About This Episode
Today’s guest, Nikki Beasley, is someone I first came across during a pandemic era webinar. I listen to a lot of webinars about housing and Nikki, the Executive Director of Richmond Neighborhood Housing Services, is a frequent contributor to the world of housing ideas. If you haven’t heard her, she’s great live, but her intelligence and charisma are not the only reasons why I am a card carrying member of her fan club. She also keeps it real, and too often she’s the only person in a housing space talking about homeownership, even when many of the folks in the room are homeowners too.
Our conversation gets into this dynamic and talks about how and why she is willing to stand up for a housing system which gives BIPOC households a real choice in whether to own their housing in one way or another. I hope you enjoy listening.
Thanks as always for tuning in, and if you like the show, please give it some love on social media or pass it along to someone who needs to hear Nikki or any of my other amazing guests.
This Episode’s Guest
Interview Transcript
Alex Schafran: Nikki Beasley, welcome to Housing After Dark. It is wonderful to have you.
Nikki Beasley: Thank you, Alex, looking forward to the conversation. Thank you for having me.
Alex Schafran: So as is tradition here, we love to start with how our housers became housers, and I know for you, this was a bit of a mid-career transition from a field that is very important to housing—banking—but which is not directly [housing]. So give us a little sense of how you ended up coming to the field and to Richmond Neighborhood Housing Services.
Nikki Beasley: In 2014, I retired from banking. After about 25 years, I didn't necessarily have a plan B, but I knew that I was open to doing something different, because I believe I had done all that I could do in the banking field. So I was open and exploring opportunities. A good friend and colleague of mine came to me to say that the board at the time was thinking about getting this little organization back on its feet that had been dormant for a number of years and asked if she knew anyone—so she thought of me.
So I always appreciate her for being obedient to that voice of saying, “I need to share this opportunity with Nikki.” So she shared the opportunity. I started to get excited, because I had not been directly in the housing space. I had always been in the nonprofit service space, as it related to my influence in banking, but was interested, so I started to do my research. I met with the organization's board, and then in May of 2016 I started my journey. So it's very fitting that this is my eighth year anniversary this month. I went in very naive and often said, bright eyed and bushy tailed, here to solve housing issues. But I think through naïveté and being new has really allowed me to get the organization where it is because I saw no boundaries, just opportunities. So that's how I got here.
Alex Schafran: So one of the things I love about housing is how diverse and how many different types of people and skills and professions are part of it, from engineers and architects and real technical skills to all of the world of finance and banking. And in particular, one of the things I love is, I think about, my colleague Maureen Sedonaen, who came in also kind of mid-career to [housing], and now runs Habitat for Humanity Greater San Francisco. We have the benefit of being able to bring in folks like yourself who have executive leadership experience in other fields that are connected and related, and who can bring that to housing. I think it brings a bit of fresh air at times, which is something that we often need, and just something that you do on a regular basis, but we'll get to that in a second. So tell me a little more about Richmond Neighborhood Housing Services. What is it that the organization does? Give us a little bit of a sense of who you all are and what kind of stuff you work on.
NIkki Beasley: So Richmond Neighborhood Housing Services, also known as RNHS, was established back in 1981 by local residents in the City of Richmond that were addressing the redlining issues of the day. It's transformed to be an affordable housing organization where we are property managers and owners of a rental portfolio that houses low to moderate income families between the cities of Richmond and Oakland. We are now field small site developers, which became relevant as we were looking to accomplish the need of inventory as it relates to homeownership. We run a number of programs, one being our HUD counseling agency. We're a HUD approved counseling agency supporting first time homebuyers getting the education they need to be successful homeowners.
We also support individuals that may be at risk of foreclosure, and then just launched this year our post purchase education series, because we know it's one thing to get a home, but it's another thing to keep a home. And then we also provide some additional financial education courses through our Money Matter series, because what I was finding is through the homeownership education, it's so packed because we're required to get through so much information. There were a lot of topics and interests that people had that we just couldn't address during the HUD education sessions. So we do workshops on what it means to have a living trust, the importance of insurance, investing, the whole gamut of financial education. We also run a program that was established in 2021, our emerging developers program, which was created after all of the pains I experienced becoming a new developer here at the organization.
