Latest / ChangeMakers with Katie Goar / Episode 145: Beth Silverman, Co-Founder & Executive Director, Lotus Campaign

Transcript

Episode 145: Beth Silverman, Co-Founder & Executive Director, Lotus Campaign · 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 Beth Silverman, the co founder and
0:17
Speaker 2: executive director of Lotus Campaign, a nonprofit that is rethinking
0:23
Speaker 2: how the private sector can solve homelessness. But this worked
0:27
Speaker 2: across multiple sectors, from real estate to public policy and
0:32
Speaker 2: urban planning, and today she's building a model that brings landlords, developers,
0:38
Speaker 2: and social services together. So with that, Beth, thank you
0:43
Speaker 2: for joining us on change Makers.
0:45
Speaker 3: Great to be here. Katie, thanks so much for having me.
0:48
Speaker 2: I love that we have you on the podcast. There
0:50
Speaker 2: is so much to talk to you about what you're doing,
0:53
Speaker 2: this model that you bring, and just how homelessness is
0:58
Speaker 2: being able to be re invision and revamped and to
1:01
Speaker 2: being bring some solutions to the table. It's it's a
1:04
Speaker 2: topic that's near and dear to me. I've shared a
1:07
Speaker 2: little bit about my backstory and housing insecurity, so with that,
1:12
Speaker 2: I feel like there's some divine overlaps and what we're
1:16
Speaker 2: about to talk about.
1:18
Speaker 3: Well, I'm excited to dig in.
1:21
Speaker 2: So why didn't you tell us first? Maybe go back
1:24
Speaker 2: to the beginning and when did this? You know, Uh,
1:30
Speaker 2: life career start evolving for you, and how was it
1:34
Speaker 2: that it was something that you actually wanted to be
1:37
Speaker 2: involved in and you wanted to start to tackle.
1:39
Speaker 3: It's a great question. Like many of us, my path,
1:44
Speaker 3: my professional path has been nonlinear. I always knew that
1:48
Speaker 3: I cared about the intersection of community people on economics,
1:53
Speaker 3: and I studied city planning, but found myself always working
1:58
Speaker 3: on the real estate and pol sea side of things.
2:01
Speaker 3: And I've spent the bulk of my career in the public,
2:04
Speaker 3: private and nonprofit sector really to understand sort of how
2:09
Speaker 3: every piece of the puzzle works and something a theme.
2:14
Speaker 3: You know. I think as you get further along in
2:17
Speaker 3: your career you can look back and see the themes
2:20
Speaker 3: and the threads that you couldn't see while you're actually
2:23
Speaker 3: in that role, or you know, ten years earlier. But
2:27
Speaker 3: housing has always been a key part of the work
2:30
Speaker 3: I've done, whether it was how to get developers to
2:35
Speaker 3: do mixed income housing and open space during the Great
2:40
Speaker 3: Recession when no one was lending in the from the banks,
2:45
Speaker 3: or how to bridge gaps when the city was the
2:49
Speaker 3: only person that had sort of financial tools. And you know,
2:54
Speaker 3: spent a lot of time when I was at the
2:56
Speaker 3: Urban Land Institute, working with communities across the country and
3:00
Speaker 3: internationally different sort of urban, rural, suburban, different political spectrums
3:08
Speaker 3: and ideologies about how to think about complicated land use
3:12
Speaker 3: and real estate issues. And something that started coming up
3:14
Speaker 3: during that period of time is every community thought they
3:18
Speaker 3: were the only ones with the housing affordability and increasingly
3:21
Speaker 3: homelessness issues. So that was a first aha moment, like, hmm,
3:26
Speaker 3: seems like, you know, we're struggling a lot in this country,
3:29
Speaker 3: all over the country with workforce housing and just struggling
3:36
Speaker 3: with rising levels of homelessness and housing. To me, and
3:40
Speaker 3: I think probably most of your listeners, it is the
3:43
Speaker 3: key to everything right, and so sort of starting to
3:48
Speaker 3: have that's that all meld was the basis of Lotus
3:52
Speaker 3: thinking through, Wow, we spend so much time and energy
3:57
Speaker 3: thinking about these issues, but it seems like the private
4:00
Speaker 3: real estate sector and investment communities aren't often at the
4:05
Speaker 3: brainstorming table at the beginning. How come right? And so
4:09
Speaker 3: some of those questions starting to think about that became
4:12
Speaker 3: the basis of what is now Lotus campaign. But I
4:16
Speaker 3: also think, you know, on a personal note, I think
4:21
Speaker 3: we all have people in our life, whether it's friends, family,
4:25
Speaker 3: maybe it's been ourselves, where one twist of the dial
4:29
Speaker 3: and we're in a super vulnerable position. And I think
4:32
Speaker 3: that the key difference. And I think about this with
4:35
Speaker 3: my family. When my great grandparents immigrated here, they had
4:40
Speaker 3: a network of support to catch them when they were new,
4:44
Speaker 3: didn't have jobs, et cetera, et cetera. And if that
4:48
Speaker 3: network of support is not there, then sort of someone's
4:51
Speaker 3: trajectory is much different. So at its core, Lotus really
4:56
Speaker 3: tries to create this network of support economically from sort
5:01
Speaker 3: of access to real estate and then also with ongoing
5:06
Speaker 3: support and services.
