Rethink Real Estate. For Good.

Equity

Are investors to blame?

“About 2.5 million households shopping for a first home will be shut out of the market this year, estimates Nadia Evangelou, senior economist with the National Association of Realtors. That amounts to 15 percent of all first-time home buyers. In an already daunting market, investor purchasing is adding to the obstacles.” Writes Sophie Kasakove for The New York Times.

Large investment companies as well as smaller local owners are buying up homes all over the US, and their share of the housing market is growing. According to Redfin, the fourth quarter of 2021 saw investors buy an average of 18.4 percent of homes, a rise of 12.6 percent over the previous year. In the Sun Belt metro areas that share was greater than 30 percent. Significant rent increases have been a result of this buying frenzy by investors. Driven by inflation as well as pandemic demand median rents in some cities rose by 30% or more in 2021. Those rent increases have provided massive profits for landlords and pain for renters.

This growing trend brings many problems. As rents outstrip wages, people face the choice of paying a much larger portion of wages in rent than they can afford or simply having to move. There are other issues for renters too. Some studies have found that large corporate landlords are more likely to raise rents, poorly maintain properties or evict tenants. Renting just doesn’t provide the long-term stability or the opportunity to build wealth that home ownership does.

While some proposals have been made – like subsidizing housing or legislating to curtail corporate homeownership – nothing concrete has yet been set in motion. For now, home buyers can only hope that they will not be pushed to the brink.

Read the original article here.

Image by Erik Mclean from Pexels, modified

Slaying Gentrification.

David Kemper wanted to find a way to safeguard established renters against gentrification. His goal was to build a real-estate investment model that both stabilized existing rents and gave a voice to that community. Too many have suffered from racism and disinvestment in their neighborhoods. Across the country, communities are being torn apart because residents are being priced out of the neighborhoods they have called home for decades. Just as resources and new opportunities come to a community, its longtime inhabitants often get pushed out.

So David and his team are working towards an alternative: cities with inclusive, mixed-income neighborhoods. These diverse and dynamic neighborhoods will deliver better economic, social, and health outcomes, especially for lower-income residents. The model they have developed, MINT (or Mixed-Income Neighborhood Trust), is a sophisticated and replicable ownership model. Each MINT develops, owns, and operates a rental housing and retail portfolio. MINTs harness the money coming into communities to keep rent affordable for existing residents. Trust Neighborhoods, David’s non-profit, works with neighborhood-focused organizations to facilitate the formation of each MINT with the goal of a self-sustaining organization, run by the neighborhoods themselves. This gives neighborhoods equal footing with developers contributing to the gentrification taking place.

David and his co-founders started Trust Neighborhoods in 2019 and have since launched three MINT pilots in Kansas City, Missouri and in Tulsa, Oklahoma and Fresno, California. They have already shown to be beneficial. But they are just getting started. Neighborhood Trust is growing, and they hope to work with neighborhoods across the country, forming MINTs in each city and protecting community members who have too often been overlooked. 

Read the podcast transcript here

Eve Picker: [00:00:08] Hi there. Thanks for joining me on Rethink Real Estate. For Good. I’m Eve Picker and I’m on a mission to make real estate work for everyone. I love real estate. Real estate makes places good or bad, rich or poor, beautiful or not. In this show, I’m interviewing the disruptors, those creative thinkers and doers that are shrugging off the status quo, in order to build better for everyone. If you haven’t already, check out all of my podcasts at our website RethinkRealEstateForGood.co, or you can find them at your favorite podcast station. You’ll find lots worth listening to, I’m sure.

Eve: [00:01:00] David Kemper wanted to find a way to safeguard established renters against gentrification. His goal was to build a real estate investment model that both stabilized existing rents and gave a voice to that community. The model he landed on, MINT, or mixed income Neighborhood Trust, is a sophisticated and replicable ownership model. Each MINT develops, owns and operates a rental housing and retail portfolio. Trust Neighborhoods, David’s non-profit, works with neighborhood focused organizations to facilitate the formation of each MINT, with the goal of creating a self-sustaining organization run by the neighborhoods themselves. Trust Neighborhoods is still new, but David has said that they hope to expand their reach and work with neighborhoods around the country. Listen in to learn more.

Eve: [00:02:01] If you’d like to join me in my quest to rethink real estate, there are two simple things you can do, share this podcast and go torethinkrealestateforgood.co, where you can subscribe to be the first to hear about my podcasts, blog posts and other goodies.

Eve: [00:02:30] Hello, David. Thanks very much for joining me today.

David Kemper: [00:02:33] Thanks very much for having me on.

Eve: [00:02:35] You launched something called Trust Neighborhoods in 2019. And I wanted to ask you first, what problem are you trying to solve?

David: [00:02:45] Yeah. I’m one part of the three of us who are leadership at Trust Neighborhoods is Kavya Shankar and Jason Dehaemers, and the problem we’re trying to solve is that you have neighborhoods which have experienced disinvestment over decades, often from racist reasons, that now are finally having investment come into them and becoming a higher opportunity, both by public efforts, by private efforts and a lot of efforts on the part of current residents. But just as those neighborhoods are becoming higher opportunity, the very residents which are most deserving of participating in that and have often contributed so much to creating that experience a second injustice of being displaced from that neighborhood, not only denying them that experience of living in a higher opportunity neighborhood, but often even creating harm beyond that prevention of opportunity and around that problem is why we started working with neighborhoods through our nonprofit Trust Neighborhoods to help set up these mixed income neighborhood trusts.

Eve: [00:03:41] When did this need become clear to you? What’s the journey you took?

David: [00:03:46] We followed different paths in the leadership team. My particular path was through working at New York City government in affordable housing, and that was first in a department there called Housing Preservation Development, where I got to do a lot of refinancing of LI-tech which low-income housing tax credit deals and HUD multifamily deals, which is really the current meat and potatoes of American affordable housing finance. And you both saw how those worked at volume and the non-profits and neighborhood-based organizations that use them and also where it wasn’t working, which is especially around what real pinpoint anti-displacement looked like.

David: [00:04:22] The city of New York at the time was then interested with the arrival of de Blasio and really pinpointing neighborhoods where likely gentrification would create displacement. And a lot of the effort was around creating inclusionary zoning to prevent that displacement. And I had the good fortune to be part of the team who was working on that, and then a new team that was set up in capital planning in the city planning department and trying to work with neighborhoods facing that pressure to proactively prevent displacement. But there’s kind of this rhetoric in New York, which is wonderful, but, you know, New York is everywhere. And there’s this idea that they would build a model and it would work for the whole country. And I grew up in Kansas City and have stayed deeply appreciative and tuned into a lot of cities like it. And you see this phenomenon playing out across the country, including Pittsburgh, certainly very familiar with it.

Eve: [00:05:12] Oh, yeah.

