Developer JBG Smith's head of social impact investing is shifting to become the leader of its new subsidiary focused on investing in middle-income housing in fast-growing neighborhoods where essential workers are increasingly being priced out.

AJ Jackson has been tapped to serve as president of JBG's LEO Impact Capital, a workforce housing investment platform aimed at purchasing, operating and preserving middle-income housing in areas vulnerable to rapidly rising housing costs. Jackson most recently served as its executive vice president of social impact investing and led the formation of the Washington Housing Initiative Impact Pool managed by JBG Smith.

The LEO platform will consolidate Bethesda, Maryland-based JBG Smith’s existing impact investment efforts, including management of the Impact Pool. The pool is a roughly $115 million investment vehicle available for non-profit and mission-driven affordable housing sponsors to acquire and operate privately owned unsubsidized housing affordable to everyday working households.

“Our primary objective in creating LEO Impact Capital is to build on the successful track record of the Impact Pool and unlock access to opportunity for our investors, residents and communities by helping people live in neighborhoods that set them up for success at rents they can afford,” Jackson said in a statement.

The fund’s consolidation comes as many workers vital to functioning communities—including teachers, nurses, and firefighters—are feeling squeezed between incomes that disqualify them from government-backed housing subsidies and rising market rents in many of the nation’s largest cities.

The lack of affordable housing for this group has resulted in a third of middle-income renters becoming rent-burdened or spending more than 30% of their incomes on housing costs, according to Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing studies.

“LEO Impact Capital offers residents and our investment partners the best of both worlds,” JBG CEO Matt Kelly said in a statement. “Access to affordable housing is as important to economic growth as education and job skills," and the company looks forward to leveraging "our operating platform to address this critical need.”

Following its initial funding rounds, the Impact Pool’s first investment came in 2020 as a collaboration with the city of Alexandria and Virginia Housing. The partnership and access to capital allowed Housing Alexandria to purchase Parkstone Alexandria, a 326-unit market-rate complex, and phase in an affordable workforce housing plan that dedicated 75% of the property’s apartments for middle-income households.

The fund has since attracted capital from large institutional investors, including $20 million from Truist, the bank formed when BB&T merged with SunTrust, and $7.6 million from JBG. Other major investors included Bank of America, Wells Fargo, J.P. Morgan Chase, PNC and TD Bank. Together the funds have led to the creation or preservation of more than 3,000 affordable units in Washington D.C., Maryland, and Virginia.

Before his work at JBG Smith, Jackson earned a Bachelor of Arts in Economics from the University of Alabama an MBA from Harvard Business School. Before working at JBG, he held jobs on Capitol Hill and in the federal government and worked for 15 years at multifamily developer EYA.

Jackson also serves as a trustee of the Urban Land Institute, a board member for Up for Growth, and an advisory board member for Center Creek Capital Group and the Randall Lewis Center for Sustainability.