Then the word of the Lord came to Elijah: “Leave here, turn eastward and hide in the [Ch]erith Ravine, east of the Jordan. You will drink from the brook, and I have directed the ravens to supply you with food there.”
1 KINGS 17:2-4 NLT
Our Goal
Our goal is Sustainable Home Ownership. As long as one is in the housing rental market, they are impacted by housing affordability. If a family were to buy a home, they would be insulated from the affects of inflation on housing costs after the point of purchase. They would be able to provide stability for themselves, have an asset they could pass to the next generation, and even gain equity they could borrow from later to further a dream or consolidate other financial interests.
We understand that getting a home is not the same as keeping one. While the need for steady income is ever present, one must also be financially and psychologically prepared for the routine and unexpected housing expenses, tax increases, insurance premiums rising, and the like.
We must understand that it has taken people however long they have been alive to become who they are. A check with several zeros, good pep talk, or intensive training for several months all fail on impact unless the person has evaluated their lives and have taken formidable steps to show they are ready to travel a path to success.
Our Approach
1. Intentionally Selective Assistance
We can help a lot of people a little bit or we can help a few more completely. We choose the latter. If we take appropriate time and make intentional steps with those looking for a boost to further their life plans, we believe we can be better stewards of donor funds while helping change the trajectory of many families.
2. Provide Housing with a Purpose
It is not enough to make housing affordable for now. We will intentionally depress rents in a lease of two years, maximum extension of one year, to ensure families have room to breathe financially, can spend wisely, or save to ensure their success at the end of the program. The two to three year timeline is intended to help those executing their life plans learn how to become better at failure (Failing the same way time and time again is not cool.) and learn to have greater successes.
3. Reduce/Eliminate the Requirement for Assistance
A function of our approach is creating a situation were program participants are removed from the welfare rolls because they have developed the tools and grit necessary to provide substantially beyond market medians for their families. This will over time reduce lines for assistance throughout the community and allow others in need to receive aid more quickly.
4. Provide Skills Training
Career specific training is heavily needed, but is still not enough. There are a plethora of opportunities that provide high income that currently exist or will soon be created and it only makes sense to ensure adequate training is available for those who desire to take advantage of its availability. To truly succeed in those positions and develop the relationships necessary to sustain that success, people must also develop what are commonly known as “soft skills.” Things such as effective communication, problem solving, conflict resolution, critical thinking, resource stewardship, emotional intelligence, and principles of management and leadership all fall into this category. There should be a continual availability of “soft skills” training to ensure those on the right track have the tools necessary to stay the course while those looking to develop and execute their life plans can begin to move in the right direction.
5. Provide for the Needy
There are some whose life has been so troubled it is difficult to recognize opportunities because they have grown accustomed to gloom and doom. We intend to reserve 10% of housing to assist these families in cycles by reducing the largest costs of living for them (housing and daycare) and providing full-time advanced skills training to dramatically increase their life prospects.
Our Why
Affordable housing doesn’t just affect those in poverty, it affects people at nearly every rung of society. If society is a 10 foot ruler, where those living below the poverty line are the bottom 6 feet and the 1% are the top two inches of the ruler, affordable housing impacts everyone from the bottom of the ruler up to the 8 foot mark.
Whether a college educated couple with three kids whose landlord just increased rent $400 per month and cannot afford to stay beyond their current lease or a family of four currently living in a hotel because the mom or dad didn’t make the best of decisions years ago and the family is still suffering because of bad credit and not making more than three times what an apartments rent cost, housing affordability strikes fear in the hearts of many in our society.
Many affordable housing initiatives strive to normalize rents by leveraging tax breaks, favorable loan interest rates, and grants to provide housing at “average market rates.” One challenge with this approach is that as inflation takes hold over the course of several years, average market rents rise. When wages do not keep up with inflation or the cost of living, those who obtained “affordable housing” just two or three years ago can no longer afford their residences. This approach effectively kicks the housing affordability issue can down the road for many while greatly assisting landlords and property developers by increasing their real estate holdings and business bottom line.
Another common approach to affordable housing is to provide government vouchers and other societal aid to cover the shortfall between what residents can afford and property rents. A key challenge here is that this assistance can last indefinitely, where residents begin to rely on its availability in their family budgets rather than view it as a stopgap or a temporary source of relief. Assistance providers have an increasing list of enrollees with not enough funds to keep up with the increasing demand, and so the tough decision is made to either turn away those with heartbreaking situations in favor of those who are currently enrolled, provide reduced funding per household so everyone can get something, or phase out assistance after some time so others can receive benefits as well. There is no inherent issue with either of these approaches so long as the transitions are handled well. Due to a variety of common factors such as expectations of residents, the time it take to get to and wait at program offices, and staffing concerns, assistance providers on the whole don’t have a good customer service track record making of many aid transitions onto and off assistance pleasant experiences.
Providing traditional forms of assistance with constraints such as income levels and particular standards to continue receiving aid can create latent functions such as (1) there being is no incentive to grow beyond ones current circumstances as it will remove the safety net relied upon and (2) those outside of required limits need a boost of assistance and don’t receive it, stumble into qualifying for aid, but they are now at the end of the line and their spiral extends further than it would have had assistance been available when they recognized they needed it.
There is no better or best approach as there are different needs through out society as some providers are great at meeting certain needs and some organizations are more effective at reaching certain populations than others. So long as waste is reduced and needs are being met, we are moving in the right direction.