David: [00:05:13] And the mechanism is not going to be that you’re going to prevent displacement by incentivizing what’s going to happen when a five-story building is torn down for a ten-story building. A lot of the displacement and change in ownership and lack of control is happening long before that. So, the same principles are playing out, but you really need to focus on building a different kind of set of tools. And fortunately, both found others who cared about, and we had the time to work on this, but most of all spent time with a lot of neighborhood based organizations in neighborhoods that had either undergone gentrification or facing it. And really sat down with them and said, what are your pain points? How are you spending your days? What are you looking at for tools? And almost consistently you had this need identified of saying, if we could just have our own ownership group, that could really do cross-subsidy in our neighborhood in a way that we could raise outside capital akin to the developers we’re competing against that can move at the speed of the market. It’s not applying for a grant for a house that gets receipt that that grant was received months after the house was sold and really do it at the scale at which we were experiencing displacement. And bit by bit, we worked with some neighborhood partners on honing that model, launching pilots, and now we’re working to get out across the country.

Eve: [00:06:31] And that model, you call it MINT, right?

David: [00:06:35] We call it MINT, a mixed income neighborhood trust.

Eve: [00:06:38] So tell me precisely how it works.

David: [00:06:40] In some ways, it’s very simple. Some ways a little more complex. We help the neighborhood set up this mixed income neighborhood trust. It is an LLC which has all of its voting shares controlled by something called a perpetual purpose trust that is somewhat distinctive from some uses of trust models where there’s not national trust, there’s a legal trust which is assigned to a purpose agreement which controls all the votes of this new entity. That trust then has a trustee group which has the existing neighbor based organization on there and resident representation and adheres to a purpose agreement which we work with residents, the neighborhood based organization, on writing when we’re setting this up, which really identifies what anti displacement means, what protect me belonging means what long term financial sustainability for this new institution looks like and then really build in also details and nuances, that are particular for each neighborhood. That serves as a long term constitution that then this operating company of the Mixed Income Neighborhood Trust has to adhere to as it buys, develops, and then long term owns a mixed income portfolio, which today we’re entirely focused on housing in a way that prevents the displacement of residents in that neighborhood.

Eve: [00:07:57] So the trust is actually a developer.

David: [00:08:00] In some ways. It’s a vehicle to allow a neighborhood to serve in a developer function for its neighborhood. And the way we’ve set up is that each mixed income neighborhood trust will have a general management function, which is essentially a budget line that goes back to the neighborhood-based organization. So you aren’t building duplicative new institutions. You’re really building the capacity of groups that have been on the ground, have legitimacy, have been doing the hard work, and too often are then excluded from actually having that level of control and autonomy within their neighborhood as it experiences this kind of pressure. So really important for us is not just hitting numbers on preservation of affordable units, but really also changing power structures in these neighborhoods where especially women and people of color have been precluded for so long.

Eve: [00:08:50] I’m trying to wrap my head around this. It sounds pretty powerful. So if a new developer comes to the neighborhood and purchases a property outright, what control does this Trust or MINT have?

David: [00:09:04] It is just in parallel with that. There’s no outright authority it has. It’s more putting the neighborhood on more equal footing with a lot of more conventional developers that may be participating in a neighborhood that is facing gentrification.

Eve: [00:09:17] I see, okay. And so, how is a MINT portfolio designed?

David: [00:09:23] So one of the one of the key things we begin with is really doing an analysis with the neighborhood-based organization of what does protecting displacement need, what is the real need in the neighborhood. An example of this is one of the first neighborhoods we worked with was in Kansas City, Missouri, in the northeast section of neighborhoods there, and the neighborhoods called Lykins. And from a parcel view of housing in that neighborhood, they have 1700 units of housing and 900 of those are rental housing with basically zero regulated within that. They are next to a neighborhood that has had some of the fastest rising rents in the city. They’re beginning to experience that same pressure coming on the side of them. So, the beginning was talking with residents saying, look, you have 900 households that are renting in this neighborhood at this average rate. What does it look like to make sure that those households, some of those will move into homeownership? Some of those will not be necessarily having their income rise as fast as the market is rising. What does it mean to protect them from displacement and then working with them to identify how can we maximize the preservation of those units? What does cross-subsidy look like from likely rising rents and unrestricted units we put under that same ownership group? So it self-finances affordability, which works for a subset of neighborhoods and then saying also what is feasible?

David: [00:10:40] In terms of what are rehab partners or construction partners you can work with and what kind of volume can they work with? What is the churn happening in a market? Is this a neighborhood where you’re seeing hundreds of units bought and sold every month or is this something where you’re seeing a dozen bought and sold every month and then putting together a capital stack that makes that feasible. We really do that whole hands-on diligence process with them and service a lot of the short term capacity which a lot of neighborhood based organizations just don’t have to set up that kind of vehicle. But then once it’s set up with that governance, with those partnerships in place for renovation, for property management, and that scope of of what they want to be building in as their own ownership, as much as possible we then build their own autonomy to be running that and attuned at the neighborhood level as they build that ownership and manage it in an accountable way long term.

Eve: [00:11:27] So tell me, how long does it take to go through this process, from thinking about it to actually forming a group that’s governing itself?

David: [00:11:36] Yeah, I mean, we’re kind of figuring it out. We did the two pilots. We are in the midst of a third one right now. We’re in the midst of a fourth one right now. So, we’re learning exactly what the long term process looks like. It’s probably about nine months to a year in terms of our experience, but it may be that right now, I think one of the bigger bottlenecks has been capital appetite, especially for more philanthropic sources. And we’re building it so that long term can take in non-philanthropic sources that are okay with low returns, which certainly can move faster. We don’t know what looks like if that bottleneck is not there for how fast it happens.

Eve: [00:12:12] Interesting. So, the pilots, where are your pilots and where’s the third one? Kansas City and.

David: [00:12:17] Our pilots are in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Certainly, a really meaningful place to get to work, especially in 2021 with the memorial of the race massacre there. And then in Kansas City, which is also where we’re based and very meaningful to work with a neighborhood in our own home in a way that is disciplining and really holds us to doing quality work. The third, which is currently in formation, is in Fresno, in central Fresno with some really great neighborhoods there as the downtown is experiencing growth and preserving a lot of housing stock as well as hopefully providing alternative to owners that have been in the neighborhood they would like to have purchased out.

Eve: [00:12:58] So how far are these experiments in? Like the the MINTs are formed? Have they purchased properties? What are they doing?

David: [00:13:08] Yeah. As noted, Trust Neighborhoods came together in 2019. We really worked with the neighborhoods and the pilots and on the whole scoping and 2020 and both those pilots launched in early 2021. So, they’re just over a year old right now. But both have really seen promising signs so far. They both control well over a dozen units of housing. I think the one can see is almost up to two dozen now.

