Listen to this articleNew Orleans for-profit organization Xavior Estates LLC has a business model of buying homes in the city, including some blighted properties, renovating them and offering them for rent for less than market value to low-income individuals and families.
“I am able to make the same profit margins that a (traditional) rental property company is making because of how meticulous we are in our project management,” said owner Taj Xavior.
He started the company in 2019 with no public funding assistance — just an idea to hold target real estate properties in a portfolio with a mission to help close the gap in affordable housing. He has focused on acquiring properties in the 7th Ward and Gentilly areas.
“We kept the overhead low and operated on a tight budget,” Xavior said.
In recent years, as Xavior Estates scaled up, Xavior was able to tap into public grant funding from the Louisiana Housing Corporation, which administers certain types of funds through the federal government.
In February 2024, Xavior Estates was awarded $146,000 from the Louisiana Housing Corporation for the development of two units. In October 2024, it was awarded $1.66 million from the Louisiana Housing Corporation under the Louisiana Homeless & Housing Stability: Affordable Multifamily Rental Housing Development Program (HHSD) to develop eight more properties for affordable housing. That money was to be doled out as a cash-flow loan over 20 years.
Three months later, in January 2025, the Donald Trump administration declared a blanket pause for “all obligation or disbursement of all federal financial assistance.” Despite Trump’s memo being rescinded a day later, Xavior said he has not received any of the grant money promised through the Louisiana Housing Corporation.
“Immediately after the freeze implementation and retraction, the HHSD program has been ‘pending approval’ moving forward,” Xavior said.
Even the smaller grant has not been awarded, flagged as “in progress,” Xavior said.
He is now in a tough spot with four property projects under contract which were dependent on the expected grant money.
It’s one example of how the blanket federal funding freeze of federally-funded programs affects organizations working to help the area’s more vulnerable population. It shows a trickledown effect of how public funding reaches nearly all sectors—even for companies that operate for profit.
“The houses that I don’t purchase, I’m not able to hire crews to renovate. I employ a full-time property manager who handles contract negotiations and I work with nonprofit organizations to do tenant placement,” Xavior said. “But the people who are affected the most are the low income and indigent families, because it is a halt in the reduction of inventory available for them to rent.”
Xavior now has a predicament of either having to take loans out on existing properties or continue to use business expenses to complete transactions for properties slated for much-needed lower-than-market rents.
“You can’t keep a property under contract forever,” Xavior said.
Federal funding halt hits all sectors
Another New Orleans organization that has sharply felt the federal funding freeze is Thrive New Orleans, a nonprofit that promotes racial equality by training workers for jobs and providing education to entrepreneurs looking to start businesses in the climate resiliency, flood resilience and stormwater management industry.
Chuck Morse, executive director, said the nonprofit was forced to lay off five employees already this year due to federal funding freezes.
The organization offers trainings for certifications, information about access to capital and equips businesses with expensive heavy machinery for climate-focused projects.
With a significant percent of Thrive New Orleans funding coming from federal grants—including a $500,000 grant awarded in 2024 from the Environmental Protection Act—Morse said he is concerned about Thrive New Orleans’ future.
“Most of our grants are multi-year grants for 2025, 2026 and 2027,” Morse said.
He said the nonprofit’s focus on providing a job pipeline for minorities and minority entrepreneurs—as well as focusing on climate initiatives—have put them in a “bull’s eye” for an uncertain future.
“I’m concerned also about our corporate funding, because our organization focuses on DEI and climate work. Those are things that I think the current administration is really focused on not funding,” Morse said.
While foundations and other private funding sources have generously leaned in to fill the gap for Thrive New Orleans in the short-term, Morse said he hopes the federal grant freeze won’t discourage future climate-focused entrepreneurs who are interested in solar, green building and stormwater management.
“We’ve been promoting the fact that this is the future economy and there are climate change business opportunities,” Morse said. “Without federal funding, it’s going to be hard for us to get momentum.”
Both Morse and Xavior have been scrambling to identify other funding sources to help shore up funding gaps as well as connecting with similar entrepreneurs and business accelerators in the city, like Propeller, for advice.
Morse said the most frustrating part of the federal funding freeze, other than that it came without warning, is that organizations weren’t able to show the impact the grant funds and their organizations have on the local community.
“We can stand on merit. We have not had a chance to be vetted and see our impact,” Morse said. “There may be some organizations that are misusing funds, but those that aren’t should not be penalized.”
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by PostX News and is published from a syndicated feed.)
