Active campaign: $5,500 sewage repair at 1527 Walnut St., Anderson IN Founder match: $5,500 committed $200K founder challenge · Bharath donates a third building by year-end As featured in The Star Press and The Journal Gazette 501(c)(3) Private Operating Foundation · EIN 99-3628811 · tax-deductible See the campaign → Active campaign: $5,500 sewage repair at 1527 Walnut St., Anderson IN Founder match: $5,500 committed $200K founder challenge · Bharath donates a third building by year-end As featured in The Star Press and The Journal Gazette 501(c)(3) Private Operating Foundation · EIN 99-3628811 · tax-deductible See the campaign →
AMARNATH FOUNDATIONNaturally Occurring Affordable Housing

One founder.
Two buildings. A boring promise: rents don't move.

Amarnath Foundation isn't a movement, a startup, or a brand. It's a small preservation vehicle that buys distressed Rust-Belt buildings before flippers can, and holds them — repaired, occupied, affordable — for as long as the lease renewals keep coming.

A 501(c)(3) Private Operating Foundation · Founded June 2024 · EIN 99-3628811
Mission

Preserving naturally occurring affordable housing in distressed central Indiana communities — building by building, tenant by tenant, lease renewal by lease renewal.

Most affordable housing in the United States isn't subsidized. It isn't LIHTC. It isn't built that way. It's just old. Small brick walk-ups in cities like Anderson and Muncie, Indiana that happen to rent for $550–$750 because the building has been there for 70 years and nobody has bothered to flip it yet. That stock is called Naturally Occurring Affordable Housing (NOAH), and it is the single largest source of affordable housing in the country.

It is also the most fragile. Every NOAH building lives one flip away from disappearing.

A new owner does a cosmetic refresh, raises rents 50–60%, and the building is still standing — but no longer affordable to the people who lived there. Public policy hasn't solved this. Tax credits build new units faster than NOAH disappears, but slower than the cumulative loss. Cities don't have purchase budgets. Tenants don't have time. There is a real gap between "a building is for sale" and "a buyer exists who won't flip it." Amarnath Foundation is one small attempt to be that buyer on a few buildings a year.

The Model

Buy. Hold. Repair. Don't move rents.

We're a private operating foundation under IRS §4942(j)(3). Program assets — the buildings — live on our balance sheet, and we run the housing ourselves rather than re-granting to others.

Source

Find NOAH buildings before flippers do. Small multifamily, sub-100K-population Indiana cities, working with local brokers and city affordable-housing offices.

Acquire

Buy with cash or low leverage. No syndication, no investor returns to satisfy. Tenants stay in place at acquisition — no mass-non-renewal events.

Repair

Stacks, roofs, electrical, mechanicals — funded out of operating cash + a donor reserve. No deferred maintenance pushed onto tenants.

Hold

Rents don't move at renewal. The single non-negotiable. Year after year. The whole point of the model is that this sentence stays boring.

Governance & Legal

The paperwork we owe you

Donors should be able to verify everything in one place. We're required by California and Delaware law to disclose certain governance facts — and we like doing it.

Entity

Amarnath Foundation Inc. · Delaware nonprofit corporation, incorporated June 20, 2024. Principal office: Santa Clara, CA. Program operations: Anderson and Muncie, IN.

EIN 99-3628811
Delaware file no. 4027107

IRS Status

501(c)(3) Private Operating Foundation under §4942(j)(3). Contributions are tax-deductible. Donor deduction limits: 60% AGI cash, 30% AGI appreciated securities — same as a public charity.

Form 990-PF on request
info@amarnathfoundation.org

Founder

Bharath Ramanidharan, Founder & Executive Director. Personally underwrote the first two acquisitions in 2024–2025. Works unpaid. No salaried staff at the foundation.

info@amarnathfoundation.org
(214) 718-5362

Filings

Form 990-PF filed for short FY2024 and full FY2025. CA Charitable Trust registration in process. Audited financials available to donors at the $10K+ tier.

Latest 990 → email request

A note from the founder

Bharath Ramanidharan

I started Amarnath Foundation because I could afford to buy two buildings, and I couldn't stand the idea of either of them getting flipped. That's the whole origin story. There's no movement, no thought leadership behind it. Just two buildings, seven doors, and a promise to the people inside them.

I gave the foundation $348,000 in real estate across 2024 and 2025 — 1527 Walnut Street in Anderson, and 820/822 W Howard Street in Muncie. By year-end 2026 I'll donate a third property worth approximately $200,000. The challenge to the public this year is simple: as I commit the next $200K in property, help us raise $200K in cash to operate it.

Executive Director · Amarnath Foundation · Santa Clara, CA