Eve: [00:13:30] Wow.

David: [00:13:30] And out of that is some real glimmers of hope, both in terms of just operational efficacy, seeing the governance really have resonance in that governance. But most importantly, some of those of early glimmers of impact, like the Mixed Income Neighborhood Trust in Tulsa, which was set up with Growing Together, which is focused in the Kendall-Whittier neighborhood, is the Kendall-Whittier Neighborhood Trust and I was actually just out there last week as they did a celebratory open house for another one of the renovated units that’s open, and had both residents and contractors and funders and everyone all together having paletas really feeling the promise of the work. But alongside things like that were it’s a deep renovation project, they’ve had ones where they’ve just bought housing that was for sale in the neighborhood and been an alternative to a lot of what are kind of unsavory buyers and sellers in that neighborhood, and there was one that was selling and a they bought it and the seller told them, you know, every other buyer told us they were going to clear out the residents in these units in order to renovate them and re rent them at a higher rate.

David: [00:14:37] And instead the Kendall-Whittier Neighborhood Trust was able to own them and have all the residents stay in place along with the budget, to actually improve the quality of those units of housing discovered families that are in the school, which is a place based school that would have told you’re not able to come back to your school with your kids on a couple of months’ notice of a new school year. So, it was a real change to instead get a knock on the door from the Kendall-Whittier Neighborhood Trust saying, hey, look, you’re not only in a safe place versus this threat which is facing you, but we’re also here to make sure that you’re not displaced as this neighborhood continues to become a better place.

Eve: [00:15:17] That’s very powerful. So how do you plan to scale? I mean, how many neighborhoods will be successful?

David: [00:15:24] Yeah, that’s a lot of a lot of our focus is yeah. From the beginning which which may be distinctive in some ways is that we really have had an eye toward saying we are not content if this happens for a dozen units in one neighborhood, the scale of the need in just one neighbor is larger, that the scale of need across the country is hundreds of neighborhoods which are very rapidly changing. And we at this point get a lot of cold outreach from neighborhoods across the country that say, we’re interested using this model, we’ve heard about you, can we work together? Our biggest limit on that side is our own capacity of a team as we grow that team and grow our own operational ability.

David: [00:15:59] But we’re really focused on building our own team to be this short-term service, which is a big piece, is really being able to step in and work with neighborhoods across the country on setting it up. A big part is building long term capital supplies. We’ve had a generous supporter who has come in for funding the design of a fund that will be the national with ready capital, which we hope will solve that bottleneck issue and help build that overall market, which can bring in a lot of capital which is not usually participated in both community governance models and models focused on anti-displacement and changing power structures in this way. And then a big piece is just learning from each neighborhood trust and really powerfully having them start to build their own peer group in a way that is self-reinforcing, builds us as a better support partner, but also can build on their own experiences, lessons learned interpretations from those governance bodies of what anti displacement really looks like and very hard decision making moments. And then also step in as they discover things which are even more valuable to each neighborhood trust. And already the two pilots have met and compared notes. And we think it will only get stronger as you have more and more mixed income neighborhood trusts in the country working these neighborhoods for the residents.

Eve: [00:17:14] So that was one of the questions I have. Like, community engagement is really hard. Do you experience friction when you set up one of these? Like what does it take to get everyone on board?

David: [00:17:29] Community engagement is hard, but what we’ve been doing with the Mixed Income Neighborhood Trust is so different from a lot of what more conventional community engagement is. I think the place to pinpoint there is, we are helping the neighborhood-based organization set up these entities that have residents in long term governance. And that is very different from a typical project where there is a community engagement period, which then ends and residents never have another maybe not even another voice, much less any actual real power in that institution or project. And residents are smart, and they get it. And if they think they have a six-month engagement process to try to convey all the complexity of experience in a neighborhood and any possible thing in this, that will be a very hard process. And instead, with this both, I think we’ve worked with really great partners on designing community engagement, which both make for very productive sessions, where people come into it already with a sense of having had time to do one on ones with everyone and talk through their experience and have that as a, as a jumping off point. But then the most important thing is they then step into the actual governance long term. So, there’s a real ability to keep on iterating and having a voice in the model and in this new institution in their neighborhood. That’s actually something I think we thought was going to be a lot harder and has been really energizing to spend time with residents who just get this and are excited to have this kind of institution as a vehicle for creating this kind of change in their neighborhood.

Eve: [00:18:56] So how big is your team and what sort of skills are represented at the moment?

David: [00:19:01] Not very big. Five of us full time right now. We’re doing some hires right now.

Eve: [00:19:05] Small but mighty, right?

David: [00:19:07] Yeah. Part of the building up the capacity to actually take on the scale of problem and our skill set is mixed. Kavya had been out in the White House and had done organizing work as well as some amount of investment side work. And then Jason is utterly brilliant all things finance, governance and had really worked more in the investment banking, private equity world and then some corporate governance and just delights in building out an actual new financial structure which is solving for things that are more complex than just making money. And then my background was more in the affordable housing finance community development side. We’ve got two wonderful more junior members of the team, Natalie and Ben, who have both actually come through Venture for America, which has been a great source of team members and a delight to work with.

Eve: [00:19:55] So you’ve been working on this a little while. I’m sure you’re thinking about improvements. How could it be improved and why? It can’t be perfect, right?

David: [00:20:04] A big thing is the pilots in place as they grow. And I think then building out their own governance and being improved in that way.

Eve: [00:20:13] This is a pretty entrepreneurial idea. So, entrepreneurs never sit still for very long.

David: [00:20:18] Yeah, I think a big part of the improvement also is building that peer group in terms of having the neighborhood trusts speak to each other more. Building out just a lot of the capital familiarity. Right. There’s a risky moment at the beginning of saying, can you put money into a new vehicle that is creating this kind of impact, and will that really work? And as we start to see them work, that makes it so it’s a lot easier for the next one to say, yes, I want to see that happen too. I think as each neighborhood-based organization kind of learns what what means to be taking this on and building into their existing institution. And as you varied organizations right now, they’re, one is a neighbor association, one is one of the purpose-built communities, one is a CDC. So, as you start to have a peer group of different kinds of neighborhood focused organizations that are using this, that will make it even better.

Eve: [00:21:06] And do you think this is really unique? Is there anyone else doing similar work?

David: [00:21:11] There are aspects that are unique in their aspects that are very familiar. A lot of the land trust community and world, I think, is using community land trust towards similar spirit and functions. But I think unique here is the ability to use the outside capital, the outright control of the land versus separation, the focus on, there’s a lot of renters being displaced, There’s a big focus of this, versus a lot of CLTs tend to have more home ownership focus. We early on have met with a lot of peers across the country that we sort of think are doing relevant, familiar work. And a big part of ours is not having too much pride of authorship of really learning for others. A part of that early on is we were calling this a mixed income land trust and we spent time with the Kensington Corridor Trusts out in Philadelphia. And they said, hey, look, you know, we’re really trying to establish more the terminology of a neighborhood trust here. And we said, sure, great, we don’t we don’t have any pride of term here.

