Latest / ChangeMakers with Katie Goar / Episode 129: Rob Fredericks, CEO, Housing Authority of The City of Santa Barbara

Transcript

Episode 129: Rob Fredericks, CEO, Housing Authority of The City of Santa Barbara · ChangeMakers with Katie Goar

0:05
Speaker 1: This is change Makers with Katie Gore finding the right
0:09
Speaker 1: solutions for the affordable housing community.
0:13
Speaker 2: Today's change maker is Rob Fredericks, the CEO of the
0:17
Speaker 2: Housing Authority of the City of Santa Barbara, where he
0:21
Speaker 2: has dedicated nearly thirty years working in real estate development
0:25
Speaker 2: and working for the Housing Authority and just bringing his
0:29
Speaker 2: wealth of wisdom to how he leads, what he undertakes,
0:34
Speaker 2: and the progress he's making in California. So with that,
0:37
Speaker 2: I welcome Rob. Thank you for joining our change Makers podcast.
0:42
Speaker 3: Thanks for having me Katie.
0:44
Speaker 2: It is good to have you here, and we have
0:48
Speaker 2: recently talked, so I feel like I've gotten a little
0:50
Speaker 2: bit of a sneak peek into all the development and
0:54
Speaker 2: all the things that are happening. But first, as we
0:58
Speaker 2: welcome you to this platform, I'd like to open it
1:01
Speaker 2: up and have you just talk about your background in
1:04
Speaker 2: real estate and your background with the Housing Authority, maybe
1:08
Speaker 2: how you came to work there.
1:10
Speaker 3: Sure so, I kind of I consider myself a lifelong houser.
1:17
Speaker 3: I grew up here on the Central Coast and grew
1:21
Speaker 3: up cleaning up construction sites on my family's developments. My
1:29
Speaker 3: dad was a developer on the Central coast of California
1:32
Speaker 3: here building entry level homes, first time home buyer type
1:37
Speaker 3: of homes, and just always involved in that in one
1:43
Speaker 3: way or another, starting with just cleaning up the construction sites.
1:47
Speaker 3: And and then I once I graduated from high school,
1:52
Speaker 3: I went to cal Poly San Louis Obispo, got my
1:57
Speaker 3: degree in business administration in with a concentration in real
2:02
Speaker 3: estate finance, got my real estate broker's license, and went
2:08
Speaker 3: back to work for the family business for a little while,
2:11
Speaker 3: and then decided, you know, I I had a little
2:16
Speaker 3: bit of an imposter syndrome going on with the family
2:19
Speaker 3: working in the family business, and decided I needed to
2:23
Speaker 3: get a real job. So the Housing Authority at the
2:28
Speaker 3: time had an opening for Section eight housing inspector, and
2:36
Speaker 3: I figured, well, you know what, I'll go there and
2:39
Speaker 3: as a waypoint to figure out where my real destination is.
2:44
Speaker 3: So I interviewed for that, was hired, and fell in
2:50
Speaker 3: love immediately with the with the mission driven aspect of
2:54
Speaker 3: our agency. My my predecessor here at the Housing Authority
3:00
Speaker 3: as executive Director, Rob Pearson, was a real true mentor
3:05
Speaker 3: to me, even when I started out as just a
3:09
Speaker 3: housing inspector, and quickly moved me into different areas to
3:15
Speaker 3: learn the housing authority operations and programs. I became the
3:21
Speaker 3: At the time, we weren't you know, this was back
3:25
Speaker 3: in nineteen ninety six and we weren't even really computerized.
3:30
Speaker 3: We were working off of dumb terminals at the time
3:34
Speaker 3: for our system for managing our voucher program and public housing.
3:39
Speaker 3: And I moved us to an actual computer system that worked,
3:47
Speaker 3: and so they put me in charge of it at
3:51
Speaker 3: the time, then director of administrative Services, then deputy executive director,
3:58
Speaker 3: and then eventual fully replaced my predecessors as the executive director.
4:06
Speaker 3: Now we're a fairly young housing authority where we were
4:11
Speaker 3: formed in nineteen sixty nine by the City of Santa
4:15
Speaker 3: Barbara as a separate, separate public agency, and there's only
4:20
Speaker 3: been three executive directors. And wow, before me was Rob Pearson,
4:27
Speaker 3: and before Rob Pearson was Rob Foreman. So all the
4:31
Speaker 3: executive directors have been named Rob. So I don't know,
4:35
Speaker 3: maybe that's in the bylaws somewhere that the ED has
4:38
Speaker 3: to be named Rob.
4:39
Speaker 2: So it was definitely in the stars. Huh trick question,
4:45
Speaker 2: because you got your first in roads as a Section
4:49
Speaker 2: eight inspector, do you actually walk the properties now and
4:53
Speaker 2: point out things using that old hat that you used
4:57
Speaker 2: to wear.
4:58
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think I do point out things as well
5:03
Speaker 3: as just not from the the just the inspector days,
5:07
Speaker 3: but just from my experience in growing up in the
5:14
Speaker 3: land development industry and looking at something that's not quite
5:18
Speaker 3: right or something that we need to change or enhance
5:21
Speaker 3: and fix and bringing that forward. And that's kind of
5:26
Speaker 3: the the take I have on all of the developments
5:31
Speaker 3: that we do is that they these need to be
5:34
Speaker 3: truly places that we build community and places where our
5:40
Speaker 3: residents are are happy and proud to call this is
5:45
Speaker 3: my home, this is where I lay my head at night,
5:48
Speaker 3: and I'm proud that I live here, and our developments
5:53
Speaker 3: were really proud of them that we hold them up
5:55
Speaker 3: high for the community that yes, this is affordable housing
5:59
Speaker 3: and guess but it looks better than the market rate
6:02
Speaker 3: housing next door to it.
6:04
Speaker 2: So yeah, yeah, you and I were talking recently and
6:08
Speaker 2: that was one of the things that you mentioned, is
6:10
Speaker 2: that how you guys in your development, you really tried
6:13
Speaker 2: to incorporate several components, not just the roof and the windows,
6:18
Speaker 2: I mean the basics, but you've really tried to reframe
6:22
Speaker 2: how housing looks. Talk about some of these developments and
6:26
Speaker 2: more detail for us.
6:28
Speaker 3: Right, So, Santa Barbara is really I mean, every place
6:32
Speaker 3: is unique, and everybody's proud of where they live. But
6:35
Speaker 3: Santa Barbara is truly a gem of a place to
6:41
Speaker 3: live and work. And it's it's the American Riviera. It's
6:48
Speaker 3: you know, it's it's midway between Los Angeles and San Francisco.