Outside of all of that, we also do quite a bit of advocacy as it relates to the bank's obligation as it relates to their community reinvestment activities in the communities we serve. When we first started, we were explicit to the city of Richmond, because that's where we sit. But now we've expanded our services, really through COVID and our virtual access. So now we serve Alameda, Contra Costa and Solano counties.
Alex Schafran: It's fascinating that, I mean, I don't know if you identify as a 3P organization that works on production, preservation and protection, but you really are working across the board. Is that a conscious decision?
Nikki Beasley: Well, you know, I've always come into this work looking to solve problems. When we started our change in the narrative of homeownership that's attached to our HUD counseling and education, I found that people were doing a great job getting qualified for homes, but they couldn't afford to buy anything. So we attempted to try to build that inventory for people to afford. Then I learned how much emerging developers, new developers, black BIPOC developers, really didn't have access. So then we developed the emerging developers. Everything that we've done has really looked to solve issues related to the place and space that we sit in.
Alex Schafran: I want to start to unpack this and learn a little bit more about how you approach this. We had Maeve Elise Brown on the show very recently, who works at the organization HERA which does a lot of work to help protect people. So what are the types of things that you work with existing homeowners to help them hold on to what they have? All housing can always be lost. Some of you will listen to a show I just recorded with Paul Fordham from Homeward Bound about how anybody of us can become homeless at any time. What are the kinds of things that you do to kind of help people keep what they've worked so hard for, and what your organization, in many ways, has often worked so hard to help them achieve?
Nikki Beasley: Through our post-purchase work, we're talking about all of the behaviors that was created to get the home like savings, maintaining credit, being conscious of your spending behaviors and habits become even more critical once you become a homeowner, because you need credit to be able to refinance, to possibly get better interest rates or to do home improvements, you need the savings because you can't call the landlord when the water heater breaks or you have a leak in the roof. And as homeowners, they're not hundreds of dollars repairs, they're thousands of dollars repairs.
And then also, the behaviors of what we feel about money and being successful in building our wealth, that learning to leverage the home as a tool. Because I think in the communities that we serve, there's a lot of emotional attachment to becoming a homeowner because we're the first in our generation, or we're trying to accomplish that American Dream, or some validation that we've been successful, but also inserting in the work and conversations that this is also a tool that the wealthy use, because outside of being a homeowner, depending on where you are and the economic cycle, many people need tax write offs, deductions, and a home is the second thing outside of having children or small business that you can leverage so really, just giving us full spectrum, that it's one thing to be a homeowner, it's another thing to be able to maintain the home. But how can you leverage it so that you really can experience this thing called the American Dream?
Alex Schafran: Are there specific challenges that you're seeing when it comes to helping homeowners maintain their houses? I'm a homeowner now and I'm learning the hard way about the challenges of it. It requires not just a lot of money, but a lot of real professional expertise that you have to access. Now, I happen to be a professional in the housing space, and so I'm more, I guess, comfortable, than some would be when it comes to talking to architects or contractors or plumbers or electricians. And I've been fortunate to meet some people all through word of mouth, which seems to be a very kind of strange way of doing it. What are some of the challenges that you're seeing, and are there ways you're figuring out how to help people access this maintenance help that they need?
Nikki Beasley: I think from our education piece, it's just the things to look out for, how to work with the contractor, how to have risk mitigation so that you don't get into bad situations. Since we are property managers and landlords, we have a list of contractors that we use, so maybe on a one on one basis, if we're asked if we have something to offer. I do think that the space of post ownership could be extended, we could definitely do a better job with the intention of maintaining because all the things you've mentioned are critically important, and many people don't know where to start, because they've never had to do this before. So we haven't gotten there yet. Know that there's a need, but at this time, just kind of giving them a broad overview of the type of things they should be looking out for.
Alex Schafran: So I want to come back to that at some point later in our conversation about what we can do. Yes, post ownership, we use the concept of supportive housing mostly to refer to folks often living with various physical or mental challenges, folks who need a kind of extra level of support, and often that support is a social worker. I view what you all do and what Maeve does as a form of kind of supportive homeownership. I mean, it's our friends in the community land trust movement. It's takes a village, a community to help maintain buildings. It takes a lot of real expertise. I feel that you are doing a really amazing job of trying to extend that support network out and make it clear that I think all of us need it in some ways.
Nikki Beasley: I would definitely be open to, you know, if there were other ways I could access support differently than I'm currently accessing them as a homeowner, I would love to see that happen.