5:07
Speaker 2: So why did you start us off with lotus? Give
5:10
Speaker 2: us an overview how you birth that. I would love
5:14
Speaker 2: to hear how Lotus campaign, how the name came to
5:18
Speaker 2: be and start us from there.
5:21
Speaker 3: Yeah, so Loatus. It's a simple idea. It's a radically
5:24
Speaker 3: simple idea. The whole idea is how do you bring
5:28
Speaker 3: together unexpected allies, So nonprofits in the social service sector
5:34
Speaker 3: who provide excellent case management, trauma informed care to their clients.
5:40
Speaker 3: And the real estate sector, so the folks that control
5:43
Speaker 3: the assets, that invest in housing and have units, how
5:47
Speaker 3: do you bring them together to be partners in the
5:49
Speaker 3: solution of homelessness. So we started from there and we
5:53
Speaker 3: started thinking, like classic sales technique, what are all the
5:57
Speaker 3: reasons someone would say no or renting to an individual
6:00
Speaker 3: or family that has experienced homelessness or is coming from
6:04
Speaker 3: a spoty housing background, and two things economic risk perception risk,
6:11
Speaker 3: And we were like, well, we can definitely solve for
6:13
Speaker 3: the economic risk. So we use a series of financial
6:17
Speaker 3: and economic guarantees to take care of things like payment
6:22
Speaker 3: and lieu of security, deposit, application fees, renters, insurance if
6:28
Speaker 3: a voucher is being used, expedited inspections, so all these
6:32
Speaker 3: small costs that if you don't have a lot of
6:35
Speaker 3: resources to begin with, are going to automatically x you out.
6:40
Speaker 3: And then if you add on spotty credit, may or
6:44
Speaker 3: may not have a job, spotty housing history, you're not
6:50
Speaker 3: going to qualify for a unit. So we thought, well,
6:53
Speaker 3: what how could Lotus potentially be a guaranteur there? And
6:56
Speaker 3: then on the perception side, canvas landlords, owner operators, investors
7:03
Speaker 3: from across the country, and the number one thing was, hey,
7:07
Speaker 3: I want to be part of a solution. I can't
7:09
Speaker 3: jeopardize the economics of my business and I can't put
7:14
Speaker 3: that burden on my property management staff. They are not caseworkers.
7:17
Speaker 3: What happens if something goes wrong? And that's where pargnering
7:21
Speaker 3: with really high capacity social service organizations comes in, because
7:25
Speaker 3: they are already doing this incredible work and they just
7:30
Speaker 3: don't have access to market rate mixed income communities. So
7:35
Speaker 3: we thought, all right, well, let's focus on solving for
7:38
Speaker 3: these two things. We can definitely solve the economic piece,
7:41
Speaker 3: and we if we partner with the right social service organizations,
7:45
Speaker 3: we can probably tackle that perception piece. And then a
7:48
Speaker 3: huge part of Lotus's model is really partnering with properties
7:54
Speaker 3: and what we call neighborhoods of opportunity. So that's just
7:58
Speaker 3: a super fancy jargon way of saying, you know, mixed income,
8:03
Speaker 3: close to transit, near grocery stores, proximity to major employers,
8:08
Speaker 3: all the things that intense economic data says makes the
8:12
Speaker 3: difference in someone's economic mobility. And we're really serving individuals
8:18
Speaker 3: and families who are experiencing homelessness, but also those that
8:24
Speaker 3: are at risk. You know, a big thing is prevention,
8:27
Speaker 3: and a lot of work we do too is a
8:30
Speaker 3: fiction prevention. And you know, it really started from who's
8:36
Speaker 3: missing the table? What happens if we start asking the
8:40
Speaker 3: question what if and how about we deploy existing resources
8:44
Speaker 3: in a different way and break down silos between two sectors.
8:47
Speaker 3: That are the absolute key to making a dent in homelessness.
8:52
Speaker 3: When you hear verbs.
8:54
Speaker 2: That are adjectives, really, when you hear, you're hearing fragmented,
8:58
Speaker 2: You're hearing complicated, You're hearing hindrances, obstacles.
