Latest / ChangeMakers with Katie Goar / Best Of | Jennifer Keogh, VP of Operations & Affordable Housing, Progress Residential

Transcript

Best Of | Jennifer Keogh, VP of Operations & Affordable Housing, Progress Residential · 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: This week, I'm joined by change Maker Jennifer Keo, the
0:16
Speaker 2: vice president of Operations and affordable Housing at Progress Residential.
0:20
Speaker 2: With over two decades as an affordable housing leader, Jennifer
0:24
Speaker 2: has served as Deputy executive director at the Minneapolis Public
0:28
Speaker 2: Housing Authority and chair at Narrow Now. At one of
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Speaker 2: the nation's largest single family rental providers, Jennifer oversees operations
0:37
Speaker 2: and initiatives to make rental living more accessible. Jennifer, Welcome
0:42
Speaker 2: to the podcast.
0:43
Speaker 3: Thanks for having me, Katie.
0:45
Speaker 2: Jennifer, let's start things off by talking about the personal
0:49
Speaker 2: journey you took that led you to affordable housing.
0:52
Speaker 3: First of all, as I said, thanks for having me.
0:54
Speaker 3: I don't think I've missed many episodes of your podcast,
0:59
Speaker 3: and anybody that follows me on LinkedIn knows because I
1:03
Speaker 3: evangelize about the podcast, and so it's incredibly exciting and
1:09
Speaker 3: also humbling to be with you today. For twenty five years,
1:13
Speaker 3: and I had to do the math to think how
1:15
Speaker 3: long have I been doing this work. I had to put,
1:17
Speaker 3: you know, give you my bio, and I was like
1:20
Speaker 3: twenty five years, and as I've grown, I think I
1:25
Speaker 3: grew into being a relentless houser and fiercely advocating and
1:30
Speaker 3: empowering those with voices that have been silenced. But my
1:34
Speaker 3: journey and inspiration started years before my first job, and
1:39
Speaker 3: I think I've shared this with you before, Katie. It
1:42
Speaker 3: began with my grandmother, Jeannette, who lived in public housing.
1:47
Speaker 3: It was this tall, high rise building and it was
1:49
Speaker 3: a place in a space that was her community. It
1:53
Speaker 3: was her family. Actually, her brother and sisters all lived
1:58
Speaker 3: there in one bedroom apartments as well, so it really
2:02
Speaker 3: was her family. But it was a place that you
2:04
Speaker 3: could played bingo on Monday nights with your friends. It
2:08
Speaker 3: was a place where you can put a sign on
2:09
Speaker 3: your door that says I'm okay and have a neighbor
2:12
Speaker 3: check on you. And it was a place where you
2:15
Speaker 3: had access to food through a federal commodities program and
2:20
Speaker 3: your rent was based on your income. My grandma lived
2:23
Speaker 3: well below the poverty line, and I never realized how
2:26
Speaker 3: poor she was because when I went to visit her
2:30
Speaker 3: and stay with her, these types of programs and experiences
2:34
Speaker 3: are what made me think she lived in the very
2:37
Speaker 3: best place on earth. And so my journey of growing
2:41
Speaker 3: up around housing didn't stop in high school, I became
2:47
Speaker 3: incredibly interested in issues surrounding rural development. I lived in
2:52
Speaker 3: a small town in southern Minnesota, but also traveled up
2:55
Speaker 3: to the metropolitan area where I live now and became
2:58
Speaker 3: interested in helping solve homelessness. I served in soup kitchens
3:04
Speaker 3: and during college during spring break and participated with Habitat
3:08
Speaker 3: for Humanity and building a home for a single mom
3:12
Speaker 3: and her boy. My first job out of college, no surprise,
3:17
Speaker 3: led me to housing, and it focused on both housing
3:21
Speaker 3: families and senior citizens large immigrant population, and I was hooked.
3:27
Speaker 3: Through my career, I've had and worked and held leadership
3:32
Speaker 3: positions at three different housing authorities here in the metropolitan area,
3:36
Speaker 3: and my time at all three of them provided me
3:39
Speaker 3: the opportunity to do work that I knew was making
3:41
Speaker 3: an impact in people's lives. I have a social work degree,
3:45
Speaker 3: and so being able to know that the work that
3:49
Speaker 3: I do is transforming lives and is what gets me
3:55
Speaker 3: up every single day. My paassion is creating choice and
3:59
Speaker 3: opportunity and the ability to do work that can actually
4:03
Speaker 3: change lives. In creating partnerships because we know we can't
4:06
Speaker 3: do this work alone and to improve outcomes for our
4:09
Speaker 3: countries most vulnerable and so all of that I kind
4:12
Speaker 3: of give you that part of my journey, Katie, is
4:14
Speaker 3: to say that's the story of what sort of got
4:19
Speaker 3: me to where I am today.
4:22
Speaker 2: Would you have ever guessed that your social work major
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Speaker 2: would have translated into what you're doing now? No?
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Speaker 3: Well, funny because I was just I was talking with
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Speaker 3: one of my former executive coach and we were talking
4:35
Speaker 3: about where did you think you were going to be?
4:37
Speaker 3: And I found something from high school that said, where
4:41
Speaker 3: do you think you'll be in ten years? Do you
4:44
Speaker 3: know what my job was going to be is I
4:47
Speaker 3: was going to be running a homeless shelter in Colorado
4:50
Speaker 3: for youth. And I've spent time in the twenty five
4:55
Speaker 3: years working with lots of different populations and the homeless
4:58
Speaker 3: population is one of them. But yeah, there is something
5:02
Speaker 3: about this work. And I've always said, and you've probably
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Speaker 3: heard me say, like nobody woke up one day and
5:10
Speaker 3: said I want to be a houser. But there is
5:13
Speaker 3: a component I think when I look back at my
5:16
Speaker 3: journey that I think it was just embedded in my
5:18
Speaker 3: day when.