Alex Schafran: So now let's shift gear again. You do so many things, and I want to make sure that we have a chance to kind of touch on all of them. Shifting to the production side. So you're seeing a challenge, right? You're doing the counseling that is available to so many homeowners across the country, HUD certified homeownership counseling. And maybe in other parts of the country, you get people set up, you get them qualified for a mortgage, and there are houses out there they can afford. This is clearly not the case in the Bay Area, and so that's one of the reasons why you move the organization into getting involved actually, whether it's purchasing existing homes, or building them yourselves. So tell us a little bit more about how you're trying to get more affordable units to be available to your clients.
Nikki Beasley: Sure. The journey started, I want to say, in 2018 where we purchased some land in West Oakland. It was 17,500 square feet with the intention of being built into single family homes. Through that experience, I now deem myself a subject matter expert in this space, because I learned a lot. And I am now confident to make this bold statement that new build affordable homeownership projects do not work unless you're dealing with hundreds and hundreds of units to be able to leverage the expense and subsidies needed. Because I always say it doesn't matter if you're building affordable or at market rates, they still cost the same to build. So in this market, if it's costing you a million dollars to build a unit and you're trying to keep it affordable, currently there's no deep subsidy to help combat that gap also with new builds, there's little or no support for developments or projects that are looking to address the area median incomes of 80% and up to 120% and that being really what triggers subsidies (most of that is for the 80% average wage earner and below). Again, if you're dealing with affordability and managing costs, it just doesn't work.
So we've pivoted our interest in acquisition rehab to homeownership, really leveraging existing buildings that have become dormant, blighted, or vacant in many of the communities that we care about that have shown some disinvestment in the community. We find that that is the easiest way, because 1) as a nonprofit, we should be able to get them at a cheaper sales price. So just for an example, if you could buy it for $200,000 put $150,000 into rehab, and sell for $350,000 or $400,000 that deems affordable. So we've pivoted in that way.
We are working with our community partner, Richmond Community Foundation, where we're leveraging something called a Social Impact Bond. It’s a bond in name, but not bond in functionality. It's not something that community pays for. It is an instrument that community, that banks, that leverage their community reinvestment dollars, can invest in this bond, usually through a municipality, which gives us those funds to be able to go acquire rehab and bring homeownership.
That’s our current strategy of addressing the inventory needs, so that when people do get qualified, they have something to buy. Because what I do believe is that the industry has done a decent job of finding subsidy down payment assistance, and all the things to get a person qualified, but again, on the other end, there's not much that they can purchase in high cost areas.
Alex Schafran: Are you finding in the communities that you work in throughout, mostly Western Contra Costa County, a little bit of Alameda County, and Solano County, is there enough stock out there that that fits these criteria that you could buy and rehab? Does the ability to add ADU units, or the ability to transform single family units into multifamily units? Is that something that is helpful?
Nikki Beasley: Yes, I would say (and this is just a rough get guesstimate, not validated), but throughout the three counties, I would probably say there's an in excess of 700 units, either deemed vacant because of property tax liens, foreclosure, bank owned property, a host of different reasons why they've become vacant.
In these communities that we serve, you can see a number of units. So I think there's enough inventory. I think our efforts have been how to write down some of the administrative barriers to get to those properties so that we can move forward with this strategy. But I do think there's enough inventory to keep organizations like ours and others who have interest in this model, to keep us busy and get people into homeownership. My feeling is that this is a way to invest in communities without displacement, allowing people who maybe already live there in those communities the opportunity to buy.
Alex Schafran: So speaking of opportunities to buy in your community. I know that you all are part of a significant collaboration in North Richmond involving a former, still owned by the Contra Costa Housing Authority, site. Tell us a little bit more about that. It's a pretty interesting project, with a lot of different partners on the ground. And for those who are listening, I'm hoping this is actually the first of many conversations we have about Richmond, a place that I learned a lot about a lot of things over the course of my career, and like very much. Tell us a little bit about this work with the housing authority and other partners.
Nikki Beasley: So this journey for us started November of 2016 as we were moving offices this past year, I ran across my first letter of interest (LOI) to the county. Now remember, I started in May of 2016 and in November, I wrote this LOI of what my desire and interest was, because during that time, a majority of those properties were vacant, they were under resourced, they were in desperate need of rehabilitation. I would probably say maybe 20-30% of the residents were still on site.