6:51
Speaker 3: It's a fairly small community bounded on one side by
6:55
Speaker 3: the Pacific Ocean and on the other side by the
6:58
Speaker 3: Santinez Mountains. So it's a small sliver of land. We're
7:03
Speaker 3: pretty much build out. So uh. And and Santa Barbara
7:08
Speaker 3: has a rich history of holding the feet to the fire,
7:12
Speaker 3: not only of all development to have that that Santa
7:17
Speaker 3: Barbara look. That's Spanish Mediterranean, colonial Mediterranean look. The smooth plaster,
7:25
Speaker 3: red tile roofs, which is truly beautiful. And so in
7:29
Speaker 3: the downtown core there's what's where most of our developments
7:33
Speaker 3: are are what's called the the El Pueblo Viejo district,
7:37
Speaker 3: and we have to to build to that standard and
7:41
Speaker 3: that look, and uh, it's it's a very difficult process
7:45
Speaker 3: going through you know, the entitlements with the city. And
7:49
Speaker 3: I like to call it it's it's the toughest process
7:51
Speaker 3: you ever go through. That you'll love because at the
7:54
Speaker 3: end of the day, you end up with a with
7:56
Speaker 3: a with a development that the community is happy with
8:00
Speaker 3: and that we're happy with and the residents are happy with,
8:04
Speaker 3: and they're just they're lovely developments. And you know, it's
8:09
Speaker 3: not just the sticks and bricks, it's how we cite
8:12
Speaker 3: them in in the neighborhood. We don't want to overbuild.
8:17
Speaker 3: The neighborhood has affordable housing. With the state laws that
8:20
Speaker 3: have passed in California, you know, we we could blow
8:24
Speaker 3: through the height limits that the local community sets and
8:27
Speaker 3: go high rise and and and you know, build massive
8:32
Speaker 3: amounts of units, but it would it would be that
8:35
Speaker 3: would also be detrimental to the community. So we always
8:39
Speaker 3: look at balance. We look at building to the highest
8:42
Speaker 3: density that we can that can still fit within the
8:46
Speaker 3: neighborhood and and have that Santa Barbara feel and look right.
8:51
Speaker 3: And that's something I'm proud of that we do. I mean,
8:54
Speaker 3: I'll get I'll get lambasted by some elected officials saying
9:00
Speaker 3: you need to add two or three more stories onto
9:03
Speaker 3: that development and we're going to give you, you know,
9:07
Speaker 3: local funding, and I'm like, yeah, I just can't. It's
9:10
Speaker 3: not going to work. It's not going to be the
9:13
Speaker 3: right product at the end of the day. So you know,
9:16
Speaker 3: I'll build that extra story if it works for everything
9:20
Speaker 3: we're trying to fit in those puzzle pieces, and you know,
9:25
Speaker 3: so we stick to our standards and we make it
9:29
Speaker 3: work at the end of the day. And and you know,
9:32
Speaker 3: we make sure that it's not just the hard scape construction,
9:37
Speaker 3: it's the landscape that we build, beautiful open space areas
9:43
Speaker 3: for the residents. As people walk by, you look at
9:48
Speaker 3: the building and you can say that's beautiful. I live here,
9:53
Speaker 3: and this is beautiful. You know. I'm you look at
9:56
Speaker 3: like these just cookie cutter development that go up there
10:01
Speaker 3: like no character. They're kind of monolithic. And I think
10:06
Speaker 3: to myself, if I had that and one of our developments,
10:11
Speaker 3: and if suddenly those cookie cutter ones just disappeared one
10:16
Speaker 3: day for one reason what I read, Would I miss it?
10:19
Speaker 2: Right?
10:20
Speaker 3: Looking at it, I miss would my resume? Would people
10:23
Speaker 3: miss having that? And the answer is no. But if
10:26
Speaker 3: you look at what we build, what we create, I
10:30
Speaker 3: would say, yeah, I would miss that. I would miss
10:33
Speaker 3: the beauty in the architecture of what we create. And
10:38
Speaker 3: you know, I'm going back again to New York. You
10:40
Speaker 3: and I were just there for the Narro conference. I'm
10:43
Speaker 3: going back. In November. We were the first inaugural awardee
10:48
Speaker 3: of the Grendaws Award for the the Institute of Classical
10:55
Speaker 3: Architecture and Art. They're headquartered in in New York, and
11:01
Speaker 3: we were awarded their national award for creating beautiful developments.
11:06
Speaker 3: It's not a single development. They looked at the breadth
11:09
Speaker 3: of our developments and saying, gee, the housing authority is
11:13
Speaker 3: doing something truly unusual here. They're really taking time to
11:20
Speaker 3: ensure that what they build is truly beneficial to the
11:24
Speaker 3: community and like not just easy on the eyes, but boy,
11:29
Speaker 3: you look at it, and you gaze at and you say,
11:31
Speaker 3: that's beautiful thing. I would love to live there, something
11:35
Speaker 3: we're truly proud of.
11:38
Speaker 2: And you are benefiting more than just the person who
11:41
Speaker 2: lives there, but you're really being a good neighbor. And
11:45
Speaker 2: we can make all kinds of points to references of
11:49
Speaker 2: the economic improvement and the strategic improvement for that neighborhood.
11:55
Speaker 2: When you have an apartment community that is enhancing it,
11:58
Speaker 2: so you know it is more than just the person
12:00
Speaker 2: who is living in there. But that's what you guys
12:02
Speaker 2: are doing really well, like you're paying attention to the
12:06
Speaker 2: overall comprehensive development. You're not just building for the sake
12:10
Speaker 2: of building, right, right.
12:12
Speaker 3: I mean, yet we have our we have such great
12:18
Speaker 3: needs all across the country right there. We are truly
12:21
Speaker 3: living in the midst of a housing crisis. And the
12:26
Speaker 3: the argument can be made for just build, baby, build, right,
12:31
Speaker 3: And yes, we need so much more homes to be
12:37
Speaker 3: created in every community, and that's true for Santa Barbara,
12:42
Speaker 3: but it needs to be done in the right way.
12:46
Speaker 3: It needs to be done in a way that that
12:49
Speaker 3: really does take into account the overall Santa Barbara community
12:53
Speaker 3: and take that long view approach. Not just ohver hitting
12:57
Speaker 3: our regional housing needs numbers for the next eight years,
13:02
Speaker 3: but what are we doing over the long term to
13:05
Speaker 3: create these long term solutions that the community is proud of?