David: [00:22:04] We have a really great to actually be part of helping build on what you’re doing. So, we decided to call it a mixed income neighborhood trust. And so a noted MINT kind of sounded nice too. So, that was part of it. We’ve also liked a lot of the shared equity worlds and built out. The Kresge Foundation include us in the community of practice of several groups working on shared equity models, which certainly plays into a lot of what you in Small Change have also been building into and that’s been really great to be part of. And Elwood Hopkins, who’s led that has just been a great champion and convener. And then I think also on, if you see models and neighborhoods facing gentrification that have relatively succeeded in doing cross-subsidy to the benefit of their neighborhoods. Some of those have come out of almost less conventional models than necessarily a community developing corporation. Where if you look at what the Hasadim community has done in South Williamsburg, in New York, it’s experienced massive gentrification pressure, which, because of ownership and cross-subsidy, has in many ways actually made it more affordable for that community through their cross-subsidy and ownership of land. Likewise, you see some of that with some of the Chinatown family societies in New York, and you see a couple of clusters of that in different places in the world. And there are some community development corporations, I think, use their assets. We right now are working with the East Boston Development Corporation in Boston, which has been both an amazing partner to work with and also the way in which they’ve built out the organization ownership and building their own self-financing mechanisms is really in line with what we’d like to see this model enable for more neighborhoods. So, it’s been amazing to get to work with them as a partner in that.

Eve: [00:23:39] So, how many more neighborhoods do you think will have mint in one year or three years from now?

David: [00:23:46] One year. A few, but three years. We’d like to see actually getting up to really doing this at scale.

Eve: [00:23:55] And what does success look like to you?

David: [00:23:57] Success looks like living in a country where we have cities that have mixed income neighborhoods led by especially residents that had been excluded and discriminated against, especially black and brown leadership of institutions that are creating high opportunity neighborhoods that work for everyone. And not only does it hopefully make it so that those neighborhoods become very high opportunity neighborhoods in a way that works for a mix of incomes and identities there, particularly each neighborhood, but also it stops this phenomenon in America where we’ll see investment go into one geography. And there’s almost this assumption that you’ll end up not serving a large chunk of residents who will get displaced somewhere else. And then almost, then you’ll continue to see a cycle where you’re chasing poverty to different geographies, just as all these efforts to try to improve a place come to fruition. Instead, we stop that. I think with half a dozen MINTs in each American city, you could actually create a thing where at the core of each American city are these mixed income neighborhoods which are robust, wonderful, I think could be some of the best neighborhoods in the country. And you also have this window of opportunity, the United States, where we buy deep tragedy of racism and suburban investment. We’ve ended up with the cores of our cities being massively underinvested and undervalued. But, we in many ways are the anomaly in the world on that. And we’re seeing our appetite shift where the cores of our cities are becoming the most valuable places, which is much more akin to everywhere else in the world. It would be a tragedy, I think, to then see us also just have it where if you don’t have the money, you can’t afford to live anywhere near the middle of the city.

Eve: [00:25:39] I think that shift is already happening.

David: [00:25:40] Yeah, we have we have a window of opportunity, I think, for a crucial subset of neighborhoods to at least secure some place near the center of the city that especially carries such deep meaning and current social capital institutions in a way that could create a very different kind of city.

Eve: [00:25:58] I’ve been living in a downtown myself for quite a few years now and have gone from being one of the first residents to one of many who look very affluent to me now. And it’s disturbing. I really feel like the vitality of mixed people using a place is really being wiped out. So, I agree with your argument here. So, I have one more question for you, and that is what keeps you up at night?

David: [00:26:29] Oh, lots of things. At the very beginning, I really did not sleep that well. There’s a lot more stress and things, I think. As we built out a really quality team that’s helped with the sleep. Journaling helps the sleep. You know, you write down your worries.

Eve: [00:26:46] I’m so glad it’s not me alone.

David: [00:26:48] Then you don’t have them bouncing around your head in the middle of the night. I mean, you always you always kind of swing back and forth too, you have this thing where you go, there are moments where you go, oh yeah, this is doing great and we’re going to run with it. There are moments that you go, oh, is something going to hit us that we aren’t expecting and everything’s going to fall apart? And I feel fortunate that more and more of the days are the former.

Eve: [00:27:09] Yes, yeah. Or there are moments where it’s like, why am I doing this? It’s a very hard road.

David: [00:27:16] We’re up against a daunting scale of historical injustice, of momentums, of other forces in the world. So it’s understandable. It’s hard, but there’s also hope.

Eve: [00:27:27] I think you’re also up against greed, unfortunately. So, the gentrification of neighborhoods is going to continue. The question is, is how many can you catch and save? Right.

David: [00:27:39] Yeah. I think the hardest thing for us right now has been when we have neighborhoods that say we really want to work with you, now is the moment. And we’ve just had to say we just don’t have the capacity to work with you right now. And that’s been really hard.

Eve: [00:27:54] That’s heartbreaking.

David: [00:27:55] I remember one very early on going, well, you know, whether or not you work with us, we’re going to be here fighting displacement, our neighborhood. So, it’s not so much are we going to work together and find displacement more? They’re going to be there doing it regardless. It’s just really hard to not have the ability at this point to say yes to everyone and get these in place with the speed which with these words are changing.

Eve: [00:28:20] Is there any like white label option that you can create for do-it-yourselfers?

David: [00:28:26] We’ve occasionally sent along pieces. Unfortunately, it’s just, I think a big reason why we built the team is that a lot of people know all the principles, it’s just, don’t have the capacity in a team that actually will step in and run with it. So, that was, we have no pride of that. We’re happy if someone else wants to do it. Just a big part is building the team to be able to actually say yes to more places and run with it.

Eve: [00:28:52] Well, you’ve chewed off a huge problem, and I really hope you’re super successful and I can’t wait to see where you are in three years. Maybe we’ll have one in Pittsburgh or 2 MINTs.

David: [00:29:05] Yeah, we’d love that.

Eve: [00:29:07] That would be fantastic. Yes. Let me know if you need any introductions.

David: [00:29:12] Yeah, well, if they’re are neighborhood based organizations, this resonates with their priorities and what the neighborhoods are, then. .

Eve: [00:29:18] There’s tons. I feel like someone once told me that community development work started in Pittsburgh. It’s got an enormous number of neighborhood-based organizations. I helped found one myself, a CDC. So, every neighborhood has one. It’s a pretty active place that way.

David: [00:29:37] Well, we’ll follow up. Definitely.