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Speaker 2: You were visiting your grandmother in that community. Take us
5:25
Speaker 2: back for a minute.
5:27
Speaker 3: I want to.
5:27
Speaker 2: I don't want to rush on here, because there's something
5:30
Speaker 2: important that you said when you talked about her access
5:34
Speaker 2: to food safety and housing, and now knowing what you
5:39
Speaker 2: know about what affordable housing does, take us back to
5:44
Speaker 2: something that you saw that was being provided there. What
5:50
Speaker 2: was that like as first knowing what you know now,
5:55
Speaker 2: what I.
5:55
Speaker 3: Know now and looking back at this shared experience of
5:59
Speaker 3: being a kid and watching my grandma. Was the vital
6:04
Speaker 3: role that public housing plays in people's lives. It is.
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Speaker 3: It's not just the sticks and bricks. It's not just
6:13
Speaker 3: the tower in the sky that's providing housing to four
6:16
Speaker 3: hundred seniors every single day. It's providing community, it's providing
6:23
Speaker 3: access transportation.
6:24
Speaker 2: So there was a bus that took.
6:26
Speaker 3: Them to to access food, to church, to shop, to
6:30
Speaker 3: their medical appointments, to the hairdresser. There was a hairdresser
6:34
Speaker 3: actually on site. There was two different community rooms, you know,
6:38
Speaker 3: one for watching television and one where not only did
6:42
Speaker 3: they play bingo, but they had programming that would come
6:47
Speaker 3: in specifically for seniors. They had a library, a rotating
6:53
Speaker 3: library coming in That was the hub. It was this
6:56
Speaker 3: massive place, but it was everything.
7:00
Speaker 2: You know.
7:00
Speaker 3: She could get foot care, you know, but the lady
7:03
Speaker 3: could do her hair, and she could have access to
7:05
Speaker 3: foot care, you know. And I said food right where
7:08
Speaker 3: the Federal Commodities program. If you were grew up in
7:11
Speaker 3: the seventies and eighties, you remember that program. And I've
7:14
Speaker 3: often said that the cheese from Commodities made the best
7:17
Speaker 3: grilled cheese sandwiches, Like there was something magical about my
7:20
Speaker 3: grandma's cheese sandwiches. But it was clear that public housing
7:26
Speaker 3: place of vital role in our communities.
7:31
Speaker 2: We just had an associate retreat at Kwanel and we
7:34
Speaker 2: actually talked about government cheese. And I'm telling you, I
7:38
Speaker 2: think there's a mixed verdict on whether any of us
7:41
Speaker 2: will eat anything like that ever again. So we may
7:46
Speaker 2: argue with you about the best grilled cheese with government cheese.
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Speaker 3: But well, and perhaps it was because I had never
7:52
Speaker 3: had anything like it, coming from dare say, a place
7:56
Speaker 3: of privilege, right and not having tasted any thing like that,
8:00
Speaker 3: it tasted magical to me.
8:02
Speaker 2: It's all of our perspective about that orange government cheese.
8:07
Speaker 2: But we digress here, So let's talk about your current
8:11
Speaker 2: role as the vice president of Operations and affordable Housing.
8:17
Speaker 2: Why don't we just start talking about Progress Residential. Tell
8:20
Speaker 2: us what you guys do and where you are, and
8:23
Speaker 2: then we'll talk about your role. Yeah.
8:26
Speaker 3: So Progress Residential is the largest single family rental operator
8:33
Speaker 3: in the country, so we operate over ninety thousand homes
8:39
Speaker 3: across the country. Our parent company is prettim and which
8:44
Speaker 3: is an equity based an investor, and so really Progress
8:49
Speaker 3: is the arm, the hub, the property operator of those
8:53
Speaker 3: single family rentals. And my role at Progress is fairly new.
8:59
Speaker 3: There was this opportunity that Progress and Prodium saw of
9:04
Speaker 3: looking at their scale, their size and scale, and really
9:09
Speaker 3: feeling that there's this responsibility, there's a social responsibility when
9:13
Speaker 3: you have that size and scale to be helpy a
9:15
Speaker 3: solution to the affordable housing crisis. And so I joined
9:20
Speaker 3: Progress and to really help shape what affordable housing opportunities
9:27
Speaker 3: it Progress could look like. I've said, I think I
9:30
Speaker 3: have the best job in the company because how fun
9:34
Speaker 3: is it to have the opportunity to be innovative and
9:38
Speaker 3: create new And since I've joined Progress, we've been in
9:45
Speaker 3: strategy and growth mode from an affordable housing standpoint, right
9:51
Speaker 3: where we're figuring this out. We've been taking the time
9:54
Speaker 3: to carefully leverage our companies capabilities to operationalize affordable housing
10:01
Speaker 3: in a company that operates over ninety thousand helps, and
10:05
Speaker 3: I've been laser focused on building out a team that's
10:08
Speaker 3: not only passionate about affordable housing, but has expertise in
10:12
Speaker 3: the field. We've been working on outreach and brand surrounding
10:17
Speaker 3: affordable housing. We actually hosted in three different up three
10:23
Speaker 3: different markets, in partnership with housing authorities, housing Choice Boucher
10:27
Speaker 3: applicant fares where we invited folks that were searching that
10:31
Speaker 3: had a Housing Choice voucher that we're searching for to
10:36
Speaker 3: you know, for a home to place their voucher, and
10:38
Speaker 3: we hosted fares to connect those boucher holders directly with
10:43
Speaker 3: the application process and for a home.
10:48
Speaker 2: Again.
10:48
Speaker 3: We've been creating partnerships with housing authorities other community partners
10:53
Speaker 3: again because I said we can't do this alone, and
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Speaker 3: then building the practices and policies to grow the portfolio
11:05
Speaker 3: to scale.