9:03
Speaker 3: But the model that you guys.
9:05
Speaker 2: Have created is is you're trying to reduce all of
9:08
Speaker 2: those friction points and create a way by which some
9:14
Speaker 2: of those gaps can be overcome. And it's unique because.
9:19
Speaker 3: You know, it's been so.
9:22
Speaker 2: Complicated it's prevented people from coming into the space to
9:27
Speaker 2: solve it. But it sounds like you guys are just
9:31
Speaker 2: barging through that same space with your model. What's been
9:35
Speaker 2: some of the what's been some of the reactions as
9:39
Speaker 2: you're coming to landlords and developers and you're you're bringing
9:43
Speaker 2: everybody to that table. What have you been confronted with?
9:47
Speaker 3: You know, I would actually say getting the real estate
9:49
Speaker 3: sector involved has not been the hardest part. I think,
9:54
Speaker 3: you know, like every sector, there are there are mission
9:57
Speaker 3: folks that want to opt in, and then they're some
10:00
Speaker 3: that it's a little bit of a harder sell. But
10:02
Speaker 3: now that we have seven years under our belt, we're
10:05
Speaker 3: in two cities, we have lots of data, it's a
10:08
Speaker 3: much easier pitch. And also we've got, you know, a
10:11
Speaker 3: regional property manager. Your regional property manager can can you know,
10:15
Speaker 3: speak to and learn about their experience. I think, you know,
10:22
Speaker 3: so many members of the real estate sector have just
10:27
Speaker 3: had unfortunate experiences partnering with nonprofits and that sticks with them.
10:33
Speaker 3: So I think helping to distinguish Hey, you know, we
10:38
Speaker 3: the biggest part of our model is the strength of
10:40
Speaker 3: ongoing support and services and if something goes wrong, we're
10:44
Speaker 3: there every step of the way. Because we also do
10:48
Speaker 3: a lot of if someone is not going to work
10:51
Speaker 3: out or there's an issue with rent for some reason,
10:55
Speaker 3: we step in and make sure that we're you know,
10:58
Speaker 3: covering those gaps. Yeah, but I would say the I
11:05
Speaker 3: think a question we got a lot in the beginning
11:07
Speaker 3: was well, it was the simple why isn't anyone doing
11:10
Speaker 3: this right? So I love that one. And then you know,
11:15
Speaker 3: the greatest comment when we were in Charlotte is like
11:18
Speaker 3: that will never work and then now that we're in
11:21
Speaker 3: two cities, oh that only works in North Carolina and
11:24
Speaker 3: we're working on expansion, so you know, wall sort of
11:29
Speaker 3: each market is different and you need to have high
11:32
Speaker 3: touch local relationships. What we're doing is we're just taking
11:36
Speaker 3: an economic, human, and real estate lens to something that
11:40
Speaker 3: is both a social, real estate and economic issue, right,
11:44
Speaker 3: So we're trying to bring all those lenses and tools
11:47
Speaker 3: into the solution.
11:49
Speaker 2: When I hear the word lotus, I think of the
11:53
Speaker 2: Eastern analogy about it being something about a phoenix, a
11:57
Speaker 2: flower that blooms in dark and murky water. It's almost
12:01
Speaker 2: like associated with rebirth and awakening, and you know all
12:06
Speaker 2: of those. What about the name is that part? You know,
12:10
Speaker 2: how do you how did you come up with the name?
12:12
Speaker 2: How what does the name mean? Is there is there
12:15
Speaker 2: an analogy that to that particular flower?
12:19
Speaker 3: Tell us all about that. Well, for any of your
12:22
Speaker 3: listeners that are entrepreneurs, figuring out what to call your
12:25
Speaker 3: thing is really hard. And when you're trying to tackle
12:28
Speaker 3: something like homelessness, which is heavy and no one wants
12:32
Speaker 3: to touch it, no one wants to get hear it,
12:35
Speaker 3: You're like, what are we going to call this thing,
12:37
Speaker 3: and I mean, we must have gone through so many
12:41
Speaker 3: sort of ideas, and then one of my co founders,
12:43
Speaker 3: who's now our chairman of the board, was like, what
12:45
Speaker 3: about lotus. You know, the lotus flower submerges each night
12:50
Speaker 3: into pond mud. That seems like an analogy to homelessness,
12:54
Speaker 3: and the next morning blossoms into a beautiful flower, and
12:58
Speaker 3: that that's what we're trying to do, is try to
13:00
Speaker 3: sort of put resources to get someone back on their feet.
13:04
Speaker 3: So it is totally what you thought it was. It's
13:07
Speaker 3: the lotus flower, which is a symbol across so many
13:11
Speaker 3: cultures and spiritual traditions of rebirth and renewal, and we
13:15
Speaker 3: just thought, even though you know people may or may
13:18
Speaker 3: not get it, we thought it was a great metaphor
13:20
Speaker 3: for what we're trying to do. Great.