Eve: [00:29:38] Yes, definitely. But thank you very much and congratulations and good luck.

David: [00:29:44] Eve thank you.

Eve: [00:30:01] You can find out more about this episode or others you might have missed on the show notes page at our website RethinkRealEstateForGood.co. There’s lots to listen to there. A special thanks to David Allardice for his excellent editing of this podcast and original music, and thanks to you for spending your time with me today. We’ll talk again soon, but for now, this is Eve Picker signing off to go make some change.

Image courtesy of David Kemper

Superpower. Stick-to-itness.

“What is your superpower?” This is the question that Devin Thorpe asks every one of his podcast guests in his podcast show, Superpowers for Good, where he focuses on inspirational impact. And true to form, Devin asks Eve the same question in this episode, Developer Becomes a Tech Entrepreneur to Help Community-Focused Peers.  Her answer?  Stick-to-itness.

Eve’s career has evolved from Columbia-trained architect to community-focused developer to fintech entrepreneur, but the theme has remained the same – building better cities that are equitable places for everyone. Small Change, her real estate crowdfunding platform (a FINRA-registered crowdfunding portal), provides a way for developers to raise money for real estate projects with a social impact.

Small Change is a testament to her endurance. “When I started down this path, I honestly didn’t even know what a security was,” says Eve. She had to educate herself. She read the 650 pages of regulations and converted them into a fluid online platform, easy to use but fully compliant. “And, by the way, I had never built a technology platform before!” says Eve.

She is unstoppable.

Image by real444 from Canva

Citizen architect.

From an early age, Rico Quirindongo was interested in the impact of the built environment on people. That’s why he became an architect. But he sees an architect’s role as much larger than just designing buildings with a useful life. He believes every architect has an obligation, a responsibility to engage in a civic conversation for design justice – to absorb the history of a place and the needs of the current community in a meaningful way, into each and every design.

Rico started his career as an architect in St. Louis, MO, and later moved back to his hometown of Seattle to work first with Donald King, and then with the DLR group. He has been twice recognized by the AIA as a citizen architect – in 2011 and again in 2020. The AIA looks at more than just the physical aspects of architecture. They also value the architect’s ability to uplift diverse voices, influence social change, and bring about community engagement – all of which hold great importance in Rico’s work.

In 2021, Rico took on the role of interim director at the Office of Planning and Community Development for the City of Seattle, hoping to increase the scale of his social impact. This role feeds his soul. Here he can push harder for what he believes in. Positive results are already rolling in. The trajectory of the Seattle Midtown Square project was significantly altered when Rico gave the local community a role in its planning. The development was transformed from a building of 430 units with a CVS on the corner into a destination location featuring a not-for-profit organization, an artist residency location, an art gallery, and more.

Rico’s success stories show us the amazing results that collaboration can bring. He reminds us that local residents – those who know and love their neighborhoods – can bring a fresh perspective, helping developers create buildings that benefit the people.

Read the podcast transcript here

Eve Picker: [00:00:09] Hi there. Thanks for joining me on Rethink Real Estate. For Good. I’m Eve Picker and I’m on a mission to make real estate work for everyone. I love real estate. Real estate makes places good or bad, rich or poor, beautiful or not. In this show, I’m interviewing the disruptors, those creative thinkers and doers that are shrugging off the status quo, in order to build better for everyone. If you haven’t already, check out all of my podcasts at our website RethinkRealEstateForGood.co, or you can find them at your favorite podcast station. You’ll find lots worth listening to, I’m sure.

Eve: [00:01:04] From an early age, Rico Quirindongo was interested in the impact of the built environment on people. That’s why he became an architect. But he sees an architect’s role as much larger than just designing buildings with a useful life. He believes every architect has an obligation, a responsibility to engage in a civic conversation for design justice, to absorb the history of a place and the needs of the current community in a meaningful way into each and every design. Recently, Rico became interim director at the Office of Planning and Community Development for the City of Seattle. The city he has lived his life in, and this role feeds his soul. Here he can push harder for what he believes in. Positive results are already rolling in. Please listen in to hear more.

Eve: [00:02:13] If you’d like to join me in my quest to rethink real estate, there are two simple things you can do, share this podcast and go to rethinkrealestateforgood.co, where you can subscribe to be the first to hear about my podcasts, blog posts and other goodies.

Eve: [00:02:39] Hi Rico, I’m just delighted to have this opportunity to talk to you today.

Rico Quirindongo: [00:02:44] Morning.

Eve: [00:02:45] It’s very early for you. Yes.

Rico: [00:02:49] I’m an early riser, so it’s okay.

Eve: [00:02:51] Oh, well, that’s good. Yeah. Let me start by asking you, you know, a big question. What led you to move from an international design practice to a planning department in Seattle?

Rico: [00:03:03] Well, I would want to take a step back. So, I began working as a Black architect. Actually, I started working as a Black architect in St Louis at a Black owned firm called Kennedy Associates. Moved back to my, this was after college, I moved back to Washington State to do my graduate work at University of Washington. And in doing my thesis, which was the creation of an African American museum for the Northwest, I met a man who was also helping to lead the community, who was also an architect, Black architect. He essentially adopted me. I became an intern in his practice. This was in the mid 90s. Donald King, who is a mentor and a friend. I worked for Donald and, with Donald, became a partner of his firm for the better part of 17 years, moved over into this international practice to build the civic side of the practice, this was DLR Group, a wonderful firm. Really appreciated my time there, and I essentially was recruited to join the city.

Rico: [00:04:42] I had actually been interested in the Office of Planning and Community Development when it was created. I think that was five and a half years ago. That position was taken by Sam Assefa, who is now providing leadership in this realm in California for the state. He did a great job in building the office, and I was honored to be able to be brought in. I would say that I’ve always been looking for, I’m always looking for how I can leverage whatever I’m doing today to get to something that has a larger positive impact for community, that is scalable. And so, taking my small firm community-based practice to an international firm to kind of infuse that type of community based leadership and design thinking in the international practice and then bring that same thinking to the City of Seattle now where I’m able to hopefully impact a much larger community locally. It’s very meaningful to me.

Eve: [00:06:03] So, what’s your role there?

Rico: [00:06:06] So, I am the acting director for the Office of Planning and Community Development, and it’s a multifaceted role. I mean, so on the planning side, we are in charge of our long-range planning for the city. So, Growth Management Act Coordination and compliance with the Puget Sound Regional Council. So, we have six urban growth areas, sub area plan work that we have to do. We are leaning into redevelopment of our comprehensive plan, which will be a ten-year plan. So, it will look out to 2044 and address issues of continued growth of the city, working with our Office of Economic Development regarding what is the relationship to built environment and job growth. And we also are leaning into a discussion around equity. So, how do we look at a terrible history of redlining in our city, which is no different than what we saw in cities across the nation? And how do we really begin to reverse some of that damage and help lay the groundwork to build generational wealth for our communities of color who have been under served and under supported? I would say a couple of other things are office convenes a capital subcabinet. So, I’m a member of the cabinet for the mayor and we convene on a monthly basis a cross collaborative discussion with ten capital departments across the city, including our Seattle City Light and our public utilities and our department of transportation.