11:06
Speaker 2: Is there anything you can share about how you identify
11:10
Speaker 2: a market or when you're looking to grow and you're
11:13
Speaker 2: going through that decision process, what does that look like?
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Speaker 3: So I've been a student of mobility for years and
11:24
Speaker 3: passionate about creating real choice for families with vouchers. From
11:29
Speaker 3: the first research released by Raj Chetti and Nathaniel Hendron
11:33
Speaker 3: ten years ago that shows that having access to high
11:37
Speaker 3: opportunity neighborhoods can increase the chances for long term economic
11:41
Speaker 3: and social mobility to some of their most current research
11:45
Speaker 3: coming out of Seattle and King County again focused on
11:49
Speaker 3: looking at why families aren't able to access neighborhoods of
11:54
Speaker 3: opportunities and studying the barriers. And I'm excited because that
11:58
Speaker 3: research is ten years old, came out from Cheddy and
12:02
Speaker 3: we're finally talking about it.
12:03
Speaker 2: Right. How is putting.
12:04
Speaker 3: Dollars behind it? And I feel like as as the industry,
12:10
Speaker 3: we're finally getting it. And I have a point here, Katie,
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Speaker 3: But if we're actually going to move the needle, we
12:16
Speaker 3: have to look at policies and create actual systems change
12:20
Speaker 3: and I think mobility programs do that. So I say
12:23
Speaker 3: that because we've got opportunity at progress, we offer single
12:29
Speaker 3: family homes mixed within a variety of neighborhoods and a
12:35
Speaker 3: variety of communities. When it got to progress, I knew
12:39
Speaker 3: that we had this opportunity to pull and create a
12:42
Speaker 3: strategy centered around choice housing choice Boucher. We both know
12:48
Speaker 3: there's not always choice when it comes to the housing
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Speaker 3: Choice Boucher program. An opportunity and it was one we
12:54
Speaker 3: could build on. And so as we're evaluating markets in
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Speaker 3: the market that we operate in, we're analyzing the data
13:03
Speaker 3: on neighborhoods. We're using either in house data analytics. The
13:07
Speaker 3: wonderful thing about progress is I have access to so
13:10
Speaker 3: much data, and as a data geek, some days I
13:13
Speaker 3: feel like it's a dream come true. But I'm also
13:17
Speaker 3: using tools like the Opportunity Index that lots of practitioners
13:22
Speaker 3: in mobility are using that help me evaluate communities, neighborhoods,
13:27
Speaker 3: zip codes that would provide families with greater opportunity. So
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Speaker 3: when I'm talking about my strategy talk Katie, I'm really
13:34
Speaker 3: it is centered around neighborhood and it's centered around low crime,
13:40
Speaker 3: low poverty, green space, neighborhood rich amenities, all of those
13:44
Speaker 3: things that sort of that Mobility study has been centered
13:48
Speaker 3: around where families are going to thrive, where we can
13:52
Speaker 3: actually see the end of generational poverty by families having
13:57
Speaker 3: access to zip codes of opportunity.
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Speaker 2: What are the challenges that you're seeing in the single
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Speaker 2: family rental market.
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Speaker 3: One of the key challenges from single family rental market,
14:11
Speaker 3: honestly is awareness. People don't think of single family rentals
14:16
Speaker 3: when they think of affordable of affordable housing, and we
14:22
Speaker 3: think that's a missed opportunity. Single family rentals have been
14:26
Speaker 3: roughly thirty percent of the US rental housing stock. I
14:29
Speaker 3: didn't know that before I started at Progress, and for
14:32
Speaker 3: decades they have been located in higher opportunities, right. So
14:38
Speaker 3: again it goes back to this is such an opportunity,
14:43
Speaker 3: and particularly when we talk about affordable housing for this
14:47
Speaker 3: perfect public private partnership that just hasn't been talked about.
14:54
Speaker 3: When I think about the other opportunities and challenges, I
15:00
Speaker 3: think about that nuance of working with the public housing authority.
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Speaker 3: Right from an affordability standpoint, our first sort of strategy
15:09
Speaker 3: has been the acceptance of housing choice vouchers. And while
15:14
Speaker 3: I know that sounds elementary to some of the listeners
15:17
Speaker 3: of like, well, yeah, of course accepting the housing choice voucher,
15:21
Speaker 3: But when you think about the nuances that go along
15:24
Speaker 3: with the housing choice voucher program, red tape. You You
15:28
Speaker 3: and I have talked about that, and when you operate
15:32
Speaker 3: in a large capacity, it's different, right, And so we've
15:37
Speaker 3: got relationships with one hundred over one hundred housing authorities,
15:41
Speaker 3: So think about that, different admin plans, different policies, different practices,
15:46
Speaker 3: things that they require is different for every single housing authority.
15:52
Speaker 3: And so I spend time analyzing their practices and thinking
15:58
Speaker 3: about how are they utilizing technology or standardbacks practices to
16:03
Speaker 3: reduce the time that it takes to get a family
16:06
Speaker 3: moved in. How quickly can they get an application approved?
16:09
Speaker 3: Is the inspection scheduled and completed within four to seven days?
16:15
Speaker 3: How quickly do you get a contract executed and the
16:18
Speaker 3: payment in? And those are all critical from an operator side, right.
16:24
Speaker 3: I've sat on the other side, which makes it me
16:26
Speaker 3: dually dangerous some days of knowing the operator side as
16:31
Speaker 3: well as the practitioners side. Those are the challenges. And
16:36
Speaker 3: then I think the opportunity is how do we work
16:39
Speaker 3: with housing authorities to be able to make sure that
16:43
Speaker 3: we can provide. Again, we're a landlord coming to say
16:47
Speaker 3: we would like to participate in this program. We want
16:50
Speaker 3: to provide choice and opportunity and looking at what housing
16:55
Speaker 3: authorities are going to be the best partner based on
16:58
Speaker 3: best practices. I was thinking about the panel that you
17:03
Speaker 3: and I participated on in Narrow This Fall where we
17:07
Speaker 3: talked about barriers to landlord participation and so much of
17:12
Speaker 3: it now sitting on the other side as a program
17:16
Speaker 3: operators saying I wish I would know. I wish I
17:19
Speaker 3: would have known then what I know now because I
17:24
Speaker 3: would have ran my voucher program far more landlords friendly,
17:30
Speaker 3: far more like a business than that I did then.