13:10
Speaker 2: Right, And you have some different dynamics. It's not like
13:13
Speaker 2: you guys have acres and acres of land by which
13:17
Speaker 2: you can just go out and build more on. So
13:21
Speaker 2: you guys are trying to create the architectural amenities, the
13:25
Speaker 2: community amenities a good steward of the limited land that
13:30
Speaker 2: you guys have as well. So you know, in several
13:33
Speaker 2: communities who are creating local solutions, they still have new
13:37
Speaker 2: ground that they can still purchase, and you guys have
13:40
Speaker 2: a different dynamic with how locked in you guys are.
13:44
Speaker 2: So I'm sure that's also contributing to the tension by
13:48
Speaker 2: which you have to develop.
13:50
Speaker 3: That is so true. So you know, we are truly
13:54
Speaker 3: landlocked here and we're a built out community. The city
13:58
Speaker 3: of Santa Barbara is built out, so we have to
14:01
Speaker 3: be opportunistic as the housing authority. When something comes available
14:06
Speaker 3: for sale, we have to jump on that to say
14:09
Speaker 3: does this work for us? We have to analyze the property,
14:13
Speaker 3: does it work, is it right for revitalization? Is it
14:15
Speaker 3: maybe an adaptive reuse product that we can do on
14:20
Speaker 3: a site. You know, the State Street of Santa Barbara's
14:25
Speaker 3: world renown. It's downtown, central business district that touris come
14:30
Speaker 3: to look at the architecture and shop along State Street,
14:34
Speaker 3: enjoy the restaurants, and it's dying like every other main street,
14:39
Speaker 3: you know, pre COVID with with the with the new
14:42
Speaker 3: way people shop online and whatnot. All communities are having
14:47
Speaker 3: issues with their main street redevelopment. And one way that
14:53
Speaker 3: can revitalize downtown business districts is to bring in are
15:01
Speaker 3: residential communities UH to that district where people live. And
15:06
Speaker 3: that's what we're doing in the city of Santa Barbara,
15:09
Speaker 3: a long state street. The city's instituting a new adaptive
15:13
Speaker 3: reuse ordinance to say, look, if you can build within
15:18
Speaker 3: the footprint on that property what exists inside, we don't
15:24
Speaker 3: care how many units you can put in there, put
15:26
Speaker 3: them in. And that's what we did with There was
15:29
Speaker 3: a old we call it the Solo tab building because
15:34
Speaker 3: that's yeah, a top kitchen outlet was there and they
15:40
Speaker 3: went out of business in Santa Barbara and the building
15:43
Speaker 3: was sitting empty for years and one of our local benefactors,
15:49
Speaker 3: local philanthropists, bought the property and said Housing authority, if
15:55
Speaker 3: you will create livable studio units in side this property
16:01
Speaker 3: and keep the exterior the beauty of it, we'll give
16:04
Speaker 3: this property to you. And I'm like, I'm not going
16:06
Speaker 3: to turn the blind eye, but somebody offering us property,
16:10
Speaker 3: I'm like, you got a deal. So we built it
16:12
Speaker 3: out and it's a shining example of adaptive reuse in
16:18
Speaker 3: preserving the building structure that's there, that's beautiful. And we
16:22
Speaker 3: created fourteen studio units within the building and also kept
16:29
Speaker 3: a commercial up front on the ground floor and we
16:33
Speaker 3: leased that out to Alo Yoga. They're like, you might
16:37
Speaker 3: have heard a Lulu lama or yeah, yeah, pipe out. Yeah,
16:42
Speaker 3: that's what Alo Yoga is and they're thriving now in
16:46
Speaker 3: that commercial space and it works with the studio residential
16:51
Speaker 3: units there as well.
16:53
Speaker 2: And your team's done about fifteen hundred units that you
16:56
Speaker 2: guys have developed. So what would be your proudest moment
17:02
Speaker 2: or maybe the hardest thing you guys have overcome as
17:05
Speaker 2: you've gone through and developed or redeveloped some of some
17:08
Speaker 2: of those units.
17:10
Speaker 3: Oh my goodness, there are so many proud moments and
17:14
Speaker 3: tough moments as well. One of one is in the
17:19
Speaker 3: pipeline right now, and it's the tough moment. Was this
17:22
Speaker 3: was a city parking lot and right as at the
17:28
Speaker 3: gateway of Santa Barbara on Korea and Castillo Streets, and
17:32
Speaker 3: it's a commuter lot that was underutilized and it was
17:38
Speaker 3: at the time pre COVID when the state had some
17:42
Speaker 3: money for temporarily housing people who are suffering from homelessness.
17:49
Speaker 3: And I had the concept of putting tiny homes on
17:52
Speaker 3: the property there for you know, about five years or so,
17:57
Speaker 3: and it was so it's going to be a tiny
18:02
Speaker 3: home village. And I got that idea from when I
18:07
Speaker 3: went out to Austin, Texas in where they have that
18:12
Speaker 3: that world renow tiny home village yep. And wanted to
18:16
Speaker 3: bring that here so we could take care of that
18:19
Speaker 3: some of the homeless issues that we're having in downtown
18:22
Speaker 3: Santa Barbara. Anyway. For that, I took a lot of
18:25
Speaker 3: arrows in the back the neighborhood be came unglued, right,
18:29
Speaker 3: that kind of that NIMBYism of yeah, it's it's going
18:33
Speaker 3: to be torn apart by the Neighborhood's going to be
18:35
Speaker 3: torn apart by by those people. And I tried to
18:39
Speaker 3: tell them, look, we're really good managers, as you know
18:42
Speaker 3: Santa Barbara or properties, We're going to take care of it.
18:45
Speaker 3: They were having nothing of it, so that that concept
18:49
Speaker 3: fell apart. But I wasn't willing to let go of
18:52
Speaker 3: the concept of taking underutilized land from the city and
18:56
Speaker 3: putting housing on it. So I asked the city and
19:00
Speaker 3: the community, Can we put permanent housing here on this
19:05
Speaker 3: and they said, yes, but what one one group that's
19:08
Speaker 3: really underrepresented in having affordable housing is moderate income households,
19:16
Speaker 3: those that aren't low income, and those that can't afford
19:22
Speaker 3: market rate rentals. It's that true missing middle. And they said,
19:25
Speaker 3: if you can build that here, we will. The city said,
19:30
Speaker 3: we will give you that that property to do. Okay,
19:32
Speaker 3: and so we got a development agreement. We're good to go.