Rico: [00:08:03] To look at how are we making place-based decisions related to how we’re investing dollars and kind of to try to push beyond the silos of kind of each department’s individual capital program. And then lastly, we, I also help lead our Equitable Development Initiative, which is a, it’s our largest investment in the community development side of the work. So long range planning, the stuff that’s up to 20 years out. It’s really hard for people to, people that are living their daily lives. Like, what does that work really mean to me? The community development side, we’re working on the ground in the trenches with our actual development initiative, investing around $20 million a year into community led projects. It is BIPOC-led projects, community based, multifaceted, many different types of projects, some housing related, all invest in different types of services being provided to community. It’s very inspirational and it really connects the dots between kind of our aspirational long-term goals and like work that we do in the day to day that’s actually making a difference in people’s lives.

Eve: [00:09:34] So one of the questions I was going to ask you, which I think you answered, is, does this work feed your soul a little better than the private practice?

Rico: [00:09:42] Yes, absolutely.

Eve: [00:09:43] Sounds like it does.

Rico: [00:09:44] Yeah, I would say that I feel very fortunate. I think that, from the beginning, really, as an intern, it was important to me to be able to do work in the community and to do work that had meaning and value. Whenever I have the chance to be on a panel discussion or speak with students at a university. My message has been that you really can’t wait for a tomorrow that you’re never going to get to. And, if there is something about which you’re passionate or that brings you a sense of purpose or meaning, it is important to try to lean into that, like in real time, like in your day to day. And it doesn’t mean that you can have that meaningful value in your work every single day, necessarily. I mean, there are certainly days where the work is just hard and difficult, but this job does get me out of bed every day.

Eve: [00:10:46] I completely agree with you. So, you know, I think architects are in a unique position that they really do need to think in advance, like 10, 20 years. And so we sort of trained to think about what a piece of land can become 20 years from now. So it’s sort of a very natural shift to add a little bit more to it, right?

Rico: [00:11:09] Yes, absolutely. I think that my thesis, in graduate school was. My thesis chair, George Rolfe, was an urban planner and provided leadership for our school, for the department. Actually, he was also the first ed for the Pike Place Market, which I was chair for three or four years. I was on the board for seven years. But the thesis. At the end of the day, was around development of a large city block and turning it into housing. And this African American museum, which we actually had the good fortune of being able to work with Donald King to see that project into reality with the city and the community, I think it was a decade after the thesis was completed. But as a student, what was foundational for me was that the project, while important, started with a analysis of the neighborhood and the city and context. I think that it is critical that as we make investments in individual site solutions as architects, or as individuals or as a city like it, it is critical to think about what’s the ripple effect of that individual site outward into community, into a urban context, or depending on where you live, a rural context as well. It’s more than just what happens on that single site.

Eve: [00:12:53] Yes. So, you know, this brings me to the architecture profession and an architect role. And is the profession of architecture and planning becoming more focused on equity or does it have a long way to go? How can we impact, how can we make that profession sort of reflect on this more? I suppose I’m coming from this. I also taught in an architecture school, and I found it to be startling how little students were told what they could do with this knowledge they were learning. I think architects are sort of uniquely trained and have the capability to do all sorts of things with that training, you know. But it feels to me like architecture. You know, the iconic building architecture has got to shift a little, right?

Rico: [00:13:44] I think it is. I mean, I think that 150 years ago, if this was a very white male led profession and, in some regards, that is still the case. But it was a profession that was of privilege. Again, still is, but one where the focus was on more of a elite clientele that could afford to bring on board an architect and do expensive developments that were focused on the individual. I think that what we have seen is the beginnings of a shift where we really are. Architects are servants to the community. I was recognized by the American Institute of Architects as a citizen architect in 2011 and again in 2020. And I think that part of what the Institute of Architecture has acknowledged is the importance and value of what the profession can and should be doing to help lift up diverse voices, invest in social change through built environment projects, and understand that to get to a place that is about equity in the community is a multifaceted discussion.

Rico: [00:15:18] And I often talk about Kaiser Family Foundation social determinants of health, which there are six buckets of consideration regarding if looking at the whole health of an individual or family or community, you have to address all six of those buckets. One of them is social and cultural context. One of them is built environment, food, health, health care, access to good education. And so, I think that we hold one of those pillars as architects. And I do think in 2020, with the horrible atrocity of George Floyd’s death and kind of the elevation of the critical issues around how people of color have been disrespected and held down for centuries. You saw a lot of architects actually asking the question, what can we do to be a value to make a difference in this discussion? And I think that we are now doubling down on trying to answer that question. I think it is about being an ally. I think it is about being a support. I think it is about transfer of wealth from those that have to those that do not, and that can be done through environmental projects.

Eve: [00:16:59] When you think about a space or a place that’s being designed, what elements do you think are critical for it to become more equitable.

Rico: [00:17:10] This can be hard depending on the project type. I think that looking at the context of a place. I mean, you have to start with what is the history of that place, right? Like, who did the land belong to? We in our, in these United States have stolen land from our Indigenous population. And that is a burden that we need to carry forward in the work and looking toward righting past wrongs. I think that looking at a context of place, you have to look at the generational history of that place, how that informs site and context. And then what is the community, the resident community that is there in the present and how might they be affected by whatever the built environment project is that is being proposed? And what is the opportunity for that resident community to be invited into the conversation and the process for visioning for the redevelopment of a site. I think depending on what the type of project is, will determine on what the community role is or can be in that project. But I think that it is critical for us as architects to ensure that the community does have a seat at the table.

Eve: [00:18:50] Interesting. Yeah. I mean, I was at the planning department many years ago, and community engagement really meant just some meetings with the community many years ago. I mean, how has that shifted? What does that really mean today? Like community engagement?

Rico: [00:19:05] It is a dangerous prospect. It’s very easy to get trapped in a box checking process where, you know, City of Seattle, we have a regulatory process which requires that for many projects you have to go through design review in order to get your building permit, and that requires that you have two community meetings. So, you go out and talk about height, bulk and scale of the project and then come back for a second meeting and talk about how facades will be articulated. And it’s easy to, I shouldn’t say easy, but it is not unusual for that process to look or function performatively but not actually engage the community in the real conversation about things that they care about. I think that that latter conversation is hard.

Eve: [00:20:03] It’s very hard. Yeah.

Rico: [00:20:05] It is.

Eve: [00:20:06] Very hard.