The interesting thing about North Richmond’s Housing Authority. When we talk about public housing projects, we tend to think of high density (e.g., one big tower with 300 or a couple 100 units). This particular project was scattered throughout the county or throughout the unincorporated area of North Richmond.
Fast forward to 2022-2023 through the Partnership of the Bay's Future in the San Francisco Foundation, the Housing Authority got a fellow to assist them really build out what this process would be to get the properties in the hands of nonprofits like myself, CHDC, the Richmond Land, along with our other partner, Richmond Community Foundation, were the approved developers to be able to acquire duplexes. I think we all got between four to six duplexes.
Some of us are going through the traditional model of acquisition rehab to homeownership, which will be a traditional mortgage model. Some are using the land trust model, or a host of different ways of getting folks into homeownership. Through the effort of philanthropy, giving the Housing Authority the capacity to spend the time needed to build out a system, leaning in on the local agencies that were already in community doing the work or had identified interest to want to participate, and then now being able to buy these properties at a significantly deep discount to be able to invest what's necessary to get these units online, to be able to get into the hands first time homebuyers.
And what's most important about this is they do come with deed restrictions, meaning that, we are looking for lost Delta's residents who would like to return. They'll have the first right of refusal. Then we'll go to North Richmond residents, and then the City of Richmond residents. So really linear focused and purpose in terms of who gets into those units, the deed restrictions keeping them affordable for others, that once people you know decide to move out, that the next group of folks get the same opportunities with affordability.
Alex Schafran: A shout out to Hannah Phalen, a former California Community Builders intern. We'll have links to many of these projects on the page that you are accessing this broadcast from, including actually the California Community Builders report that talks about folks above 80% of Area Median Income that we recently released.
We just recently did a study that showed that Californians between 80% and 200% of AMI are 61% BIPOC. That's Californians. That's not just the Bay Area. That's not just local, that's all throughout the state. It's really clear when you look at need, that our lowest income Californians have the highest needs when it comes to housing, but when you look at the broader challenge, if you think that kind of diversity, racial justice issues are just an issue for lower income Californians, that would be incorrect.
Nikki Beasley: I appreciate you bringing that up because when we first got in this space of working on our development in West Oakland, I heard it and I coined it about “uncoupling race and income”, because I do believe this homeownership conversation, in my mind, and the places and spaces I've said has been an elitist issue, meaning that there's an assumption that if you can afford to buy a home, that that you don't need any help with anything.
But when you bring up 61% of those that are in that 80% to 200% AMI that are BIPOC individuals, we also know that all those systems that were inserted in their ability to make that income, they may look good on paper, but that's not the translation of their disposable dollars, whether it's due to student debt, helping family members, the list goes on and on.
So it does require that we do take a second look. My premise in this housing conversation has been housing for all. So whatever point of entry an individual has in their need for housing, there should be options. So even in our homeownership conversation, I'm very clear what our lane is with the traditional mortgage, but for those individuals that may not fit that model, then it's good to know there's co-op, there's land trust, and the conversation should be the power of and in both and this being explicit that it's only one way for individuals to get to whatever their goal of housing need is.
Alex Schafran: Amen. And I think maybe then this is the point where we can transition into maybe the more difficult part. For folks who want to learn more about what Nikki's doing, and specifically in Richmond, or what Richmond NHS is doing, or other folks, that's all going to be linked to on the Substack.
Let's talk about carrying the flag. So many of you who listen will know Nikki or have listened to her before, and often, you will hear her being one of the only people to really talk about homeownership in housing spaces where homeownership may or may not be on the agenda, something that I know that you do incredibly well, incredibly bravely.
I want to talk a little bit about how you carry this flag for homeownership, because I think that what you just mentioned is really important. You're not just saying, “Hey, homeownership, homeownership, homeownership, homeownership. That's the only way.” You're arguing for giving people choices, real choices, and giving them the information and the resources to be able to make those choices, right? I mean, is that how you are approaching homeownership in this space?
