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Joe Wishcamper '64 recognized for affordable housing advocacy

Affordable housing champion Joe Wishcamper to receive national award

Mainebiz.biz

September 11, 2019

Lyndel J. "Joe" Wishcamper, president of The Wishcamper Companies, Inc. in Portland and one of the country’s leading advocates for affordable housing, will receive a prestigious award from the National Housing & Rehabilitation Association.

The group’s 2019 Affordable Housing Vision Award, to be presented Oct. 16 in Boston, recognizes Wishcamper for his “stewardship and expansion of affordable housing opportunities for low-income families around the country,” according to a news release.

"Joe Wishcamper has dedicated his career to serving affordable housing residents. He has specialized in preserving at-risk affordable housing assets for the long-term," NH&RA President Thom Amdur said in the release.

"He is also a dedicated advocate for the affordable housing cause, advocating for affordable housing and community development programs in the executive branch, U.S. Congress, and state legislatures."

Wishcamper began his career in affordable housing in 1970 and in his nearly 50 years as a community developer has owned, developed, or redeveloped over 15,000 affordable housing units throughout the country.

According to NH&RA, he is recognized as an expert and innovator in almost every major community development program run by the Federal Department of Agriculture’s Rural Housing Services, the Department of Housing & Urban Development, and the Department of the Treasury.

Through his affiliated companies, Wishcamper owns interests in properties in 25 states. In Maine, he led the development of Portland's North School Apartments, a 60-unit elderly housing complex; Follis Place, a 22-unit development in Eastport; and a half dozen other properties in Bath, Camden, Freeport, Portland, Rockland, and Wiscasset.

He is also the executive-board advisor to Wishrock Housing & Investment Group, a major affordable housing development company led by his son, Rick Wishcamper.

Joe Wishcamper founded the Maine Real Estate & Development Association and served as its first president. He was also chairman of the Maine State Housing Authority Advisory Board, and has been active on the boards of numerous business, civic, and nonprofit organizations.

Wishcamper will share this year’s Affordable Housing Vision Award with Joe Hagan, president emeritus of the National Equity Fund Inc., in Chicago.

The award, which NH&RA has presented annually since 2004, recognizes affordable-housing and community-development leaders who have made valuable contributions to the field and demonstrated years of leadership, commitment, and imagination. Past recipients include former Boston Mayor Tom Menino and Barney Frank, former longtime U.S. representative from Massachusetts.