19:36
Speaker 3: We're going to have our building permits probably in September
19:41
Speaker 3: or October. We have our funding lined up. The funding
19:45
Speaker 3: was not easy because one of the reasons why you
19:47
Speaker 3: don't have funding available for that missing middle is there
19:52
Speaker 3: there are no subsidies sources, right, you know, we can
19:55
Speaker 3: do like tech all day long longcome housing tax credits,
20:00
Speaker 3: other local funding sources or state funding sources for low
20:05
Speaker 3: income households, but nothing for that missing middle. And constructions
20:09
Speaker 3: very expensive here in Santa Barbara. So we've been able
20:13
Speaker 3: to cobble together city funding our own reserves as well
20:17
Speaker 3: as doing a tax exempt construction to perm with city
20:21
Speaker 3: bank and b bonds for the second layer of funding.
20:30
Speaker 3: And so it's going to be a reality now. We're
20:32
Speaker 3: going to be building sixty three moderate income units there. Excellent,
20:38
Speaker 3: and those are people who are currently commuting into Santa
20:42
Speaker 3: Barbara to work as they can't afford to live in
20:45
Speaker 3: this very expensive community where the rents are sky high.
20:51
Speaker 3: One bedrooms are like going for thirty five dollars a month,
20:57
Speaker 3: two bedrooms are close to fourth dollars a month. So,
21:01
Speaker 3: oh my gosh, moderate income households needed, yeah, there, as
21:05
Speaker 3: well as the low income. And what I'm happy about
21:08
Speaker 3: is we didn't give up on, of course, the the
21:13
Speaker 3: serving those who are moving from homelessness. We have three
21:17
Speaker 3: other permanent four other permanent support of housing developments that
21:21
Speaker 3: we've created, and we have another one that we've just
21:25
Speaker 3: received state home key money that we're able to take
21:29
Speaker 3: an old, broken down motel quality in that the only
21:34
Speaker 3: architectural vernacular that I can describe it as is shabby
21:42
Speaker 3: faux French chateau. I love it really ugly, And we're
21:48
Speaker 3: doing an adaptive reuse there, this thirty three unit motel.
21:52
Speaker 3: We're reimagining it, changing it into that Spanish colonial vernacular
21:58
Speaker 3: architecture and a very expense neighborhood. And I met with
22:02
Speaker 3: the neighbors there that we're concerned about it at the
22:06
Speaker 3: very beginning after we bought it, and they're all on
22:10
Speaker 3: board after we gave them, we showed them different architectural
22:14
Speaker 3: renderings and they said, we want that Spanish colonial vernacular here,
22:20
Speaker 3: Please do it, Please fix this up. And we were
22:23
Speaker 3: upfront that this is going to be for people moving
22:25
Speaker 3: from homelessness. We're going to provide on site management, on
22:29
Speaker 3: site supportive services, we're going to take care of them here,
22:33
Speaker 3: and we're going to take care of the neighborhood. And
22:35
Speaker 3: they're fully supportive of it now. And we're receiving all
22:40
Speaker 3: of our funding next month, well August next week, and
22:46
Speaker 3: we're ready to begin with that reconstruction and should be
22:49
Speaker 3: done with it by March of twenty twenty six and
22:52
Speaker 3: the people move in so to be, we're taking the
22:56
Speaker 3: thirty three units. One of them will be managers unit,
23:01
Speaker 3: the others will be extremely low income units serving people
23:08
Speaker 3: moving from homelessness.
23:10
Speaker 2: I'm so glad you mentioned this because I had read
23:13
Speaker 2: about the hotel conversion or had talked with you. I
23:18
Speaker 2: knew a little bit about that, and it's one of
23:20
Speaker 2: those areas that a lot of people are still very
23:24
Speaker 2: leary of going through the dynamics, whether it's you know,
23:31
Speaker 2: how do you create a kitchen, you know, just something
23:35
Speaker 2: logistically like that. A lot of people have not quite
23:40
Speaker 2: quite signed on for this. We've seen another place in California,
23:44
Speaker 2: one in Oregon who have really embraced these hotel conversions.
23:49
Speaker 2: What would you think you've gotten the community support you
23:52
Speaker 2: mentioned any other logistical hurdle that you've seen, and how
23:56
Speaker 2: you've overcome come.
23:58
Speaker 3: That logius Scholl hurdle on that one was getting the
24:04
Speaker 3: city staff to buy off on through the entilement process
24:09
Speaker 3: that this is an adaptive reuse, it's not new contruction.
24:13
Speaker 3: To give us a little leeway on stormwater management, park
24:17
Speaker 3: the other issues that they tend to take a checklist approach, right, well,
24:23
Speaker 3: are you providing enough parking and are you doing this?
24:26
Speaker 3: And we're like, you look, have to look at the
24:28
Speaker 3: end user of the property, the program that we're creating,
24:32
Speaker 3: and you know, do we have enough ADA accessible units?
24:38
Speaker 3: And that is an issue with this. We have to
24:43
Speaker 3: move some of the walls on this development to make
24:47
Speaker 3: the bathrooms larger so that they can be truly accessible
24:51
Speaker 3: for the need, but it makes the unit smaller. But
24:54
Speaker 3: we're used to doing that too. Our very permanent support
24:57
Speaker 3: of housing development was sixty two U on a half
25:01
Speaker 3: acre and their micro units of their two hundred and
25:07
Speaker 3: fifty six square feet each very small, but we're able
25:11
Speaker 3: to incorporate a galley kitchen, pull private bathrooms in it,
25:16
Speaker 3: and you know, some nice private living space there for
25:20
Speaker 3: you each unit, and it works. They're livable and that development, Elkoreo,
25:27
Speaker 3: was built in two thousand and six and it's been
25:30
Speaker 3: extremely successful, and that's one of things that's important that
25:35
Speaker 3: this community, on this hotel conversion, we were able to
25:38
Speaker 3: point to that and say, look at El Koreole. Come
25:41
Speaker 3: on tour with me to see how this development works,
25:45
Speaker 3: how we manage it. See that the residents there who
25:48
Speaker 3: have moved from homelessness, they're good caretakers of the units themselves,
25:54
Speaker 3: of the property because we provide them something that's nice.
25:58
Speaker 3: They're proud of where they live and they know that
26:01
Speaker 3: they need to take care of their community for the
26:04
Speaker 3: right as well.