Rico: [00:20:07] When I was the chair for the Pike Place Market, PDA Council, Preservation Development Authority, honestly, we had public open meetings every single week with a very engaged resident population. Between over 300 businesses, mostly small businesses and residents that live on that urban campus, if you will. A lot of people very much cared about their built environment and their families and businesses and would show up to those meetings to hold us accountable for decisions that we made, many of which were about the buildings that we owned and the public realm environment that we were responsible for. And it is much easier to make decisions about what a building looks like and how it impacts the environment when you are doing the design, executing the project and then walking away, it’s much harder to do that when you’re going to be held accountable week to week long after that project is completed.

Rico: [00:21:23] That is certainly an attitude that Donald and I shared in private practice with our small Black-owned firm that, not only around the idea of repeat clients, but just around community accountability. You have to do well by community through the process. Community has to see themselves as a part of the conversation and not, in a tangible way. There’s a project that I worked on where the part of the call and response with Community got to a place where we really had to have a very explicit conversation about, this is what we hear you saying that you need. This is what we can do. And this is how that input is being incorporated in build form in the project. And this is what we can’t do, and this is why we can’t do it. I think so often we’re afraid to be honest or transparent about what we can and what we can’t do and what the whys are, because then we can be criticized or someone might not agree with us, but the reality is that is the only way.

Eve: [00:22:34] Yes.

Rico: [00:22:35] By having an honest and transparent and real conversation with people, can we build trust and actually do well for ourselves and on behalf of community?

Eve: [00:22:48] The question I always have is this is a very high resource, intense activity. And for the thousands of little projects going on with small developers who don’t have the capability to have that sort of continued conversation, I wish that there was someone building resources for them because I think often that community activity can be perfunctory when you simply don’t have the ability to manage it, right. I mean, if you’re a big developer and you set aside a bucket of funds and time and you can plan for someone to be managing that, you can get it done. But if it’s something small, which could matter equally. Equally, right? It’s difficult.

Rico: [00:23:43] Yeah. I appreciate your point. And I do think that for smaller developers, it is important to be able to provide a small development community. And I have been in conversations with an organization called LISC.

Eve: [00:24:01] Oh yes, I know LISC.

Rico: [00:24:02] That does investments, large investments in the community nationally. Locally, they are engaging in a program to invest in small bipoc developers, figure out where they are in the development of their practices, and then how they can help provide them resource to grow their capacity. Like I said before that level of community investment that is meaningful is hard. But I think that if authentic, then it becomes more straightforward. And what I mean by that is, it is very difficult for a developer to come in from outside the community, into a place, propose a project without having community context or contacts. And I think that, while I understand that if you’re a small developer, you have limited resource, I still think that from a place of responsibility, that part of that resource has to be allocated to talking to people in the neighborhood. Talking about your project. Understanding what the context and impact of it is. And having that inform the design and implementation, including hiring of small business, other small businesses that are part of the construction project or become residents in the project, I think that the activity is scalable. I understand that smaller projects have more limited resources and therefore can’t do the same things that large projects can. But I also know that small developers often find themselves more connected with community in their projects than large corporate ones. I don’t think it’s simply an issue of scale.

Eve: [00:25:55] Yeah, no, I see that. So, I suppose I want to know how can we actively make places that work for everyone and that everyone feels comfortable in? I understand the history and the engagement, but how does that translate physically? Like, have you got an example of a project where you think it might have turned out very differently if there hadn’t been that engagement?

Rico: [00:26:22] I’ll talk about this project that’s opening up now called Midtown Square. It is a project that was built by Lake Union Partners here in Seattle. I was brought in to lead a community conversation because there was a fissure between what the white majority developer was looking to do, building of 430 units, and what the community saw, which was a white developer coming in and taking over what was a very important site to that community at Union and 23rd in the Central District, which was a historically Black neighborhood in the city.

Eve: [00:27:02] You don’t choose easy conversations, do you?

Rico: [00:27:04] No. No, I don’t. Through a community engagement process, so there were, we created a series of open houses, one on one interviews, small group discussions, meeting people where they’re at, going to the local school public events to talk about the project really sought to get community input and direction. What we built was an art program for the project where we brought in eight locally connected BIPOC artists that transformed both site and building, like the facades of the building, actually were turned into canvases for artists to transform. And what we ended up with is a destination location at that at that intersection now where in addition to the art program, we created a new non-for-profit at the prominent city corner, which is dedicated to the artist community, largely Black artists. There’s a place for artists to sell their wares. There is an artist residency location, there’s a gallery. None of which was conceived of in the original project. And the ground floor of that building, both the interior courtyard and the two prominent facades that face major street fronts, will be filled with Black-owned businesses. And so, the transformation of the public realm is both bringing back businesses that were pushed out of that portion of the neighborhood and also creating opportunities for new business or expanded business that’s contributing back to the generational wealth of the owners of those businesses.

Eve: [00:29:08] That’s a remarkable outcome. And it’s a very, very lovely one. I can picture it. And was the developer happy with this outcome?

Rico: [00:29:19] Very much so. And I have to say that I feel like we were very fortunate to. And, you know, transformation happens over time, right. They had done two other projects in the neighborhood that had no investment in a community conversation, at least not one that that was evident or one that was felt and understood by the community being impacted to see the, this developer lean into a different process. And to be clear, like it began because the City of Seattle, through the regulatory process, said, yes, we understand what you are trying to do, but the community is not aligned with you on this project and you’re going to have to go fix it, figure it out.

Eve: [00:30:08] That’s a great role.

Rico: [00:30:10] It was an important role. I think that we were very fortunate to be able to work with a developer who could respond to a different viewpoint and different ideas than what they may have initially visualized, or the extent to which the level of investment that was asked of them was very different than where they were, where the project conversation started

Eve: [00:30:39] I don’t know how they could have imagined that outcome. It’s pretty terrific. I do want to say, like just on our funding portal, what’s been a really interesting shift that we’ve noticed over the last year or two, again since the horrible George Floyd episode, larger and larger developers have been coming to us in an effort to kind of integrate raising capital from the community or letting the community have some ownership in their project as well, it’s been a really pronounced shift. So, I think all of this is kind of happening together. It’s fascinating and fabulous.

Rico: [00:31:18] And even on that project. And so, we, now that I’m on the city side, I get to see it from the other side of the table, like the new not-for-profit applied to the city for funding for their tenant improvement. The ones dedicated to artists on the ground floor, that, there was a push. Like, that was not what the original intention was for that corner actually was going to be a CVS pharmacy.

Eve: [00:31:48] Oh, I like this much better.

