Butler Snow attorney Charity Karanja has been selected to speak at the Council of Development Finance Agencies National Development Finance Summit. The summit will be held on November 13-15 in Baltimore, MD, and Charity will be one of four speakers at a breakout session on November 14 titled “Addressing Barriers to Financing Medium-Density Affordable Housing.” The breakout session will be based on the paper Charity co-authored with her 2024 Caren S. Franzini Fellows titled, “Financing Tools and Incentives for Developers in Missing Middle Housing.” The group will share their recent research on the challenges communities face in addressing the shortage of affordable housing. The Fellows will present their findings and offer a framework to help stakeholders — developers, homeowners, and development finance professionals — overcome access to capital barriers in the “missing middle” housing sector and diversify the mix of development finance tools available.
The Council of Development Finance Agencies (CDFA) is a national association dedicated to the advancement of development finance concerns and interests. CDFA is comprised of the nation’s leading and most knowledgeable members of the development finance community, representing hundreds of public, private and non-profit development entities.
Charity is a member of Butler Snow’s Public Finance, Tax Incentives & Credit Markets group. She focuses her practice on public finance, economic development incentives, and government relations. She has served in multiple roles for public finance, new markets tax credit, and economic development matters. She was recently named to the 2024 class of the Caren S. Franzini Fellowship, a program dedicated to developing engaged women leaders in the field of development finance.
She is a member of the National Bond Lawyers Association, the Government Finance Officers Association, Women in Public Finance, the Council of Development Finance Agencies, the Mississippi Bar Association, the American Bar Association, the National Bar Association, the Magnolia Bar Association, the Capital Area Bar Association, and Jackson Young Lawyers.
Charity earned her bachelor’s degree from Cornell University and her Juris Doctor from the University of Mississippi School of Law. She is admitted to the state bar of Mississippi.