26:06
Speaker 2: Was there a moment where some deregulation could have helped
26:12
Speaker 2: speed up the process that you're in. Is there anything
26:16
Speaker 2: that you could speak to because a lot of people
26:18
Speaker 2: right now are saying, how can we build it, Yes,
26:22
Speaker 2: build it, but is there a way that we can
26:25
Speaker 2: incentivize or make it more efficient? Is there something you've
26:28
Speaker 2: come across so far in that regard, Yeah.
26:32
Speaker 3: There have been some states. California has been really at
26:36
Speaker 3: the forefront of pushing state laws down to a local
26:41
Speaker 3: level to say, you need to be more efficient local
26:44
Speaker 3: jurisdictions and improving these projects and not create so many
26:49
Speaker 3: hurdles for truly affordable housing developments. So it limits the
26:55
Speaker 3: amount of design review meetings that can be held and
27:03
Speaker 3: really put strict timelines on the local jurisdictions. And that
27:09
Speaker 3: that has helped us recently with with our recent developments,
27:15
Speaker 3: to the consternation of of the city government and folks.
27:20
Speaker 3: They don't like the state telling them what their zoning
27:24
Speaker 3: laws can be, what the local approval laws can be.
27:27
Speaker 3: And and they have a point to a certain extent,
27:29
Speaker 3: because the local jurisdictions know what works for the local community.
27:36
Speaker 3: Does the state really know? But the problem is there's
27:40
Speaker 3: been too much, too many hurdles, too much, too much
27:45
Speaker 3: backlog there, and not enough affordable housing built. We have.
27:49
Speaker 3: We have such a deficit of affordable housing that I
27:52
Speaker 3: welcome these state laws to really push the mandate, and
27:57
Speaker 3: you know, the these state laws actually allow us to
28:02
Speaker 3: not go through those design review hurdles with the city
28:10
Speaker 3: just by right, you know, go out and build. But
28:13
Speaker 3: I actually take our our developments through the design review
28:19
Speaker 3: to the chagrin of my team members because they would
28:22
Speaker 3: rather push along as well. But I think we get
28:25
Speaker 3: good ideas from our architects on our local architects that
28:29
Speaker 3: are sit on the design review boards that say, chee,
28:33
Speaker 3: did you think about adding this or changing this? This
28:37
Speaker 3: could make it more liveable. So to a certain extent,
28:40
Speaker 3: I do like that those inputs from those design review
28:45
Speaker 3: boards through the process. It just but what that state,
28:50
Speaker 3: those state laws do is it limits the amount of
28:53
Speaker 3: the design review meetings that they can force us to
28:56
Speaker 3: go to it up. So yeah, that's been very helpful.
29:01
Speaker 3: The big thing though, that we really need is funding
29:06
Speaker 3: to build affordable housing here. We need so much more funding,
29:09
Speaker 3: and we need also more local and state funding for
29:15
Speaker 3: meeting the gap. You know, the tax credits on the
29:18
Speaker 3: nine percent is only account for about seventy percent of
29:23
Speaker 3: the construction costs. We need that gap filler to make
29:28
Speaker 3: it work, and there's just not enough of that. So
29:32
Speaker 3: I'm always getting in good trouble with the city city
29:36
Speaker 3: council members to put more funding aside affordable housing into
29:42
Speaker 3: a local housing trust fund that the city did last
29:46
Speaker 3: year and taking they increased sales tax and really pushing
29:52
Speaker 3: them to take a portion of that sales tax and
29:55
Speaker 3: putting it into the local Housing Trust Fund. But we
29:58
Speaker 3: also need state fund as well. There's a state bond
30:03
Speaker 3: that's going to be put on the November ballot next
30:06
Speaker 3: year that should really help also with state funding into
30:10
Speaker 3: the local funding projects because that is so needed. With
30:13
Speaker 3: redevelopment agencies were abolished in California and twenty eleven twenty twelve,
30:19
Speaker 3: and I'm still mourning the loss of our redevelopment agencies
30:23
Speaker 3: because they were a good local banker for us, for
30:27
Speaker 3: giving us, you know, residual receipts loans that were needed
30:32
Speaker 3: to make these developments happen. And you know, now that
30:36
Speaker 3: redevelopment agencies are gone, we need to back build what
30:40
Speaker 3: they provided with other local funding sources to make these
30:44
Speaker 3: developments happen.
30:46
Speaker 2: And so you talked about who you're wanting to build for.
30:50
Speaker 2: We mentioned missing middle, we mentioned the homeless population, and
30:55
Speaker 2: you know, because when you think about putting all the
30:56
Speaker 2: financing together, we have to remember who we're trying to
31:00
Speaker 2: house here. What are you seeing in relationship to the
31:06
Speaker 2: senior housing. Do you have a huge aging population, Because
31:10
Speaker 2: I you know, kind of I think like you've got
31:12
Speaker 2: the financing need, You've got like what you need to happen.
31:15
Speaker 2: But then here understanding the balance of what's coming here
31:21
Speaker 2: and what the need is. So can you give us
31:23
Speaker 2: a little bit of that picture too.
31:24
Speaker 3: Yeah, so you know years ago there there, there's there
31:28
Speaker 3: was a recognition of a growing need for affordable senior
31:35
Speaker 3: housing in the future. And you know, I remember twenty
31:39
Speaker 3: years ago, you know, local local communities along the Central
31:45
Speaker 3: coast getting together and talking and creating reports and out
31:50
Speaker 3: of those reports, it's really the aging baby boomers that
31:54
Speaker 3: are coming. And I'm at the tail end of the
31:58
Speaker 3: baby boomers and are now all retiring on fixed incomes.
32:04
Speaker 3: And they were saying, you know, we're going to have
32:05
Speaker 3: this silver tsunami hit and we need to provide the
32:10
Speaker 3: housing that's needed. Well, that silver tsunami has crashed onto
32:14
Speaker 3: the shore of communities throughout the nation, including Santa Barbara,
32:21
Speaker 3: and we've done a really good job at addressing the
32:25
Speaker 3: needs across several demographics. For affordable housing seniors as well,
32:31
Speaker 3: we've created really service enhanced senior housing where we provide
32:39
Speaker 3: three mills, a day, house keeping services, and a host
32:44
Speaker 3: of social services at a couple of these properties that
32:48
Speaker 3: really help with seniors that have aged our in our
32:53
Speaker 3: existing affordable senior housing properties. But where do they go
32:57
Speaker 3: if they don't have kind of a in between place
33:01
Speaker 3: between independent affordable senior housing and skilled nursing. We were
33:07
Speaker 3: seeing seniors go into skilled nursing far too early because
33:12
Speaker 3: they didn't have an alternative place to help them, and
33:16
Speaker 3: those skilled nursing facilities are not nice places to live.