13:22
Speaker 2: I had hoped that's what it was, but I wanted
13:25
Speaker 2: to hear because you know, there's even like a whole
13:28
Speaker 2: bunch of studies about how the lotus flower is supposed
13:31
Speaker 2: to be divine because of how it's able to bloom
13:36
Speaker 2: from darkness. So great, great pick of a name, So good.
13:41
Speaker 2: Jump to your board member who came up with that.
13:44
Speaker 2: You mentioned that you're in Charlotte. You mentioned that you're
13:48
Speaker 2: expanding before we go through your expansion specifics there, but
13:55
Speaker 2: tell us, like, what is the need in Charlotte and
13:58
Speaker 2: what are you seeing as far as the mismatch to
14:02
Speaker 2: need to you know, supply or however you measure those metrics.
14:08
Speaker 3: Yeah, so Charlotte is no different than a lot of
14:11
Speaker 3: cities that have affluence right experienced tremendous growth both in population, jobs,
14:20
Speaker 3: and migration from outside of the state. And what happens
14:26
Speaker 3: when you don't have enough housing. Folks that are the
14:29
Speaker 3: most vulnerable with the fewest resources don't have as much choice.
14:33
Speaker 3: And so you know, the current stats I feel like
14:36
Speaker 3: change all the time, anywhere from thirty five thousand to
14:40
Speaker 3: fifty thousand units undersupplied, which is a helpful stat but
14:46
Speaker 3: when you start breaking that down to cost burden and
14:50
Speaker 3: what someone maybe you know, making under thirty percent of
14:57
Speaker 3: area media and income can afford and many available units
15:01
Speaker 3: there might be that are affordable, you really see how
15:07
Speaker 3: dire the issues are. So, you know, Charlotte is an
15:11
Speaker 3: incredible city that I would say is really really taking
15:15
Speaker 3: a courageous look at its housing and affordability and homelessness challenges,
15:21
Speaker 3: but it is a city, like many cities across the country,
15:25
Speaker 3: that's experienced tremendous growth. Rising levels of homelessness usually follow
15:30
Speaker 3: where there is economic growth and affluence in a in
15:34
Speaker 3: a city.
15:35
Speaker 2: And then about Charlotte, as far as you know, when
15:40
Speaker 2: you have you always been there, you started there, what
15:43
Speaker 2: you know where you where do you want to go
15:45
Speaker 2: from here? And give us some some parameters.
15:49
Speaker 3: So we started in Charlotte, and we started before we launched.
15:54
Speaker 3: We got to beta test with a really great partner
15:57
Speaker 3: of ours who let me and my hair brain idea
16:00
Speaker 3: test this idea with a couple units, see you know
16:04
Speaker 3: how it would work, and really has just grown from there.
16:12
Speaker 3: About two and a half years ago we expanded to Raleigh,
16:16
Speaker 3: North Carolina, which is enough this is the capital of
16:22
Speaker 3: the state. And you know, really learned a lot from
16:27
Speaker 3: that growth, total replicable model, things that need to be
16:31
Speaker 3: tailored to that specific community. You know, not all social
16:36
Speaker 3: service partners exist in every single community, right and learning
16:40
Speaker 3: sort of what are the challenges in this community versus
16:44
Speaker 3: what Charlotte has and and what's cool though, is in
16:48
Speaker 3: Raleigh because we ought to build on all the lessons
16:51
Speaker 3: learned in Charlotte. We've had the same amount of impact
16:55
Speaker 3: but in half the time, and that comes obviously from
16:58
Speaker 3: sweat equity that happened when we first started, and we'refining
17:02
Speaker 3: things along the way. And then you know, Lotus was
17:05
Speaker 3: always built to be replicable and scalable. So we'd like
17:08
Speaker 3: to be in a couple more cities outside of North
17:11
Speaker 3: Carolina and where we can't go teach others how to
17:14
Speaker 3: do it. And unfortunately, homelessness continues to increase each year,
17:20
Speaker 3: and as sort of economic inequities continue to rise, there's
17:25
Speaker 3: a direct correlation with homelessness as well. So we want
17:28
Speaker 3: to be able to share what we're doing where we
17:32
Speaker 3: can't go.
17:34
Speaker 2: So you're do you see yourselves expanding them out of
17:37
Speaker 2: North Carolina?
17:39
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, definitely yeah.