17:34
Speaker 3: Is remove any barriers that make it difficult for a
17:38
Speaker 3: landlord to participate, because in the end, what you're trying
17:42
Speaker 3: to do is create that access for families to have
17:45
Speaker 3: choice to live where they want to live. And I
17:47
Speaker 3: think about the book The Price of Bureaucracy, and there's
17:51
Speaker 3: so many good lessons there learned as well in regards
17:54
Speaker 3: to what we can do as housing choice voucher administrators
17:57
Speaker 3: or executive directors of housing authority is to make it
18:01
Speaker 3: easier to partner with housing authorities.
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Speaker 2: Your experience in public housing is perfect for this role
18:10
Speaker 2: because you do get both sides of it, and you
18:12
Speaker 2: can also look and say, you know you need to
18:14
Speaker 2: be regulatory compliant, but you also don't want to create
18:17
Speaker 2: these unneeded barriers to conducting business and going through the
18:22
Speaker 2: metrics of what does that mean? Faster inspection time, ease
18:26
Speaker 2: of paperwork, and you've got a whole different viewpoint that
18:30
Speaker 2: you just described. It's really exciting to hear landlords pursuing
18:36
Speaker 2: some of these relationships and hopefully housing authorities moving forward
18:41
Speaker 2: on the technology improvements or the processing improvement. Are there
18:45
Speaker 2: any other initiatives at Progress Residential that you're really excited
18:50
Speaker 2: about that you're able to share.
18:52
Speaker 3: One of the things that I'm really excited about is
18:55
Speaker 3: our partnership with a company called a Suzu fintech company
19:01
Speaker 3: that reports on time rental payments to credit bureaus. And
19:07
Speaker 3: what that does is it helps residents build credit. It
19:12
Speaker 3: helps them improve their financial wellness. And the one thing
19:15
Speaker 3: that you know, I think is just critical and vital
19:20
Speaker 3: from just an equity standpoint is building wealth. So having
19:25
Speaker 3: access to building your credit when you're a renter is
19:29
Speaker 3: sometimes very difficult. We partnered with Asuzu. It happened right
19:34
Speaker 3: before I joined Progress. I think it happened that summer,
19:37
Speaker 3: and I joined Progress in October of twenty twenty two.
19:40
Speaker 3: But last year, so just a twelve month stat one
19:44
Speaker 3: hundred and eighty thousand residents participated. Fifty three percent of
19:49
Speaker 3: them experienced an increase in their credit scores and an
19:54
Speaker 3: average score improvement, so they improve their credit score by
19:59
Speaker 3: forty three points. And here's the goosebumps is that more
20:04
Speaker 3: than seventy eight hundred residents established first time credit, meaning
20:09
Speaker 3: they're no longer credit invisible, which I think is a
20:12
Speaker 3: big milestone when you think about financial independence for families.
20:18
Speaker 2: Any other community partnerships that you want to do shout
20:20
Speaker 2: out or something you want to highlight to doing.
20:23
Speaker 3: One of the things that I think I'm really really
20:27
Speaker 3: proud of is we were called to the table end
20:32
Speaker 3: of twenty twenty two with our parent company Predim in
20:37
Speaker 3: the city of Atlanta, and there was, and some of
20:41
Speaker 3: you may have read about this in the news, there's
20:43
Speaker 3: a project based development in Atlanta that was found uninhabitable.
20:50
Speaker 3: The really the conditions were very unfavorable and they were
20:56
Speaker 3: home to one hundred and ninety eight families and it
21:01
Speaker 3: was condemned right and so they had to quickly be
21:07
Speaker 3: relocated to safe housing, and so we were asked to
21:11
Speaker 3: come to the table. We worked in partnership with the
21:14
Speaker 3: city and several communities to successfully locate close to forty
21:19
Speaker 3: families into single family homes in neighborhoods that had much
21:26
Speaker 3: lower poverty, better schools, and less crime. And so they've
21:31
Speaker 3: been living in a beautiful progress home now for well
21:36
Speaker 3: over a year, and HUDD has issued finally tenant protection
21:42
Speaker 3: vouchers to all one hundred and ninety eight of those
21:46
Speaker 3: families in Atlanta, and so now these families are able
21:50
Speaker 3: to have permanently affordable housing. It's something I mean, it
21:55
Speaker 3: was really out of the box thinking for our company
21:58
Speaker 3: to be able to be part of community solution, and
22:01
Speaker 3: not only that, but to be able to answer the
22:06
Speaker 3: call and to be able to do it quickly.
22:09
Speaker 2: Wow, that's impressive. And you know, we talk in terms
22:13
Speaker 2: of one hundred and ninety eight tenant protection voutures, but
22:16
Speaker 2: we don't realize the scale of the household, of the individual,
22:20
Speaker 2: of the move, of the voucher, of the school, and
22:23
Speaker 2: all the repel effects. So that's a big job right there.
22:28
Speaker 2: Just the relocation alone would have been plenty, but then
22:32
Speaker 2: to go through the rest of the pieces of this
22:35
Speaker 2: is a major impact for you guys and for the
22:38
Speaker 2: lives of everyone who received that.