33:20
Speaker 3: So we created that in between with a few of
33:24
Speaker 3: our developments, where we create where they no longer can
33:28
Speaker 3: create cook meals for themselves or do the housekeeping. We
33:32
Speaker 3: do all of that and they still have their affordable housing,
33:36
Speaker 3: and so that's been really helpful. But we have in
33:42
Speaker 3: the pipeline. Our largest senior housing development is right across
33:46
Speaker 3: the street from my office here, which is called Presidious Springs,
33:50
Speaker 3: and it was one hundred and twenty two units built
33:53
Speaker 3: under the public Housing for Senior citizens in the early
33:58
Speaker 3: nineteen seventies and it's it's a full bounded by a
34:02
Speaker 3: full city block, and it was built fairly low dense
34:07
Speaker 3: for the time. For the time, certainly for now, we
34:09
Speaker 3: wouldn't build that low density on that full city block.
34:14
Speaker 3: And so we're planning to redevelop that property from one
34:18
Speaker 3: hundred and twenty two units to three hundred and fifty units,
34:23
Speaker 3: and so we're going to do it in phases so
34:27
Speaker 3: that we can move people who are going to be
34:30
Speaker 3: in Phase one into other of our senior housing developments
34:35
Speaker 3: as they become vacant. And we probably won't begin construction
34:39
Speaker 3: on the first phase of Presidio Spring until two or
34:45
Speaker 3: three years out, but we need to plan for the relocation,
34:50
Speaker 3: the temporary relocation of our senior there and then move
34:54
Speaker 3: them back into the units if they want to move back,
34:58
Speaker 3: we move them to for their new units there that
35:02
Speaker 3: are going to be so much better, more environmentally friendly.
35:06
Speaker 3: They're going to be a little bit larger units, and
35:10
Speaker 3: they're going to have air conditioning and better insulation. It's
35:17
Speaker 3: the whole host of better construction techniques nowadays than what
35:22
Speaker 3: was built in the early seventies. So we're going to
35:24
Speaker 3: be adding you know about you know, another one hundred
35:29
Speaker 3: and fifty units there. That's great. It doesn't exist, and
35:33
Speaker 3: it's on poverty that we already own, already owned that
35:37
Speaker 3: was built under the public housing program. We took it
35:39
Speaker 3: out under a Section eighteen disposition and we're getting our
35:45
Speaker 3: final approvals now for that redevelopment of that site because
35:50
Speaker 3: it's so needed for that Silver Tsunami. We have seniors.
35:55
Speaker 3: The majority of our people living in homelessness that are
36:00
Speaker 3: counted in vehicles every year are senior citizens. Those who
36:06
Speaker 3: who have lived in Santa Barbara, worked in Santa Barbara.
36:12
Speaker 3: They weren't able to keep their place to call home.
36:15
Speaker 3: They couldn't afford it any longer, and their last refuge
36:19
Speaker 3: is their vehicle that they're living in, and we want
36:22
Speaker 3: to solve that issue to provide senior house. We have
36:26
Speaker 3: another senior development that's in the pipeline, another forty units.
36:32
Speaker 3: So we're always looking for what can we do for
36:35
Speaker 3: all of these demographics, and for the last I would
36:39
Speaker 3: say decade to fifteen years, we've really focused on permanent
36:44
Speaker 3: supportive housing for special needs populations. We're early on in
36:49
Speaker 3: our history, in our history, in our early history of
36:53
Speaker 3: the Housing Authority, we built a lot of family housing
36:56
Speaker 3: under the public Housing program, and we kind of neglected,
37:02
Speaker 3: like what else can we build for family? So now
37:07
Speaker 3: we're we have under construction a large family development, forty
37:12
Speaker 3: eight units that'll be two and three bedroom units serving
37:18
Speaker 3: low income families with kidds. And I'm super excited about it.
37:24
Speaker 3: It's an area, it's an upper State street area that
37:27
Speaker 3: doesn't demand the Spanish colonial design and it's going to
37:34
Speaker 3: be that modern farmhouse design going to be so lovely
37:40
Speaker 3: with the landscaping escaping in the community rooms, it's going
37:44
Speaker 3: to look like a big farmhouse and it's just beautiful.
37:50
Speaker 3: I can't wait for it to be done. It'll be
37:52
Speaker 3: done in September of next year, and we've been working
37:56
Speaker 3: with the school district closely on it so they can
37:59
Speaker 3: plan for, you know, the influx of new students that
38:03
Speaker 3: that will be great right to go to the school
38:06
Speaker 3: in the school district there.
38:08
Speaker 2: This is amazing that you guys have such a combination
38:13
Speaker 2: of housing products and developments that you're doing for a
38:18
Speaker 2: wide variety. It's it's fascinating to me that a housing
38:22
Speaker 2: authority can pretty much do things that I think originally
38:28
Speaker 2: may not have been intended for, like providing meals, providing
38:33
Speaker 2: support connection to Oh by the way, now you need
38:36
Speaker 2: to understand how to do elevator maintenance too. Oh by
38:40
Speaker 2: the way, now you need to build buildings for a
38:43
Speaker 2: brand new construction. I mean, I don't know that it
38:48
Speaker 2: was the original design, but through needs, through necessity, housing
38:53
Speaker 2: authorities and the staff are being tasked to do so
38:57
Speaker 2: much more.
38:58
Speaker 3: We are all all of us housing authorities are you know,
39:01
Speaker 3: In the past, as you will know, Katie, housing authorities
39:04
Speaker 3: were like just administrators of the voucher program or public
39:09
Speaker 3: housing that was built with on on a turnkey basis
39:13
Speaker 3: by outside developers at the lowest cost. Now we're we're
39:18
Speaker 3: we've had to become developers where we do all of
39:22
Speaker 3: our own development in house. We don't, we don't partner
39:26
Speaker 3: with other developers. We're able to keep like the developer
39:29
Speaker 3: fee from low income house right right on, all that
39:32
Speaker 3: developer fee into our pipeline for our next developments to
39:36
Speaker 3: pay for our pre development costs. They're always on the
39:39
Speaker 3: upward march as well. I can't believe that now our
39:43
Speaker 3: pre development costs for these developments are typically about a
39:47
Speaker 3: million dollars before before we even get to the point
39:51
Speaker 3: now being able to put shovel to ground.