17:42
Speaker 2: And you know you've built the framework though, and you
17:46
Speaker 2: know there's always a splice of you know, like you mentioned,
17:50
Speaker 2: what is the social service network like? You know, what
17:52
Speaker 2: are the landlords, what's the real estate like? But once
17:55
Speaker 2: you've built the framework and you've you've dialed in on
17:59
Speaker 2: how to make this happen, you know, I think you've
18:02
Speaker 2: you've started to solve some of the secret ingredients, if
18:06
Speaker 2: you will of how this can work. And you know what,
18:09
Speaker 2: we've talked to a couple of other people on this podcast,
18:12
Speaker 2: which is one of the one of the reasons we
18:14
Speaker 2: have this is because we don't want to solve some
18:16
Speaker 2: of these problems in isolation and gatekeep them. We want
18:21
Speaker 2: to share them and show how it can be replicated.
18:24
Speaker 2: You've even actually been on another podcast, Guest of Ours
18:29
Speaker 2: Atticus LeBlanc on with pad Split, Yeah, which is like
18:34
Speaker 2: fabulous what he's doing there too.
18:37
Speaker 3: Yeah, he's in the cribe of like, you know, we're
18:40
Speaker 3: trying to what are those interim steps between emergency solutions
18:44
Speaker 3: and the long term solutions that take a long time
18:46
Speaker 3: to get to.
18:48
Speaker 2: So yeah, and even what Atticus is doing is like
18:50
Speaker 2: he's really like stepping in to say, you know, here's
18:53
Speaker 2: a problem, here's an alternate solution. It doesn't have to
18:56
Speaker 2: be this you know, overly complicated, you know, seven hundred
18:59
Speaker 2: and fifty for subsidized unit to be built, right, and
19:02
Speaker 2: so like he is actually building up something quite as
19:07
Speaker 2: unique as what you're building here too. And you know,
19:11
Speaker 2: quite frankly, it's going to take a little bit of
19:14
Speaker 2: everybody's solution too to make a dentt in this One
19:19
Speaker 2: of the things you mentioned, even on the podcast with
19:23
Speaker 2: Atticus was that you talked about how to go in
19:28
Speaker 2: and Uh, it's a phrase I like to say, but
19:31
Speaker 2: you do some of that myth busting. You mentioned the perception,
19:36
Speaker 2: You mentioned the riskiness either from a business case study
19:41
Speaker 2: or from a social case study. But I want to
19:44
Speaker 2: I want to let you comment on that because it's
19:47
Speaker 2: it's well worth repeating.
19:49
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, so here here's what I'll say about it.
19:55
Speaker 3: I remember this discussion early on when we were building Lotus,
19:59
Speaker 3: and I must have said something like, if we are
20:01
Speaker 3: going to create a nonprofit working on these issues, we
20:05
Speaker 3: are not going to tell the same story that has
20:07
Speaker 3: been told for fifty years about how we solve who
20:13
Speaker 3: the partners are, etc. Etc. We've got to do some
20:16
Speaker 3: different stuff in community education. And there's so many dangerous
20:20
Speaker 3: narratives out there about homelessness and the drivers and frankly
20:25
Speaker 3: the real estate industry. And I thought, Okay, we have
20:28
Speaker 3: a platform where we can bring some curiosity and some
20:32
Speaker 3: creativity to teaching people and debunking some of these myths. So,
20:38
Speaker 3: you know, a big myth that we hear a lot
20:43
Speaker 3: is one homelessness is caused by bad choices. I think
20:49
Speaker 3: any of us that have been alive know that the
20:52
Speaker 3: arbitrary nature of where you're born, the station in life
20:57
Speaker 3: you're born, that's not your choice. And the data just
21:03
Speaker 3: is scary. I mean, most people are one or two
21:06
Speaker 3: paychecks away from a really big crisis, and sort of
21:09
Speaker 3: the level of folks that are right on the edge
21:12
Speaker 3: keeps increasing. So, you know, what we've wanted to do
21:17
Speaker 3: is really debunk that. So we did an event maybe
21:20
Speaker 3: two years ago where we did a essentially a like
21:26
Speaker 3: a bingo type game where you had a different card
21:33
Speaker 3: and it was sort of it told your income, it
21:37
Speaker 3: told sort of what happened to you that day. So
21:39
Speaker 3: there were a number of things like your car broke down,
21:42
Speaker 3: but if you get new tires, you can't afford this,
21:46
Speaker 3: And it really walked people through essentially just how easy
21:51
Speaker 3: it is to have one big shift in your life
21:55
Speaker 3: make it so that housing is unaffordable. And the other
21:59
Speaker 3: myth we get lot is well, shouldn't the landlords are
22:03
Speaker 3: just greedy villains? And why aren't they giving units away
22:06
Speaker 3: for great And I love to debunk that with that
22:09
Speaker 3: myth as well, because you know, I think we unfairly
22:14
Speaker 3: villainize the real estate industry when the reality is this
22:20
Speaker 3: is a business just like any other business, and if
22:23
Speaker 3: you give people an easy way to say yes to
22:26
Speaker 3: being part of the solution, they will. So I would
22:29
Speaker 3: say those are like the two big myths. But we
22:31
Speaker 3: do a lot of sort of sharing data in a
22:35
Speaker 3: creative way and telling the different story. And we're hoping
22:39
Speaker 3: that's sticking because I think the more everyday individuals are
22:45
Speaker 3: empowered with information, they can also help that some of
22:49
Speaker 3: the things dangerous myths or share like hey, you know,
22:52
Speaker 3: I heard about this solution it's working here, like maybe
22:54
Speaker 3: this would be great for this community, or things like that.
