In October, Mercy Housing and our Bay Area colleagues will honor our long-time friend and co-conspirator, Natalie Gubb, with the dedication of a family housing community in her name. Natalie was among the true leaders of the affordable housing world, having been instrumental in drafting the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) in 1986, which is the building block of nearly all affordable housing developments since that time. More personally, she worked on nearly every Mercy Housing California real estate and LIHTC transaction up until her untimely passing.

Along with her many professional accomplishments, these new homes are a testament to Natalie’s legacy of spirited advocacy, unrivaled knowledge, and generous friendship. Natalie was always up for a challenge and was excited by innovation, so negotiating a project inside the newly developing Transbay neighborhood was right up her alley. In addition to working with new funding sources, the project required complex negotiations with a market-rate partner and demonstrated Natalie’s unique understanding of the complexities of affordable housing. This project ended up to be among the last projects that Natalie worked on with Mercy Housing before she died.

Barbara Gualco of Mercy Housing worked on this project that would come to be named Natalie Gubb Commons. “This project is right in the middle of the action, next to the ‘big guys’ – Salesforce Tower, Millennium Tower, and the Transbay Terminal. You can see them all when you stand on the roof. This community with her name on it is right there with them. She would have loved that.” In fact, Natalie Gubb Commons was recently featured in an article in the New York Times, something that Barbara says would have also made Natalie proud, as she was from the East Coast herself.

The 190 affordable family apartments that make up Natalie Gubb Commons are part of a unique project because the buildings that Mercy Housing built are nestled in with market-rate apartment buildings as part of an intentionally mixed-income neighborhood. By policy, 30% of all the new homes in the Transbay neighborhood are affordable, providing lower-income families with easy access to BART, SF Muni, and of course the Transbay Terminal. Natalie Gubb Commons also includes a Philz Coffee shop and childcare provided by South of Market Child Care, Inc. (SOMACC).

Please join us at 255 Fremont Street in San Francisco for the Dedication celebration on October 16^th at 11 a.m. as we remember and cherish an incredible woman whose legacy continues to touch so many lives.