22:41
Speaker 3: Yeah, what's really exciting is that the families that relocated
22:45
Speaker 3: into a Progress home over overwhelmingly want to stay. They've
22:51
Speaker 3: they've embraced their new community. Is a wonderful end of
22:55
Speaker 3: the story for those families that, like you said, they
22:59
Speaker 3: left a community right and had to go. And again,
23:03
Speaker 3: being in single family rental can be lonely, right, it's
23:06
Speaker 3: not multifamily, and you don't have your neighbors around you,
23:09
Speaker 3: and so it is it's a bit of an adjustment
23:12
Speaker 3: for somebody that has lived maybe always in multi family housing.
23:18
Speaker 2: So, Jennifer, could you take out your crystal ball and
23:22
Speaker 2: predict the future and impact of Progress Residential in the
23:26
Speaker 2: next five years.
23:27
Speaker 3: I'm excited of the growth that we've had. I think
23:32
Speaker 3: the partnerships that we're continuing to build with those local
23:36
Speaker 3: housing authorities we are trying to build also partnerships and
23:43
Speaker 3: relationships with our city officials. We know that many cities
23:48
Speaker 3: have affordable housing plans, they have affordable housing goals, and
23:53
Speaker 3: again bringing in how can we be a partner in
23:57
Speaker 3: a public private partnership, how can we help the city
24:00
Speaker 3: meet their affordable housing goals? And so it's creating those
24:04
Speaker 3: partnerships and creating more opportunity right through I think a
24:10
Speaker 3: variety of affordable housing options. You know, the acceptance of
24:13
Speaker 3: the voucher is just one, but if you know, if
24:16
Speaker 3: there's a housing authority that is a moving to work agency,
24:20
Speaker 3: think about being able to be part of a solution
24:25
Speaker 3: that's really local and where a housing authority could create
24:30
Speaker 3: a program that meets their local needs and we could
24:36
Speaker 3: be a partner in that in some way. So I
24:39
Speaker 3: don't have I don't have this crystal ball of like
24:42
Speaker 3: I want nine thousand units or twelve or you know
24:45
Speaker 3: half of I don't have that. But what gets me
24:49
Speaker 3: up every morning is to know how much potential there
24:54
Speaker 3: is because of the seat that I'm sitting in and
24:58
Speaker 3: the company that I that I work for, there's a
25:01
Speaker 3: lot of opportunity to make really good change in communities.
25:06
Speaker 2: That's very encouraging and exciting. Isn't it to actually be
25:09
Speaker 2: in a position at a company that can make that happen.
25:12
Speaker 3: And is dedicated to it.
25:14
Speaker 2: Mm hmm. Let me take a step back and go
25:19
Speaker 2: back before your progress residential days, because you've been a
25:23
Speaker 2: change maker and your other role as the deputy executive
25:26
Speaker 2: director when you were in Minneapolis too, And it's so
25:29
Speaker 2: interesting that both of these have some key components to
25:33
Speaker 2: what you're doing. Reflect on your days in Minneapolis and
25:38
Speaker 2: maybe how that built for your current endeavors, not just
25:43
Speaker 2: I mean the operational and the experience you know, and
25:47
Speaker 2: the compliance pieces, but do you want to reflect on
25:50
Speaker 2: any lessons learned from when you were in Minneapolis and
25:53
Speaker 2: what that means in your current endeavors.
25:56
Speaker 3: My time at Minneapolis it was during I get goosebumps
26:01
Speaker 3: when I think about it, Katie. It was during the
26:04
Speaker 3: most pivotal moments in our country's history, global pandemic and
26:11
Speaker 3: a time of social unrest. Minneapolis was the epicenter, with
26:15
Speaker 3: the murder of George Floyd right in my city. And
26:18
Speaker 3: when you are a houser, these types of events don't
26:24
Speaker 3: stop your critical and essential work. You have to continue
26:30
Speaker 3: every day because your job is to provide affordable housing.
26:37
Speaker 3: And in times like that time we were living in
26:42
Speaker 3: it almost seems surreal, but safety became paramount. Safety was everything.
26:50
Speaker 3: MPH houses roughly twenty six thousand residents each and every night,
26:57
Speaker 3: forty two high rises and about I would say, I
27:00
Speaker 3: think they had like eight hundred to one thousand single
27:02
Speaker 3: family rentals peppered in every district in the city, and
27:07
Speaker 3: so they had a huge footprint. And in times like that,
27:11
Speaker 3: it was it was like operating in crisis mode the
27:16
Speaker 3: entire time. During that we still closed a demo disto
27:22
Speaker 3: on our single family rental and did you know so
27:25
Speaker 3: did a Section eighteen conversion, and did and did project
27:28
Speaker 3: based vouchers. We did our first rad high rise and
27:33
Speaker 3: added units to the city. And every day I would
27:37
Speaker 3: say to myself and I would say to our team,
27:40
Speaker 3: we can do hard things. It became our mantra. We
27:44
Speaker 3: had to We didn't have a choice. We didn't have
27:47
Speaker 3: a choice. We pulled together healing circles for employees because
27:52
Speaker 3: the level of trauma was so high. I testified before
27:57
Speaker 3: Congress during that time. We implemented incident command structures that
28:02
Speaker 3: hadn't been in place that needed to be in place.
28:05
Speaker 3: We developed a long term investment strategy and looking at
28:11
Speaker 3: ways to design different innovative programs that met what our
28:16
Speaker 3: city needed. Because we were moving to work agency, we
28:19
Speaker 3: had some local control. And I think my lesson through
28:23
Speaker 3: all of that is a we can do hard things.
28:25
Speaker 3: We have to do hard things, but also you have
28:29
Speaker 3: to pivot. You have to be nimble and strategic at
28:33
Speaker 3: the same time. You can't you can't let one or
28:36
Speaker 3: the other dominate. You have to be nimble and strategic
28:40
Speaker 3: at the same time. And I think all of those
28:43
Speaker 3: experiences of things being thrown at you catch it, react
28:49
Speaker 3: and say this is what we're going to do. We're
28:51
Speaker 3: going to do this is is really helped shape me
28:56
Speaker 3: into the leader that I am working in in a
29:00
Speaker 3: private sector where being nimble is absolutely essential.