22:58
Speaker 2: Well, you know, I experienced homelessness when I was a child,
23:03
Speaker 2: and when you talk about the number of children who
23:07
Speaker 2: are currently in homelessness and through no choices of their own,
23:12
Speaker 2: and you know, that's a whole nother statistic and it's
23:16
Speaker 2: a whole nother reality. So it doesn't matter why they're there,
23:21
Speaker 2: it doesn't matter what choices their parents did or didn't make.
23:25
Speaker 2: The reality is they're there and they're homeless. And so
23:28
Speaker 2: you know, we owe it to, you know, offer a
23:34
Speaker 2: hand up to people who who need that moment, so
23:38
Speaker 2: I really appreciate what you're doing, just personally and professionally.
23:44
Speaker 2: What I also dying to ask you is something you
23:48
Speaker 2: mentioned earlier when you were working with landlords. I'm curious
23:53
Speaker 2: to how you talk with them to get them from.
23:57
Speaker 3: A no to a yes.
23:59
Speaker 2: You you were mentioning mentioning that, and I would sure
24:03
Speaker 2: love to hear what your pitch is because you know,
24:05
Speaker 2: we're confronted with some of the same realities on our
24:08
Speaker 2: side as a compliance contractor too, so let me hear it.
24:13
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I think how we approach people matters,
24:17
Speaker 3: so there is no should in Lots's vocabulary. I think
24:23
Speaker 3: starting from a place of looking as at someone like
24:26
Speaker 3: a potential business partner, and bringing that you know as
24:30
Speaker 3: you're opening, like, I love what your company is doing,
24:35
Speaker 3: I would love to tell you more about this program,
24:37
Speaker 3: et cetera, et cetera. But I think honestly really using
24:43
Speaker 3: real estate language, like our staff is steeped both in
24:47
Speaker 3: real estate and also the human services side of things,
24:51
Speaker 3: so we code switch a lot. But I think sitting
24:53
Speaker 3: down with someone and really sharing that you understand their
24:58
Speaker 3: risk goes a long way to disarm someone's potential preconceived notions.
25:04
Speaker 3: But one thing we do, in addition to all these
25:08
Speaker 3: upfront economic incentives, if an individual or family is not
25:14
Speaker 3: working out, say they're not paying their rent, they're not
25:17
Speaker 3: following the protocol of their case manager, or whatever their
25:21
Speaker 3: program requirements might be from the nonprofit sponsoring them, we
25:25
Speaker 3: ask that our real estate partners give us thirty days
25:28
Speaker 3: to cure an issue, and if we cannot resolve it,
25:32
Speaker 3: we will cover loss of rent, damages, and if we
25:37
Speaker 3: cannot prevent an eviction, which we do a really good
25:39
Speaker 3: job of preventing those, we will cover court costs, legal fees.
25:43
Speaker 3: And someone will show up to testify on a landlord's behalf.
25:47
Speaker 3: And I will say that goes a long way, because
25:50
Speaker 3: I don't know a single landlord that wants to go
25:52
Speaker 3: through an eviction process. It's painful, it is cumbersome, and
25:57
Speaker 3: no one wants to end up there, right, But I
25:59
Speaker 3: think pointing out, hey, we get your risk, really, we
26:04
Speaker 3: get it right, that goes a long way. And then
26:06
Speaker 3: also I think now that we're we're you know, we're
26:10
Speaker 3: we have slightly graduated from startup mode. We have a
26:13
Speaker 3: lot of data to share and we have a lot
26:15
Speaker 3: of sort of real life scenarios of this happened in
26:19
Speaker 3: this community. This is how with our incredible social service
26:23
Speaker 3: partner we resolve an issue. And I think sharing that
26:26
Speaker 3: versus why don't you want a partner or shouldn't you
26:30
Speaker 3: be doing this anyways really changes the tone of the conversation.
26:34
Speaker 3: And then, like any good salesperson, if someone says no,
26:38
Speaker 3: it just means your pit wasn't good enough and you
26:40
Speaker 3: should modify it and try better the next time.