Nikki Beasley: I thought that's what we're supposed to be doing—solving the needs of the people. I just happened to be in a space that the anchor program within the organization when I arrived was a HUD counseling agency with the explicit focus of getting people to homeownership. And through what I said earlier, we could get people qualified, but they couldn't afford to buy, so we started coming up with solutions. Now, if this organization had been anchored in any other aspect of housing, whatever those solution needs were, that was my job to try to solve for it. Again, being naive to this conversation when I started, I was just showing up everywhere. Shirley Chisholm is my hero about bringing your folding chair to the table.
As I was hearing these conversations, there was no conversation about homeownership and so I thought it was my job to lift up that there are people who want homeownership, that it makes sense in high cost areas, if their rent is as much as a mortgage, and they are pursuing that, then we need to find an option or solution. What you and others may also hear me say is that if we really focused on the needs of the people, regardless of where they are on the housing spectrum, I think that these conversations will be easier. What I have found in many of these conversations, it tends to be unit based, it tends to be cost based. But I'm like, “Have you talked to the people?” We're building all these things, but have we talked to the people to understand that if we build it, would it be something that they would be comfortable living in? It's all been about me coming into this work, solving for the needs of the people and the people we happen to serve have an interest in ownership.
Alex Schafran: Maybe this is one of those questions. I often think about it as the difference between what people “need” and what people “want”. I think there's that old Rolling Stones line of, “You can't always get what you want, but if you try real hard, you get what you need.” I think maybe there's some housers that have taken that too much to heart, and it's like, “Hey, here's the housing unit that you can afford and that we can provide you.” That never asks you, “What's the kind of housing unit that you want, and what are your plans, and how can we give you some real choices in that?” I think that's the hard thing.
One thing that has been nice in going to a lot of housing conferences over the last year is I'm seeing homeownership kind of hijack the show. And it's not always just you. It's not always just you or somebody else that I know already personally who's willing to raise that flag that more and more people are raising it. It happened at House The Bay recently, a big event, homeownership was never on the agenda, but it got put on the agenda. It happened at a Partnership for the Bay’s future event. Very recently I've seen it happening Housing California, all of which are wonderful organizations who do a lot of really important work on housing. All of them could do more on homeownership.
I've seen people sort of insert, “Hey, homeownership, homeownership, homeownership.” And I just hope people start to really listen to that. You've been carrying this flag for a while, do you think people are starting to hear you?
Nikki Beasley: Yes and no. But I do want to speak to the hijacking. I don't think it's a hijacking. If we're in a meeting that's talking about housing for the community, and you happen to be in that space, and you don't hear your name called or that it is a priority of conversation. I think, then those that represent those folks are doing exactly what they are supposed to do to say “Hey, listen, if we're really talking about addressing the housing needs, we have a population that has a need, and I haven't heard it yet. So what are your thoughts about that?”
Yes, in the last two or three years, you have heard housing become part of the conversation. I would like to think that was some influence of mine. However, I don't think there is a coincidence that it was during the time of George Floyd's murder and social unrest that brought back all of the triggers and words of wealth disparity, closing the wealth gap, and how homeownership can play a part in that. But again, in those conversations, there were a lot more conversations about the subsidy and qualification getting people into homeownership, versus the production piece, or preservation piece, of having inventory available.
You brought up Housing the Bay. It is not just Housing the Bay, but others convenings in the last six months, with the importance of DEI being challenged, with the sensitivity of what does woke really mean with this upcoming election, you are starting to see the pendulum swing in the other direction, kind of reverting back to where we were before, to where ownership from my concern, is going to start again competing for attention.
To your point earlier, I think that the community is smart. They want to be given the option to choose, versus them being told what's best for them. So yes, we advocate for homeownership, but if a person is making, and this is just to get my point across, $500 a year, ownership is unlikely to be an option for them. But if they are consulted, and they're and they understand why it can’t happen, then that makes a lot of sense, versus, “Oh, you don't need to be a homeowner. You shouldn't think about that. That's not something that you should aspire to be.” That's when we have an issue.
But when people are informed and educated of why one choice or option is better or worse than the other, then I think they are reasonable to understand why option B is more plausible than option A or vice versa, and it's not about the one in the need because again, if we're talking about the 80% to 120% AMI where we spend a lot of our time, it becomes almost essential.