39:54
Speaker 2: Yep. Yeah, that's amazing the transition, but it's also testimony
40:00
Speaker 2: to how you know, you and your team have had
40:03
Speaker 2: to move toward the need a lot faster, the flexibility,
40:09
Speaker 2: that nimbleness that you had to to move with, how
40:13
Speaker 2: your community and what the needs are happening. When you
40:16
Speaker 2: look across your team, do you have people who would
40:20
Speaker 2: have ever guessed like this is what their current day
40:23
Speaker 2: job is? Like, what's what's the theme of your staff?
40:27
Speaker 2: Are they just kind of like what now? What next?
40:30
Speaker 2: Or or are they like pushing so fast you're the
40:35
Speaker 2: one that's up to say, oh, hold on, let's take
40:37
Speaker 2: a minute, what's the general theme here?
40:39
Speaker 3: There? They're kind of getting used to the pace that
40:42
Speaker 3: we do things, and you know they I so love
40:48
Speaker 3: my team here at the Housing Authority, everyone from our
40:53
Speaker 3: Maintenance and Property Development department, our Housing management department, at
40:58
Speaker 3: ADMIN finance. We all look at ourselves as as servant
41:02
Speaker 3: leaders and as that truly we look at our we
41:05
Speaker 3: look at our mission of how how can we lean
41:09
Speaker 3: into this issue of the affordable housing needs and create
41:14
Speaker 3: real solutions? And everybody is behind that working together. You know,
41:19
Speaker 3: we're all pushing that boulder up in the same direction
41:24
Speaker 3: together and they get it. The team gets that that
41:28
Speaker 3: if not for us, it's not happening in the local community.
41:33
Speaker 3: And they can be proud of that. And you know,
41:37
Speaker 3: things aren't easy for them with limited with our limited
41:40
Speaker 3: budgets and being able to meet the needs of our
41:45
Speaker 3: residents of our program participants on the voucher program. But
41:49
Speaker 3: we do everything we can to do that. And you know,
41:54
Speaker 3: I have so many people here that are smarter than
41:58
Speaker 3: me and and they know how to make it work.
42:02
Speaker 3: I feel like I'm more their cheerleader behind them, just
42:06
Speaker 3: cheering them on, like come on, we can do this.
42:09
Speaker 3: We're a team, and we can do it. And they do.
42:11
Speaker 3: They truly produce and lean into these issues affordable housing locally.
42:20
Speaker 2: And one of the quiet revelations that happened just a
42:25
Speaker 2: couple of years ago is that people realized how quickly
42:29
Speaker 2: somebody can get to housing insecurity. It used to be
42:32
Speaker 2: something that was somebody else's problem. And when COVID happened,
42:38
Speaker 2: when housing instability was on the forefront of a lot
42:43
Speaker 2: more people's mind related to some economic insecurity, all of
42:48
Speaker 2: a sudden you have this quiet revelation like, oh, I
42:51
Speaker 2: see how fast this can change a person's life when
42:56
Speaker 2: they don't have a home. And some of the things
42:58
Speaker 2: that I hear often from housing authorities is that, you know,
43:02
Speaker 2: the mission became a lot clear when it became a
43:08
Speaker 2: universal conversation about housing instability. So that's that's been a
43:15
Speaker 2: quiet revelation as well.
43:17
Speaker 3: Absolutely absolutely same same here. You know that that housing instability,
43:25
Speaker 3: UH in such a high cost market here, you know
43:30
Speaker 3: that can can strike at any given moment, and we
43:34
Speaker 3: need to be poised to to at least do all
43:38
Speaker 3: we can, you know, and UH to help. And it
43:45
Speaker 3: harkens back to UH, you know, the the vehicle, the
43:48
Speaker 3: people living in their vehicles. It's the same Barbara as
43:52
Speaker 3: it is in Oakland and other places. And I had
43:55
Speaker 3: a gentleman living in his his car right outside the
43:59
Speaker 3: house authority here for a couple of years, and you know,
44:04
Speaker 3: he he he had no other options, and he kept
44:08
Speaker 3: his place clean. I'd come in and he'd be sweeping
44:11
Speaker 3: the sidewalk right next to where his car's part. And
44:16
Speaker 3: I introduced myself to him, and you know, gave him
44:19
Speaker 3: my card. What can we do for you? We get
44:21
Speaker 3: you on our list, And he was thankful for that.
44:24
Speaker 3: And then we built one of our permit support of
44:28
Speaker 3: housing developments and he was able to get into that
44:32
Speaker 3: by being put on that wait list. So it's about
44:35
Speaker 3: making the connections with cap as well who are living
44:39
Speaker 3: instably with where they are and giving them direction of
44:44
Speaker 3: where they can go for help. And you know, that's
44:49
Speaker 3: it makes my heart seeing when I go to that
44:52
Speaker 3: property and he's there living at a place that's meant
44:57
Speaker 3: to be living as a home rather than his vehicle,
45:01
Speaker 3: and he's so thankful and he's thriving there, and we
45:05
Speaker 3: just need to do so much more for that.
45:08
Speaker 2: So if you were going to tell somebody exactly why
45:12
Speaker 2: Section eight vouchers work, is it a business SoundBite that
45:19
Speaker 2: you can make.
45:20
Speaker 3: Yeah, I would. I would say it's a good local
45:22
Speaker 3: dollar that comes into the community, to the landlord community
45:27
Speaker 3: that helps them operate their properties, and that local dollar
45:33
Speaker 3: gets spent in the local community. It's kind of an
45:36
Speaker 3: income economic income generator, right, So you have that that
45:43
Speaker 3: truly does help. And at the end of the day,
45:47
Speaker 3: you're helping people. You're lifting people seniors, disabled people, and
45:55
Speaker 3: working families. You're lifting them up out of poverty. The
45:58
Speaker 3: best way to to solve poverty and lift people up
46:04
Speaker 3: out of poverty is to give them an affordable place
46:09
Speaker 3: to call home. It's something that's truly affordable where they're
46:12
Speaker 3: not rent burdened. And you know the other way is
46:16
Speaker 3: to at least pay people living wage.