26:43
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, and you know you speaking into the point
26:46
Speaker 2: of being able to mitigate some of that risk on
26:48
Speaker 2: their behalf also shows your belief in what you're providing too,
26:55
Speaker 2: so because you know you're stepping up there and bringing
26:57
Speaker 2: in that capital and minimizing that risk and really showing
27:00
Speaker 2: that you're a good faith partner to those landlords and
27:03
Speaker 2: that means something.
27:06
Speaker 3: Yeah, definitely, Yeah, And I think like we've you know,
27:09
Speaker 3: our model was built to mitigate risk and to open
27:13
Speaker 3: up and unlock units and opportunity. And you know, we
27:17
Speaker 3: have enough data now to talk about you know, it's
27:21
Speaker 3: the combination of our financial incentives, risk mitigation, and mandatory
27:30
Speaker 3: ongoing support and services. And I think property managers and
27:34
Speaker 3: owner operators and landlords really get that because they've had
27:37
Speaker 3: some sort of experiences.
27:39
Speaker 2: For real or perceived or you know, war war stories
27:43
Speaker 2: from others. But yeah, you know you mentioned some of
27:47
Speaker 2: the tools. You mentioned down payment or deposits, You've mentioned
27:51
Speaker 2: some damages or you know, some other things. Is there
27:57
Speaker 2: a component to credit improve scores just kind of walks
28:02
Speaker 2: through some of those tools that you are actually able
28:05
Speaker 2: to bundle for people.
28:08
Speaker 3: Yeah, so I think there are three buckets. There's like, upfront,
28:12
Speaker 3: what is going to open up access and opportunity for
28:15
Speaker 3: someone getting intouving. So those are proof basic renters insurance,
28:18
Speaker 3: application fee, paying for expedited inspections, if a vouchers being
28:24
Speaker 3: used so there's not a delay in approval of the unit.
28:28
Speaker 3: And then you know, we we call it a payment
28:30
Speaker 3: and lieu of security deposit, but it's essentially the equivalent
28:34
Speaker 3: of that. And then there's sort of in the middle,
28:39
Speaker 3: right if there are some issues, we can do some
28:42
Speaker 3: loss of rent and damage its payments and then sort
28:46
Speaker 3: of on the back end, we also if someone's graduating,
28:50
Speaker 3: we'll cover their renters insurance in their you know, their
28:55
Speaker 3: new unit that they qualified on their own. And we've
28:57
Speaker 3: also worked with individual properties on positive credit reporting. You know,
29:03
Speaker 3: once someone's in a unit pain rent, there are a
29:07
Speaker 3: ton of great programs. It's it's depends on the property
29:11
Speaker 3: and what they're choosing that will help folks get their
29:13
Speaker 3: credit up. So we like to really encourage that, you know.
29:18
Speaker 3: And then there is if we can't resolve an issue
29:21
Speaker 3: and and something goes to someone being finding a better
29:27
Speaker 3: housing situation than the one they were in because it
29:30
Speaker 3: wasn't working out for certain certain reasons. Like I said before,
29:33
Speaker 3: we'll cover sort of the loss of rent and move
29:39
Speaker 3: out costs, et cetera. We've been talking a lot.
29:43
Speaker 2: About the model and the nuances, but I can't but
29:48
Speaker 2: help ask you if you can share a success story,
29:52
Speaker 2: a case study, whatever you call them. I'd love to
29:56
Speaker 2: hear a life impact moment.
29:59
Speaker 3: I'm gonna give you too. I'm going to give you
30:01
Speaker 3: a partner story, and I'm going to give you a
30:06
Speaker 3: resident story. One of our partners when we were first
30:12
Speaker 3: starting out, had an investor who's super concerned that this
30:18
Speaker 3: Lotus campaign was going to be partnering with them and
30:22
Speaker 3: use some explicit language about what this might do to
30:25
Speaker 3: the properties. He was an investor, real classic New Yorker
30:30
Speaker 3: like and what happens is a year in we have
30:35
Speaker 3: all this great data about impact we share with our landlords.
30:39
Speaker 3: We give them like an impact report card so they
30:41
Speaker 3: can share that with their investors. Right, It's great stuff
30:44
Speaker 3: for annual reports. And the person that said what are
30:48
Speaker 3: you doing to these properties is now a corporate donor
30:52
Speaker 3: and one of our biggest champions and gorilla marketers and
30:55
Speaker 3: really sort of educates his investors on why they have
30:59
Speaker 3: to be investing in workforce housing and solutions to homelessness
31:05
Speaker 3: and things like that. And then my other favorite story
31:09
Speaker 3: is a resident in Charlotte who I've gotten to meet
31:16
Speaker 3: a couple of times because we've done some news stories together.