Most from our standpoint, many of our homeowners are later in their life cycle. So their children are adults. They are in their job for a certain period of time, they're not entrepreneurs, so they need the write off. It's not about them wanting, it actually becomes a need. So yes, once over needs are important to evaluate when I've been in conversations I speak about the sensitivity of profit, and I'm not saying that the project shouldn't be profitable, but at the same time, if we're addressing the needs of people, then it may help us make better choices and decisions of how we're actually getting people into units, because we haven't even spoken about the homeless population we're just throwing units, and anyone in the housing space understands you can't throw units at the homeless population without in-depth social service, wraparound services.
Homelessness today is a lot different than it was 10 years ago. So there could be a homeless person, if just given a unit, they could go on about their day and life is good. There are others that are going to need a lot of support. And I don't think from the housing industry, can we really articulate when we say we need 10,000 or 20,000 units? What are those units? Are there 5000 deeply supportive services? 10,000? We haven't gotten very targeted at knowing the type of units we need; we're just concerned about getting the units out the door.
Alex Schfran: I appreciate you coming back to this question of support. I talked about this on a recent recording with Paul Fordham. But again, I think there's a certain one of the things I love about what you all do is you provide support. I mean, I'm a firm believer that all forms of housing need support. Wealthy people are just able to pay for it. That's just the only difference.
A mansion, a rich person in a mansion, that housing is so incredibly supported—architects, builders, gardeners, accountants, lawyers—there's a whole suite of professional services that keep those people in that house and keep that housing function. And the only difference is they're able to go out in the market or pay people, and it doesn't matter how much it costs, because money is no object. And I think homeownership and homelessness and everybody in between needs something and that kind of support, which is many ways, again, within the homeownership space, that's something that you provide.
When other housers hear you talk about homeownership, do you think that they are understanding that the types of work that you all do is a kind of supportive homeownership. That you have different types of programs that can work get from 80 to 120 you, I'm you know, there are types of homeownership that will work below 80% of AMI, again, shout out to our community land trust folks who are trying to figure out ways of driving the benefits of homeownership to people who are some of our lowest income folks in our community.
Do you think people are, are seeing that are they just hearing the like homeownership at any cost, kind of mentality that came out of certain parts of the homeownership industry, especially in the lead up to 2008 in the foreclosure crisis where people started being shoved into homeownership without a without a life vest, without a lifeline, and without any kind of support to help them keep it.
Do you think people are seeing that support or are they just assuming that you're just talking about unsupported homeownership.
Nikki Beasley: I think it depends on the audience. I think there's some people who walk away from conversations they're scratching their heads trying to figure it out, and then others just tolerate the conversation they're going to do what they want to do, and have no interest in engaging and figuring out other solutions. I think it really depends on the audience and their interest and desire to solve the issue and even being okay to say, maybe it's not my lane. It's no interest of ours to address it, but at the same time being okay to say it's not my lane, but I'm not going to discount its value.
Alex Schafran: Well, I hope more folks do start to listen to you and that there are more people that are willing to speak up. I will say it is an struggle in some of the housing spaces that I walk in and I hear it again, it's particularly for me from a certain type of often well meaning, dedicated white person who has spent a lot of time in the affordable housing industry, but clearly lives in a home that they own, and I would bet money, that they grew up in a home that their family owns and wouldn't be surprised if they like me that their retirement plan is the equity in their parents’ house, and just to understand where that is, I mean, again, we both heard somebody question homeownership on a stage, and that person is somebody who inherited not only their parents home, but inherited an entire portfolio of wealth of other people's homes owned by their father and I think grandfather as well.
Nikki Beasley: Do you know that for a fact?
Alex Schafran: It's in their bio.
Nikki Beasley: See Alex? Thank you.
Alex Schafran: To point out the fact that right now, that homeownership costs a lot more than renting, is fine. If you want to point out all the flaws in the homeownership system, if you’re coming up with a plan to fix those flaws. I'm with you. I know what a fixer upper looks like, and the homeownership system is definitely a fixer upper, but it's like, come with some intent to actually fix up the house, as opposed to say that's not for you and just be a renter for life, because that's all we can offer.
Nikki Beasley: Alex, I thank you for lifting up the facts. I made some assumptions, but you validated the facts. So here's the issue, and I've said this too. If we're really wanting to solve this housing issue, there needs to be a shift in power, because many of those, which you've just demonstrated, are solving for people they know nothing about. They don't have the lived experience. And again, if you don't have the lived experience, then it makes it challenging for you to speak on behalf of the people that you've been dedicated to serve.