46:21
Speaker 2: And on the section eight side, it really is a
46:24
Speaker 2: private public partnership to where you have the private landlords,
46:28
Speaker 2: you have personal choices of where they can take the
46:31
Speaker 2: voucher and shop, so to speak. So you have some
46:35
Speaker 2: mobility that's there, and then you have the public transparency
46:39
Speaker 2: and accountability of how that vulture is being handled. So
46:45
Speaker 2: it seems like it is the partnership that everybody wants
46:49
Speaker 2: with the private public partnership. I think one more piece
46:53
Speaker 2: that in our business SoundBite here as we're saying we're
46:56
Speaker 2: creating this on the fly here is you also have
47:01
Speaker 2: the FSS program. So if you want to say whatever
47:06
Speaker 2: the details may be as far as you know, duration,
47:10
Speaker 2: time goals, but you actually have a mechanism to say,
47:15
Speaker 2: let's talk with the person with the Section eight voucher,
47:19
Speaker 2: let's talk about home ownership education, what is the priority
47:23
Speaker 2: that they would like to set for that next step
47:28
Speaker 2: of mobility. And there's a parameter there that's already there
47:32
Speaker 2: to make that happen. So what do you think on
47:35
Speaker 2: the FSS piece being an existing tool that isn't really
47:41
Speaker 2: maximized enough there.
47:42
Speaker 3: That's so true. You know, the Family Self Sufficiency Program
47:46
Speaker 3: is a great program, and it really does equip our
47:52
Speaker 3: families on the voucher program to meet their own life
47:57
Speaker 3: goals and increase their income. See there through education to
48:02
Speaker 3: be able to take their education and get a better job,
48:05
Speaker 3: or just financial literacy programs, all sorts of things, being
48:10
Speaker 3: able to create their own businesses. That's what family self
48:14
Speaker 3: Sufficiency is all about. And last year we had you know,
48:20
Speaker 3: we're a small housing relatively smaller housing authority than what
48:25
Speaker 3: you're used to seeing, I'm sure, but we had eighteen
48:28
Speaker 3: graduates from the five year program that they lay out
48:32
Speaker 3: their goals and they were able to graduate from the
48:36
Speaker 3: program and some of them one of them bought their
48:39
Speaker 3: own home. So it truly does work. They're able to
48:42
Speaker 3: take that savings because we escrow every bit of their
48:48
Speaker 3: income increase from rather than going towards rent, we escrow
48:52
Speaker 3: it the same amount into an escrow that at the
48:55
Speaker 3: end of that five year program they get that check
48:57
Speaker 3: and they're able to use it for any purpose as
49:00
Speaker 3: they want, and many have have bought their homes, started
49:04
Speaker 3: a business, whatever there helps them with their life. They
49:09
Speaker 3: were able to do that. And our average escrow payment
49:11
Speaker 3: last year was twenty one thousand dollars. Oh excellent, which
49:15
Speaker 3: was great, right, So yeah, and our average income earnings
49:21
Speaker 3: increase last year was forty two thousand dollars breaks in earnings.
49:27
Speaker 3: So this is a program that works. That that that
49:31
Speaker 3: you know, if you talk about people that have the
49:34
Speaker 3: wrong connotation of the voucher program, that is just keeping
49:38
Speaker 3: people on the goal. Yeah, isn't it. You get, you
49:42
Speaker 3: get you're helping people because they can't afford the these vast, vast,
49:48
Speaker 3: massive market rents and you're so you're helping with the
49:52
Speaker 3: rent subsidy, but you're also helping them meet their other
49:55
Speaker 3: life goals so they can get off the program eventually
50:00
Speaker 3: and we can reuse that voucher for other people on
50:03
Speaker 3: the waiting list and then so we've helped the multitude
50:06
Speaker 3: of families through this family self Sufficiency program. It's so
50:10
Speaker 3: important and that's one of the programs that was slated
50:14
Speaker 3: for zeroing out by the current administration. For the federal
50:19
Speaker 3: fiscal year twenty twenty six budget, and thankfully the House
50:25
Speaker 3: and the Senate said no, we're not zeroing out that program.
50:28
Speaker 3: That's a good program. It has good bipartisan support, has
50:33
Speaker 3: had good support throughout the years because it's had good results. Right,
50:38
Speaker 3: So yeah, we need to keep that program and keep
50:41
Speaker 3: it running. We need to expand that program.
50:44
Speaker 2: Well, there's a lot of success stories with the Section
50:47
Speaker 2: eight voucher program, and I think it's up to practitioners
50:50
Speaker 2: to keep talking about the success stories but also be
50:54
Speaker 2: in some type of an agreement of Okay, let's make
50:57
Speaker 2: it better. How can we make it better? And I
51:01
Speaker 2: think that's the conversation that's happening right now. So it'll
51:04
Speaker 2: be it's just seemed to see where that goes, won't it.
51:08
Speaker 3: Yes? Yeah, Well, Rob.
51:10
Speaker 2: We've covered a lot of things here. Is there anything
51:12
Speaker 2: that we've missed before we close out that you want
51:16
Speaker 2: to bring to our attention about Santa Barbara or affordable housing?
51:21
Speaker 3: Well, I would love to get you out here, Katie
51:27
Speaker 3: to see our affordable housing developments because I am quite
51:31
Speaker 3: proud of them, and for any of your listeners to
51:35
Speaker 3: come out on out as well and take a look
51:38
Speaker 3: at what we do, the magic we've created here, and
51:42
Speaker 3: I know there's so much magic being done throughout the country.
51:45
Speaker 3: There's so many other great housing authorities. They're doing wonderful work.
51:50
Speaker 3: And these are all agencies that are leaning into the
51:55
Speaker 3: problem of not enough affordable housing for their community members.
52:01
Speaker 3: And we just we need to keep keep the pressure
52:05
Speaker 3: on forgetting the funding that's needed now to not just
52:10
Speaker 3: maintain our programs but expand them. Right shore congressional leaders,
52:16
Speaker 3: how these programs really work, the impact, the positive impact
52:20
Speaker 3: we have on the community and the participants' lives.
52:24
Speaker 2: Yep, you did the exact mastermind that Denise Mouhall with
52:29
Speaker 2: the National Leased Housing Association says. She says, get your
52:33
Speaker 2: decision makers out to your properties and show them exactly
52:39
Speaker 2: how it's working. So that's a great reminder for all
52:42
Speaker 2: of the practitioners to do exactly what you just said too. Yeah, well, Rob,
52:48
Speaker 2: thank you so much for your time. It's been a
52:49
Speaker 2: pleasure to have you on the Forbes Quadel Changemakers podcasts
52:53
Speaker 2: and we are encouraged by all of the development with
52:57
Speaker 2: design and purpose that you're doing out in Santa Barbara.
53:00
Speaker 2: So good job to you and your team.
53:02
Speaker 3: Thank you Katie.
53:03
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to change Makers with Katie Gore. To
53:07
Speaker 1: find out more about Katie, go to quad L dot com.
53:10
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53:15
Speaker 1: been a production of Forbes Books Radio