29:05
Speaker 2: And talking about a management mantra that doesn't always spit
29:10
Speaker 2: within the org structure of a government agency though, so
29:15
Speaker 2: it's interesting to hear you describe the needs of the
29:18
Speaker 2: community and the needs of what was happening and then
29:21
Speaker 2: being in the leadership position to make that happen.
29:25
Speaker 3: Katie, I think back to the community response that was required,
29:30
Speaker 3: not just with the twenty six thousand residents, but the
29:35
Speaker 3: true responsibility of those three hundred employees every day, whether
29:41
Speaker 3: it was safety because just like many urban cities, you know,
29:45
Speaker 3: we were seeing an uptick in in personal violence, and
29:50
Speaker 3: so just making you know, every night, just praying that
29:54
Speaker 3: my residents were safe and my employees were safe. And
29:58
Speaker 3: then again, like I said, then there's the whole emotional
30:01
Speaker 3: trauma that goes along with that and making sure that
30:05
Speaker 3: the employee is, you know, just they felt safe. Psychological
30:10
Speaker 3: safety play is a huge role in productivity of your employees.
30:17
Speaker 2: So I want to change here because you have been
30:22
Speaker 2: a Narrow advocate for so long. You just won the
30:26
Speaker 2: Narro's Advocacy Award, which from people who don't know, is
30:31
Speaker 2: something the equivalent to a Grammy. It is big league,
30:34
Speaker 2: big time, and just hearing you describe the things you've
30:40
Speaker 2: done over your career, it is no wonder that you
30:43
Speaker 2: have been awarded this industry Grammy, this Narro Advocacy Award,
30:49
Speaker 2: and obviously advocacy is a passion of yours. I was
30:54
Speaker 2: in the audience when you got it. I was one
30:57
Speaker 2: of the tons of people trying to take your photo
31:00
Speaker 2: op and get your signature and congratulate you. Reflect on
31:06
Speaker 2: that I've got you here, I have to ask what
31:09
Speaker 2: it felt like to win the award, but also what
31:13
Speaker 2: it was like on that journey leading into that award
31:16
Speaker 2: with all of your advocacy efforts.
31:19
Speaker 3: Well, I was shocked and surprised. I think they the
31:23
Speaker 3: Narrow team definitely. I kept asking who you know, do
31:29
Speaker 3: we have an award winner. I haven't had any applications
31:32
Speaker 3: to judge, and she kept telling me not to worry
31:35
Speaker 3: about it, and well, there was a reason not to
31:37
Speaker 3: worry about it because they were going to surprise me
31:40
Speaker 3: and it was an honor. Again, back to why advocacy's
31:45
Speaker 3: importants is. I think back to that high rise in
31:48
Speaker 3: Albert Lee, Minnesota that was home to my grandma and
31:53
Speaker 3: all of these people that really deserved an amazing place
31:58
Speaker 3: to call home. And knowing that so many of the
32:02
Speaker 3: people that we that we serve in affordable housing or
32:08
Speaker 3: in assisted housing, whatever language you want to use, have
32:13
Speaker 3: been voiceless. I've always thought whether I held this position
32:18
Speaker 3: of leader, you know, at my organization, but maybe it's
32:23
Speaker 3: my social work roots, but I've always felt that we
32:27
Speaker 3: hold this responsibility to be an advocate. So I don't
32:32
Speaker 3: think it matters if you're a frontline administrative assistant at
32:37
Speaker 3: the housing authority or you are the executive director at
32:40
Speaker 3: the housing authority. We share the same mission, and our
32:44
Speaker 3: mission is to be the voice of not just the
32:47
Speaker 3: agency because we need to fight for the funding right
32:50
Speaker 3: and and and different policies, but we're being the voice
32:54
Speaker 3: of our residents that for so many years haven't been
32:58
Speaker 3: provided the opportunity to advocate and to speak for themselves.
33:04
Speaker 3: And so I think we have learned over the years
33:10
Speaker 3: that we can't rely on hope. We saw in my career,
33:15
Speaker 3: we've seen some of the darkest and deepest cuts come
33:21
Speaker 3: through public housing and through the voucher program, cuts that
33:26
Speaker 3: resulted in if you remember sequestration, the result of seventy
33:30
Speaker 3: thousand vouchers lost nationally, and Katie, I don't think our
33:36
Speaker 3: voices were loud enough back then. I just don't think
33:39
Speaker 3: they were. We weren't yelling from the rooftops. We weren't
33:43
Speaker 3: explaining to Congress why we needed administrative fees to be
33:46
Speaker 3: able to keep our doors open. I remember sitting at
33:50
Speaker 3: a round table at our state Chapter Association meeting and
33:54
Speaker 3: there was a housing authority that told me to cut costs.
33:58
Speaker 3: They had shut down the trash service to their central
34:02
Speaker 3: office and she was taking the trash home. That's what
34:06
Speaker 3: our administrative fees are for, right there, for so many things,
34:11
Speaker 3: And so I just think that we have to have
34:14
Speaker 3: a strategy when it comes to Congress, because if we
34:18
Speaker 3: don't tell the story right in storytelling is so incredibly important.
34:23
Speaker 3: There will be another narrative, and there will be another
34:26
Speaker 3: story that's told on our behalf that they will listen to, right,
34:31
Speaker 3: and so getting ahead of it. I think we've done
34:33
Speaker 3: such such a good job in the last six years.