And possibly the reason that I'm so adamant about the people, is because people I'm serving look like my granny, my papa, my uncle, my cousin, my auntie. So there's going to be a different level of interest than those that might not have a social, racial consciousness too. So again, it is okay for people to pick their lane and interest in the housing space, but it's not okay to discount other ways that people get housed, and it's also from an ownership standpoint, not your place to tell an individual that they cannot participate in what is deemed the only part of an American Dream. Until it's been evaluated, there's been some assessment determined, yes, this can work, or no it cannot, which is a HUD counseling agency.
These conversations are important, because people kind of forget the audience. They forget that there are worlds outside of the world that they live in. And hopefully with the feedback of it and not demonizing any one as better than the other. But again, keeping people at the heart of the conversation and if there are resources to solve the need, not the want, then we really have to be all willing to explore that, versus there being the sensitivity that, if there is another focus, that somehow it's going to take away from their model of wealth or winning, because it also gets the point you just want to win. As a developer, you just want to win the deal. And again, the people and all the other things tend to be on the back burner.
Alex Schafran: I couldn't agree more. In some ways, one of the ways I like to think about it is that we kind of have two problems in housing. One is that there are a group of folks who think that the thing that they have, the type of housing that they live in, is what everybody wants, and so everybody should have this thing that I have, and it's like, maybe they have different interests and different needs. The other people are like “This thing that I have isn't right for you. So you don't want this. You should have this other thing that I give you.” And it's like, wait, did you ask them?
And both come from that same problem of like a) not asking people, and b) not listening to them, and c) not being willing to understand that's create a really diverse. We have 320 million people in this country that are incredibly diverse and have really different housing wants, needs at different times in their lives. What works for you this year, what works for me now, did not work 10 years ago, and probably won't work in 20 years. So I think that's if we could get folks to embrace that kind of diversity of housing approaches, which I think is something we came back to as a 3P organization, working in a very diverse community, trying to provide diverse choices to a community that really has never been given real choice.
Nikki Beasley: And I love that other point you just made, Alex. This is a continuum. And if the systems weren't dedicated to profiting on poverty, keeping people impoverished, ideally, this is how the system should work. If you are a Section 8 voucher holder, there should be some motivated incentive that if you are capable of going out, getting a better job, earn some income, so you can walk away from Section 8 and be self sustainable, you continue to excel in your career, manage your money, whatever that case may be, homeownership, if that's your dream and desire.
Unfortunately, a lot of these systems are in place to keep people poor to where it limits their ability to dream or to do more. Personal story, and this is not judgment, but just a personal story. A very good, born and raised in San Francisco, childhood friend who, up until the time I was an adult, didn't realize that she and her family were in Section 8 housing, because as little kids, she didn't know that. And she just texted me the other day to say, after 30 years, she finally got her Section 8 voucher.
So on one hand, I'm like, here we are celebrating poverty. Should I be excited that it took you over 30 years? Because that means that she consciously wanted to limit her income so she didn't lose her voucher. We know that to be something that happens in this space, that people don't want to get a better job, don't want to show any other assets, they don't want to lose what they have. But then, as I thought about it, and this even as me, as a Houser, you should want more. But then I said, you know what, at this time in your life, this makes all the sense in the world with you, because now you can retire and never have to worry about your housing cost.
So going back to this point of how these systems have been designed. If it's used correctly, it can be a benefit. But if not used correctly, it can impact people's ability to see more, want more. But again, regardless of where the people are, it's our job as housers to evaluate the need and attempt to solve it, because we can't, like you said, create 1000 solutions. But if you get enough data to say, out of all of the needs, these are the top 30, then maybe we can start being linearly focused on that.
Alex Schafran: We did a study as part of the multifamily homeownership report with California Community Builders, and the thing about Section 8 is that it can theoretically be used to pay a mortgage, it could be a wealth building pathway. I think of the 400,000 active vouchers in California, less than 500 are used to pay a mortgage. And this didn't always used to be the case. Oakland Housing Authority, many of the housing authorities, used to have homeownership programs for Section 8 vouchers, but shut them down. Shout out to Stephanie Christmas, who used to run Oakland Housing Authority’s program, and hopefully will be a future guest on this show.
