Hartford Business Journal

12 HARTFORDBUSINESS.COM | JUNE 16, 2025 Maria Green, the Corporation for Independent Living's vice president and chief financial officer, and Kent Schwendy, president and CEO, say the best way to grow the nonprofit real estate developer's business is to expand nationwide. CIL helps develop housing for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. HBJ PHOTO | STEVE LASCHEVER Crossing State Lines Hartford-based real estate development nonprofit CIL finally has the means to go national what they were trying to do," he said. So, they formed their own company with the mission to support service providers primarily focused on, but not limited to, individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities, and developing residences for them. "Primarily that means individual group homes," Schwendy said, noting that the organization prefers to call them community residences. "We have done some multifamily and other types of projects." Over the decades since its founding, CIL has determined that the greatest need is to help organizations serving clients that require a high level of services. "So, we've tended to focus on those 24/7 care facilities, homes in communities," he said. According to its 2024 annual report, CIL since 1979 has invested $711.5 million in developing community residences, including 154 development consulting projects and 321 multifamily and mixed-use units. It has helped to develop 2,774 homes, including 544 licensed commu- nity residences in Connecticut and 287 in Massachusetts. CIL in its most recently completed fiscal year, which ended June 30, 2024, reported $2.52 million in revenue and $4.2 million in expenses, with assets of $22.2 million and liabilities of $44.6 million, according to a 990 tax filing submitted to the Internal Revenue Service. 'Platform for impact' The new line of credit with KeyBank gives CIL the ability to work anywhere in the United States. It features a $20 million incremental facility. Webster Bank, Westfield Bank and Rockland Trust also are providing backing. By David Krechevsky davidk@hartfordbusiness.com I t's a simple enough concept for any business — follow your customers. Sometimes, though, the concept is far more simple than the execution. Just ask the Corporation for Indepen- dent Living (CIL), a nonprofit, disabili- ty-focused real estate developer based in Hartford. CIL offers behind-the-scenes support to acquire, renovate and construct housing for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities nationwide. It then typically leases the housing to a nonprofit services provider, and at the end of the lease, donates the home to its partner. In April, CIL announced it had obtained a $45 million credit line from KeyBank to expand its footprint nationwide. Previously, CIL's line of credit required it to obtain permission from its lender for projects outside of Connecticut and Massachusetts. The organization also has developed properties in Delaware, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and Vermont, and has active development consulting projects in Maine and New Jersey. But the goal of expanding its devel- opment efforts nationwide has been around for years. It was already a key topic when Kent Schwendy, president and CEO, was hired 12 years ago. "When I started, … part of the idea was to start expanding geographically, and that was for two primary reasons," Schwendy said. "One is because the need is everywhere, and we feel like we have a model that can help people, (and) that very few other organizations do things the way we do them." The second reason, he said, was the need to diversify its geographic reach, especially when state and local govern- ment funding for programs that serve individuals who reside in CIL housing projects can be uncertain. "A lot of the organizations work across multiple state boundaries, or they have affiliated organizations and multiple state organizations," Schwendy said. "So, in order to be able to continue to grow and help organizations, we had to have an ability to walk across state lines." Gaining that ability didn't happen as quickly as Schwendy or CIL hoped, however, in large part because of the pandemic. Schwendy was hired in 2013 and became the CEO technically on the first day of 2015. But it took some time to find the right opportunities and build relationships before a nationwide expansion could occur, he said. The final step was putting in place "the financing instruments we need in order to be able to accomplish it," Schwendy said. Unfortunately, the pandemic disrupted those efforts. "We were going to start in 2019, and we had our plans for 2020, and then COVID hit," Schwendy said. $711.5M invested CIL was founded by a group of service-care providers in 1979, around the time the Mansfield Training School, a state-run school for people with developmental disabilities, was closing. CIL's founders were providers who knew how to care for the school's clientele, but did not know real estate, Schwendy said. "They tried partnering with other developers, but they couldn't find anybody who had the right mentality for AT A GLANCE Corporation for Independent Living Industry: Nonprofit real estate development Top Executive: Kent Schwendy, President & CEO HQ: 57 Charter Oak Ave., Hartford Employees: About 20 Assets: $22.2M Contact: 860-563-6011

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