34:39
Speaker 3: And I say that only because I was the Ledged chair,
34:41
Speaker 3: Just kidding, but I think we've done this really concerted
34:46
Speaker 3: effort through narrow Is to build that advocacy base, and
34:51
Speaker 3: we grew our advocacy base by over three hundred percent
34:56
Speaker 3: and at one point sending over fifty thousand letters to
35:00
Speaker 3: Congress and Katie, it's no surprise that when you do that,
35:06
Speaker 3: you yield results. Guess what happened. We saw restoration to
35:12
Speaker 3: public housing dollars, We saw restoration to the housing Choice
35:16
Speaker 3: VOUTRA administrative dollars. We saw where it was going to
35:19
Speaker 3: be across the board cuts to the home and cd
35:21
Speaker 3: BG not happen and actually get increases in dollars. That's
35:25
Speaker 3: because of dedicated, consistent storytelling. So advocacy. There's no room
35:32
Speaker 3: for complace for being complacent in this work, and you
35:38
Speaker 3: have to carve out the time to be an advocate
35:42
Speaker 3: because if you don't, you will see those results and
35:45
Speaker 3: they won't be the results that will help you leverage
35:49
Speaker 3: the programs that our community needs.
35:52
Speaker 2: You also received the Distinguished Service Regional NARO Award, the
35:57
Speaker 2: Charles A. Thompson Award. What did that mean for you?
36:00
Speaker 2: And what was sururrounding that award?
36:04
Speaker 3: So again a bit of a surprise. And when I
36:09
Speaker 3: accepted the award, I joked that if you win an
36:13
Speaker 3: award with someone's name on it, I thought that, you know,
36:16
Speaker 3: because I remember sitting in the audience twenty years ago thinking, gosh,
36:19
Speaker 3: these people probably have been doing this work for a
36:22
Speaker 3: really long time. And as I'm receiving this award, this
36:26
Speaker 3: says Charles A. Thompson on it, I thought, that's me. Now,
36:29
Speaker 3: I've been doing this work for a really long time.
36:32
Speaker 3: Oh my gosh, that's me. But I thought about the people.
36:37
Speaker 3: We have a very like narrow whether it's at the state,
36:40
Speaker 3: the region or the national level, very close community.
36:45
Speaker 1: Right.
36:45
Speaker 3: We always say we're Narro family. And I remember sitting
36:49
Speaker 3: in the audience when so many amazing leaders received that
36:55
Speaker 3: award before me, and people that to me in as
37:00
Speaker 3: an and we're a source of inspiration mentor you know,
37:05
Speaker 3: took me, like I said, took me under their wing.
37:07
Speaker 3: You know Jim Ingles from Michigan who retired several years ago.
37:12
Speaker 3: I remember when he received that award, and I remember
37:15
Speaker 3: when Sheila Miller from Nebraska received that award. There were
37:20
Speaker 3: so many people that I'm standing on their shoulders, and
37:23
Speaker 3: so I stood up there just honored to think, Wow,
37:28
Speaker 3: somebody thought so highly of work that that I do
37:34
Speaker 3: because it means a lot, right, it's it's it's again,
37:38
Speaker 3: it's part of my DNA and I'm passionate about it
37:41
Speaker 3: and it's critical, and we don't do it for accolades.
37:45
Speaker 3: We do it because we love it. And so it
37:49
Speaker 3: was I think just an honor to stand stand on
37:53
Speaker 3: the shoulders and receive receive it in front of my
37:56
Speaker 3: narrow family.
37:57
Speaker 2: Speaking of NARO, one more thing I want to mention
38:01
Speaker 2: you have been involved with us for the women of
38:04
Speaker 2: empowerment at NARA. We've done too so far and reflect
38:11
Speaker 2: what that has meant to you and what you've seen
38:14
Speaker 2: come of that.
38:16
Speaker 3: So I remember having a conversation with our past president,
38:20
Speaker 3: Sunny Shaw, and we were talking about why don't more
38:26
Speaker 3: women jump into the role of executive director and CEO
38:30
Speaker 3: of housing authorities? And then we were looking at where
38:34
Speaker 3: are the job opportunities for either of us, right and
38:38
Speaker 3: thinking about some of our sister colleagues and looking at
38:41
Speaker 3: what would be opportunities. Most of those opportunities, Katie, would
38:45
Speaker 3: require you to pack your home and your family and relocate.
38:51
Speaker 3: And guess what men have done that their entire careers.
38:54
Speaker 2: They've packed up their.
38:55
Speaker 3: Families and they've done that. But as women, that hasn't
39:00
Speaker 3: been a consideration. And only recently our colleague Ivory Matthews
39:06
Speaker 3: packed herself up from South Carolina and relocated to home
39:10
Speaker 3: forward and now she's reunited with her family, but she
39:13
Speaker 3: lived by coastal for a period of time. But thinking
39:18
Speaker 3: about we need to create space for women to talk
39:23
Speaker 3: about these realities, particularly as more women want to be
39:30
Speaker 3: executive directors, they want to be CEOs of housing authorities
39:34
Speaker 3: or high level leaders in housing authorities, and how do
39:38
Speaker 3: we foster that empowerment and also just talking about the
39:43
Speaker 3: fact that it is very different to be a woman
39:46
Speaker 3: in leadership than it is for a man. And to
39:49
Speaker 3: have had this place that's that's safe and empowering. And
39:54
Speaker 3: you know what I said, we were sparking this sisterhood
39:58
Speaker 3: and when when I looked around and I was listening
40:03
Speaker 3: to the table conversations. So many stories were similar right
40:08
Speaker 3: where we talked about feeling guilty because we had to
40:11
Speaker 3: leave to go to a kid's activity, or conferences at school,
40:17
Speaker 3: or a doctor's appointment. And there were so many women
40:22
Speaker 3: Katie that talked about keeping the light on in their
40:26
Speaker 3: office instead of turning it off, saying gotta go. I've
40:30
Speaker 3: got to go watch Connor at baseball practice. It was
40:35
Speaker 3: I'm going to leave my light on. I'm hoping that
40:37
Speaker 3: nobody sees me that I've left half an hour early,
40:41
Speaker 3: and knowing that I don't think our male counterparts experienced
40:47
Speaker 3: that same thing. And so that's why this Women of
40:52
Speaker 3: Narrow is so important. Is we need a place and
40:56
Speaker 3: to be able to encourage each other and talk about
40:59
Speaker 3: shared experiences.