I was just at a recent event with some realtors who are mostly realtors of color, who like you said, just want to be able to sell their product to people who look like them, who are from their communities, to family members, etc. And I'm excited that there is now starting to be more attention to this kind of Section 8 for homeownership issue. Now it doesn't help us that we have one voucher for every four people who qualify in the country, and we need vouchers that go higher than the current income levels, so that it shouldn't be a choice between earning more money and getting direct support and being able to buy a home, we should be able to do all of those things.
Nikki Beasley: And I appreciate you lifting that up, because we've also been very successful working with both Oakland Housing Authority and Contra Costa through their Family Self Sufficiency program, getting those vouchers converted to mortgages. I know for the city of Oakland, it wasn't that they shut it down, but because the property values at the time were so high, even the voucher support wasn't qualifying. And so I think for you know, housing authorities that have the ability to bring Family Self Sufficiency programs on board definitely should leverage it. The two things to keep note of, especially for housing authorities, housing counseling agencies and those that partner to make that happen. The important thing is to remember that most mortgages are 30 year terms, that HOME Choice Vouchers are only 20 years. So at some point, when we talk about post ownership, unless the person is disabled, it’s for as long as they live, what then is the strategy after that 20th year? What happens then?
So, yes, great program. I think we as a collective should spend more time on it as well. How do we support those in anticipating that at some point that subsidy is going to end, but they may still have 10 years left of a mortgage, so. But a great program, and we've helped a lot of folks maximize the benefit.
Alex Schafran: One last question. Let's say hopefully that people are starting to hear you and to hear others who have been advocating not just for homeownership really, but for choice and for this real diverse set of supported tenures and giving people options. Are there a couple of things that you'd like to see happen, whether in the lending space, in the policy space? What is it that you would like to see happen over the next few years in housing to make some of what you're trying to do either easier or possible?
Nikki Beasley: Well, thank you for that question. From the lending space, from the banking space, continue to do more in supporting down payment assistance, closing costs, any type of subsidies banks can offer our down payment programs they're willing to accept to get the homeowner qualified or future homeowner qualified. But also look at other ways they can invest their CRA debt dollars to get some of these properties inventory so that they are available, especially in high cost areas, outside of LIHTC and CDFIs, there are other ways they can participate in housing. I think two, understanding that scalability isn’t hundreds and hundreds of units. It’s one homeowner and the trickles effect all the things that by them being a homeowner, the impact that they have for their generations, if managed quickly, is important.
I think from a state level, figuring out how to carve out funds so that these smaller projects can be put online, and if it's new build, figuring out what that subsidy can be to offset the affordability for homeownership, or pooling money together so we can do more of this acquisition and rehab to homeownership.
From an advocacy lens, housing for all, staying linearly focus and conversations being okay to say this isn't what we do, but we don't oppose other ways that people look to solve their housing needs.
Three, making sure that the community is invested and involved. The only reason I advocate as much as I do is the number of people that we serve in a year that if they could buy a house tomorrow, they would, and it's not just about their ability to qualify. So I'm doing it based on the data I've received. So all housers that are in the space of creating solutions having that same data point to understand what they're solving for, and if they build it, will people come and stop thinking about the national number, the state number, but really, the people that you can touch at arm's length, are you satisfying the needs that they have from a housing standpoint?
Alex Schafran: Well, Nikki, I can't thank you enough, not just for coming on the show, but for the consistency and persistency with which you raise your voice and you advocate. I know this is not your first podcast, and it won't be your last, and it's so important that you do this, and I am really excited, because I sort of started as a fanboy, and now I get to have you on the show. So really appreciate it. I look forward to seeing you in many housing events in the future, and I do hope at some point that you and I are sitting in the back talking about somebody else is on stage saying it, and somebody else is at the mic asking those questions, so that you don't always have to be that person doing it. But really appreciate that you're always willing to do that, and I know that you will keep doing it as long as it needs being done.
Nikki Beasley: Thank you for that, Alex. And to your audience and to your listeners: be bold if it comes from your heart and it is a passion of yours. Speak your voice. It needs to be heard, because I don't know everything, but it's important that others are heard, not just me, in these spaces. So regardless of where you are in the housing conversation, if you're not hearing your people being represented, please be bold and take a stand, because if not us, who's going to do it?
Alex Schafran: Thank you, Nikki.
Nikki Beasley: Thank you.
Housing After Dark Episode 13: Nikki Beasley on the Importance of Homeownership