Rico: [00:31:52] Yes, everybody did, developer included. But the big push there was a condominiumization of the building where that ground floor unit is now owned by the not-for-profit and providing generational wealth to artists that will be involved with that collective, which was again not what was originally, it was not what was originally conceived by the developer. And so, there is a big push that we are making. At least in this work that we’re doing through the EDI program, to ensure that moneys that are being invested, the properties are held by community members, by BIPOC owners that actually helps them get to a better financial position.

Eve: [00:32:47] We just completed an offering actually for the San Francisco Community Land Trust, which was really interesting because they purchased a 41 unit building with some retail space that was a commercial rental building, and they are going to be converting it over the next few years into a BIPOC owned cooperative for the people who live there. Very complicated project, but we actually help them raise money. Although they didn’t need the money for their business plan, they wanted to let the community invest, and there are so many people out there who want to help. It was very interesting. The return offered was low, but that doesn’t matter to some people. Yeah, we’re hoping that we’re going to raise. I mean, that was probably one of the best do-good projects we’ve ever done. I thought it was a pretty amazing project. So, I think more and more this is happening, which is just in all sorts of ways, which is just fabulous. So, I wanted to talk to you about the Waterfront Seattle Park as well, but we may have run out of time because that’s a huge project that looks amazing. And I know you were involved. And how did that impact the outcome of what’s being built, I suppose?

Rico: [00:34:03] I was recruited to join the Pike Place Market Council in large part because a parcel Pike Place had one remaining parcel on our campus which was able to be developed, and it was essentially an early win for the Waterfront project, which is headed up here by Marshall Foster, Office of Waterfronts and Civic Projects. That opportunity was to develop a site that contributes to the Pike Place Market in creating a huge plaza that allows you to look out over the waterfront and the city, and that’s a public gathering space. Added farmer and market stalls that became an extension of marketplace for us, but, well and created 10,000 square feet of makerspace for businesses. But underneath all of that, and that’s what’s important for the Waterfront project, we built 300 parking spaces which were part of a replacement. There was a study done as part of the Environmental Impact Statement for the Waterfront Project that acknowledged that I believe over 600 spaces were being lost in the redevelopment of the waterfront and that that was a critical impact to the downtown community. And so, Pike Place Market essentially answered an RFP from the city for a replacement of a portion of those parking spaces. So below the project, invisible to anybody that comes into the market, we have provided a solution to a need for the Waterfront development. It’s not what drives the placemaking, but important for the functioning of the downtown.

Rico: [00:36:11] On the placemaking side, the Marketfront Project, that’s what we call it, it was the first development, and I would call it a public private partnership, right? Because half of the 34 million was committed into that project by the city, the rest of it was committed and developed through funding from our Pike Place Market foundation. And we actually, the PDA did a large bond funding to fund the project and tax credit financing. But we had this opportunity to create a public space, public gathering, that contributes back to public realm. And it is the first stage of creating a bridge from a Pike Place Market site across to a future aquarium expansion Seattle Aquarium that then takes you down to the new waterfront. Our project is great. The development, once it’s complete in entirety is going to be incredible, including the Overlook Walk, which connects from the waterfront up into the market. It has been very complicated. Many voices. A huge vision that was the waterfront bringing together the entire city to be a part of that visioning process. It’s been an honor to be able to be a part of that.

Eve: [00:37:39] Interesting. Yeah. The many voices is scary, but it sounds like you manage them very well.

Rico: [00:37:46] I do the best that I can. And, you know, I think that now being at the Office of Planning and Community Development, I have a benefit of having 44 staff that are all very invested in this vision for equity, leading with equity, and kind of doing right by community. And so, this has work. I mean, to be clear, we are the City of Seattle, as an entity is over 11,000 employees. And so, we’re a very small complement, but we are leaning into what is transformation look like for the city and how do we do this work in a way where people have voice and can be seen. And it is hard work, and it does take a village. But I feel like we are starting to make some headway.

Eve: [00:38:47] So one final question. What’s your big, hairy, audacious goal?

Rico: [00:38:54] That’s a good question. I mean, the honest reality is, is that I think that on this conversation of generational wealth, that we have a responsibility, both as a city and as a nation, to look at harms that we have caused for the Asian community, for the Black community, and for the Indigenous community and for the immigrant community and ask ourselves, how do we change policies that we have in place, built environment and otherwise economic investment to get our communities of color to the place that they deserve to be? And what does that mean? That does mean investing and curating a authentic discussion in each of those communities to ask what that means, of the communities that we are engaged with. And then we have a responsibility to act to support those needs. That is not an easy thing to do, but it is a responsibility that we have. And it’s something that I have been committed to since I started. I got into architecture because I saw how much built environment affected people, myself included, and how you could get to transformational social change through built environment projects. That is one piece of the puzzle. But the reality is, is that we have a lot of work to do to get us all to a better place. And I am really excited about it. It is hard work, but it’s what gets me out of bed every morning.

Eve: [00:40:46] Well, I’ve really enjoyed this conversation. And honestly, if every single large development ends up with an outcome like the non-profit on the corner, that would make change pretty rapidly. That would be a fantastic thing to see. So, thank you very much for your work. I really enjoyed this.

Rico: [00:41:04] Thank you.

Eve: [00:41:09] Listening to Rico talk about just one project was inspirational. If one developer can move plans for a retail space from a CVS to a community-owned arts building, then just imagine what an army of them can do.

Eve: [00:41:32] You can find out more about this episode or others you might have missed on the show notes page at our website RethinkRealEstateForGood.co. There’s lots to listen to there. A special thanks to David Allardice for his excellent editing of this podcast and original music, and thanks to you for spending your time with me today. We’ll talk again soon, but for now, this is Eve Picker signing off to go make some change.

Image by M Nakamura courtesy of Rico Quirindongo

Valuing Black neighborhoods.

“Black communities are routinely undervalued. Even when they are among the nation’s wealthiest” writes Tracy Jan for the Washington Post.

Undervaluation of homes plays a large part in racial wealth inequality. In 2019 the median wealth of White families was eight times that of Black families in the United States, according to a Federal Reserve survey, and those figures had hardly changed over the previous three years. 

For homeowners, appraisal bias can reduce their ability to leverage home equity for things like repairs, family education, business or any of life’s important events. For buyers, appraisals lower than the contract price can require a larger down payment. And for sellers, profit and wealth accumulation is reduced. Undervaluing properties can also lead to lower property taxes which are used to fund local services and amenities. According to a new Biden Administration report, just one low appraisal could have wealth consequences for an entire community. And a study by The Brookings Institute found that, despite similar attributes and amenities, homes in Black neighborhoods are appraised at, on average, 23% less.

Andre Perry, a senior fellow at Brookings and author of  Know Your Price: Valuing Black Lives and Property in America’s Black Cities, believes this loss of equity adds up to approximately $156 billion – equity which could have been spent on education and entrepreneurship.

You can listen to the podcast with Andre Perry.  Or read the original article here.

Image courtesy of Small Change