Anthony S. Freedman joined Holland & Knight as a partner in 2006. He has practiced law for 29 years in Washington, D.C., and previously served as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Housing Policy and Budget at HUD from 1978 to 1981.
Mr. Freedman's practice consists of transactional, financial, policy and regulatory matters involving housing. His areas of expertise include federal, state and local housing assistance programs, low-income housing tax credits, public housing privatization, tax-exempt finance, mortgage finance, military housing and limited partnership law.
Mr. Freedman has been involved with the low-income housing tax credit program since its adoption as part of the Tax Reform Act of 1986, and his experience extends to the tax credit exchange and tax credit assistance programs enacted in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. He currently provides regular advice and counsel to more than a dozen state housing credit agencies and has rendered leading opinions on such diverse tax credit matters as the treatment of interest reduction payments under HUD’s Section 236 “decoupling” program, the timing of issuance and redemption of tax exempt bonds for purposes of obtaining tax credits without an allocation and the treatment of public housing operating subsidies received under the HOPE VI program. He has worked on more than 1,000 LIHTC transactions and recently represented the investor and syndicator in the largest such transaction ever closed. Mr. Freedman is the author of The Essential Guide to Housing Credit Compliance.
Mr. Freedman has assisted the Department of Defense (DoD) in its efforts to privatize military family housing since early 1995. One of the Department’s first two housing privatization contractors, he has represented both DoD and the U.S. Air Force with respect to the housing privatization program. He currently represents developers, investment bankers, credit enhancers and other private market participants in U.S. Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps transactions, having closed deals worth in excess of $3 billion.
An extensive background in HUD programs has enabled Mr. Freedman to represent a wide range of clients in virtually every kind of development, financing and workout transaction involving Section 8, HUD mortgage insurance, the older assisted housing programs and the Public Housing program. He represented the Atlanta Housing Authority in closing the first “HOPE VI” transaction, and since 1996, has represented various clients in more than 30 HOPE VI and other mixed-finance transactions. Mr. Freedman also played a pivotal role in structuring the first financings secured by a pledge of public housing Capital Fund Program monies. His work on behalf of the investment bankers for the Chicago Housing Authority (CHA) helped to develop the basic security mechanisms that enabled the transaction to achieve a AA rating from all three rating agencies. Since that time, he structured the first state housing agency pooled Capital Fund financing and has worked on more than a dozen other Capital Fund financings.
Mr. Freedman served as counsel to the National Housing ("Rouse/Maxwell") Task Force. He has written a number of articles, and conducted numerous seminars, on such topics as national housing policy, low-income housing tax credits, tax-exempt financing for housing and the effect of tax reform on housing.