41:01
Speaker 2: Well, I have you here talking about shared experiences and
41:04
Speaker 2: shared wisdom. I want to just ask you, what advice
41:09
Speaker 2: would you give somebody who is in affordable housing right now?
41:16
Speaker 2: They're listening to you and your experiences and your awards,
41:20
Speaker 2: and they're trying to measure up or they're trying to
41:24
Speaker 2: plot their career path knowing that the daily is a challenge.
41:30
Speaker 2: Is there advice that you would give them that maybe
41:35
Speaker 2: you wish you had heard.
41:37
Speaker 3: Oh, there's a few things. And one of the best
41:41
Speaker 3: things I did for myself was put myself in experiences
41:49
Speaker 3: or conversations or conferences trainings that may not have applied
41:57
Speaker 3: to what I was doing that day. I started to
42:01
Speaker 3: think about and I call it looking beyond your desk.
42:05
Speaker 3: Don't think about the files that you have to process
42:09
Speaker 3: or that every training that I'm going to go to,
42:12
Speaker 3: whether it's at a NURO conference or another conference, doesn't
42:16
Speaker 3: have to always be practitioner related to the work I'm
42:18
Speaker 3: doing today. Seeing beyond your desk means stepping into the
42:25
Speaker 3: executive directors round table or going to a session that's
42:30
Speaker 3: geared towards housing traits about your directors when you're a
42:34
Speaker 3: housing coordinator, learning the language, starting to understand leadership. And
42:42
Speaker 3: so when I've had the opportunity to mentor to mentor people,
42:47
Speaker 3: that's my biggest piece of advice is take every opportunity
42:53
Speaker 3: you can to learn and grow. And when you're presented
42:58
Speaker 3: opportunities like attending a con friends is, don't always go
43:02
Speaker 3: to the thing that's going to benefit you today. Think
43:04
Speaker 3: about your tomorrow. And I firmly believe, Katie, that that
43:08
Speaker 3: helped the trajectory of my career path because when I
43:13
Speaker 3: started listening in and I understood, I was like, I
43:17
Speaker 3: get the math of a housing choice about your utilization.
43:20
Speaker 3: I remember sitting in my first HCB utilization conversation with
43:25
Speaker 3: Jonathan Zimmerman from who was at Narrow at the time,
43:28
Speaker 3: and grabbing him after class, going, my head is spinning.
43:32
Speaker 3: Do you have five spinutes? Like? I need to download
43:35
Speaker 3: this with you. I was frontline staff, Katie, but recalling
43:40
Speaker 3: as I wanted more opportunities to grow at the housing authority.
43:44
Speaker 3: I spent fourteen years at my first housing authority, started
43:47
Speaker 3: as frontline staff, left as director, and I firmly believe
43:53
Speaker 3: it's because I was able to go, oh, I remember
43:57
Speaker 3: they talked about this, and I could go to my
44:00
Speaker 3: director or my supervisor and say, here's a strategy that
44:03
Speaker 3: I heard them talking about that will help us not
44:06
Speaker 3: go into shortfall or and and so that that's a
44:10
Speaker 3: huge piece of advice. The other thing is resiliency. I
44:16
Speaker 3: think at any level of where you're at within your
44:19
Speaker 3: journey is you have to learn resiliency. And again I
44:23
Speaker 3: think that many of us really had to dig into that,
44:27
Speaker 3: particularly during the pandemic, but knowing, you know, knowing that
44:37
Speaker 3: you are a part of something bigger. You know, particularly
44:42
Speaker 3: when you're you're in affordable housing and you're a servant leader,
44:46
Speaker 3: you get that that end of the day is is
44:49
Speaker 3: what drives you, know, what drives you is you have
44:51
Speaker 3: to know that your purpose is bigger than you.
44:56
Speaker 2: And that resiliency piece is really hard because there's not
44:59
Speaker 2: a lot of checklists and manuals and road maps, and
45:03
Speaker 2: quite honestly, their lessons learned the hard way. That is
45:07
Speaker 2: not a comfortable space that many people like to be
45:10
Speaker 2: in personally or professionally. So that's a really really difficult
45:16
Speaker 2: one for people in their journeys to say It's okay
45:22
Speaker 2: to learn lessons the hard way. It's okay to build
45:26
Speaker 2: up professional muscle and with each experience realize what worked
45:33
Speaker 2: and didn't work and then have a continual feedback loop,
45:37
Speaker 2: isn't it? I mean that right there is just unique
45:41
Speaker 2: to have somebody who's going to embrace that instead of
45:44
Speaker 2: staying safe and shine away from that.
45:47
Speaker 3: Yeah, the word I would use is you have to
45:49
Speaker 3: be able to lean in and ever more paramount obviously
45:53
Speaker 3: as a leader, but I watched my team no matter
45:58
Speaker 3: what job they had that they held within the organization.
46:03
Speaker 3: Pete Dang resilient over really really hard time in our
46:08
Speaker 3: country's history.
46:10
Speaker 2: We have been talking with Jennifer Keo, the vice president
46:13
Speaker 2: of Operations and affordable Housing at Progress Residential. Jennifer, you
46:18
Speaker 2: have been a wealth of information and wisdom. I thank
46:21
Speaker 2: you for your time in joining us on the change
46:24
Speaker 2: Maker Podcast.
46:26
Speaker 3: Thank you, Katie.
46:28
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to change Makers with Katie Gore. To
46:31
Speaker 1: find out more about Katie, go to quadel dot com.
46:35
Speaker 1: That's quad El dot com. This has been a production
46:40
Speaker 1: of Forbes Books Radio