31:19
Speaker 3: But he came to us from a program called Hope Haven,
31:23
Speaker 3: which is a substance recovery program, really great program that
31:28
Speaker 3: has a residential component and people go through various steps
31:33
Speaker 3: of stability. And what they started to find is when
31:37
Speaker 3: our clients are graduating, they just can't afford market rent,
31:41
Speaker 3: even if they have jobs. So Mario was our first
31:44
Speaker 3: resident that we housed through a partnership with Hope Haven,
31:50
Speaker 3: and Mario had at the time a part time job
31:55
Speaker 3: as a truck driver. And he moved into a one
31:58
Speaker 3: bedroom in one of our real estate partners residential communities.
32:04
Speaker 3: Mario loves plants. I love plants. We are both terrible
32:08
Speaker 3: about keeping them alive. And we have bonded over that
32:10
Speaker 3: of what our strategies for sunlight and water and what's
32:14
Speaker 3: a good way to keep track of which plant needs
32:17
Speaker 3: water win. So fast forward to three years, Mario has
32:22
Speaker 3: graduated from Lotus support and from the support of his nonprofit.
32:27
Speaker 3: He now has a full time job, qualified for his
32:30
Speaker 3: on his own for a two bedroom apartment, got married
32:34
Speaker 3: last year, came to our annual fundraising Galla with his
32:37
Speaker 3: new wife and gave a testimonial. And Mario is just
32:41
Speaker 3: a great example of someone that needed a little bit
32:44
Speaker 3: of time, a little bit of economic support, needed that
32:48
Speaker 3: network of support that he didn't have. And you know,
32:53
Speaker 3: Mario's thriving, which is like just so heartwarming to see.
32:57
Speaker 3: It's these really small things that make tremendous differences in
33:02
Speaker 3: people's lives.
33:04
Speaker 2: I actually came across the story that you shared about
33:08
Speaker 2: someone named Dennis. He tells part of his story because
33:12
Speaker 2: he knows there's another dentist out there.
33:15
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, And Dennis graduated from Marpur too, and Dennis's greed.
33:21
Speaker 2: Yeah, but I mean that that shows that you know,
33:24
Speaker 2: and I think that's part of the struggle of what
33:27
Speaker 2: we're trying to do is you know, you graduated Dennis
33:29
Speaker 2: and he moves to stability, but you know that now
33:34
Speaker 2: you know there's another person that you know is coming
33:37
Speaker 2: in because you know that cycle is difficult. Like you
33:40
Speaker 2: mentioned people being you know, a paycheck or two, or
33:43
Speaker 2: a life incident, a large medical surgery, I mean like whatever,
33:47
Speaker 2: whatever the situation is, a car, car situation. I mean, oh,
33:51
Speaker 2: there's just so much that can happen.
33:53
Speaker 3: We're wrong. Yeah, So yeah.
33:57
Speaker 2: Well, I really appreciate what you guys are doing. When's
34:00
Speaker 2: your next annual fundraiser or a gala that you mentioned
34:03
Speaker 2: just just a minute again.
34:05
Speaker 3: In September, and I will make sure to send you
34:07
Speaker 3: an invitation. We do one in Charlotte and one in Rally,
34:10
Speaker 3: and we try to make them interactive, so there's always
34:14
Speaker 3: like a sneaky learning component, but they're they're fun because
34:20
Speaker 3: you know, if you're going to make people be in
34:22
Speaker 3: a room for two hours, you better make it engaging
34:24
Speaker 3: and fun.
34:25
Speaker 2: Well, those, you know, as a nonprofit, I'm sure those
34:27
Speaker 2: big fundraisers, those you know help add to your mission
34:33
Speaker 2: as well, so yes, share it with us. We will
34:36
Speaker 2: share with all of our contexts. In fact, we have
34:38
Speaker 2: a lot of stuff staff who are in North Carolina
34:41
Speaker 2: and so we would love to show up in mass
34:45
Speaker 2: so make sure you make sure you share with us. Again,
34:48
Speaker 2: I'm talking with Beth Silverman, the co founder and executive
34:51
Speaker 2: director of the Lotus Campaign. Beth, you and your team
34:55
Speaker 2: are doing an amazing job, so thank you very much
34:58
Speaker 2: for sharing what you are doing and making an impact.
35:02
Speaker 3: Thank you so much for the awesome conversation and sharing
35:05
Speaker 3: some of your story.
35:07
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to change Makers with Katie Gore. To
35:10
Speaker 1: find out more about Katie, go to quadel dot com.
35:14
Speaker 1: That's qu A d e l dot com. This has
35:18
Speaker 1: been a production of Forbes Books Radio