attorney at Winthrop & Weinstine, PA, tells GlobeSt.com that one of the first and most important steps toward finding solutions is getting together with like-minded people. And to help facilitate that interaction, his firm, along with the accounting firm Baker Tilly, the University of St. Thomas and the Minnesota Housing Finance Agency, will present the third annual Affordable Housing Summit Thursday at the Depot Renaissance Hotel in Minneapolis.

“This is a tremendously efficient way for people to talk to lenders and investors and get to know one another,” Peterson says. “They can meet with two or three lenders and two or three investors, all in one day,” a process which otherwise could take weeks or even longer to arrange.

Furthermore, the funds which developers frequently use to finance projects, such as Community Development Block Grants and the HOME Investments Partnerships Program, “don't always mesh together,” and those still inexperienced in their use may find it helpful to work through these problems with more knowledgeable people.