 Welcome to all of you. So glad you're here. It's another episode of the nonprofit show. Julia Patrick and myself, Jared Ransom are here today with Jenna Juniper, which is such a beautiful name. Jenna is here as president and CEO to talk to us about affordable housing. So the topic of today is why nonprofits should care about affordable housing. So we're going to dive deep on the subject that is rippling across our nation. But before we do, we want to remind you, our fantastic viewers and listeners who you're looking at are possibly listening to. So hello to Julia Patrick, CEO of the American Nonprofit Academy. We have you to thank my friend for creating this platform, allowing these opportunities of conversation. And I am so very honored to serve alongside you each and every day as your co-host. Again, I'm Jared Ransom wearing now real nonprofit glasses. CEO of the Raven Group, and we are also so very honored to have the partnership with our presenting sponsors. 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But Jenna, you've been waiting so patiently as our amazing guest today. And Jenna Juniper again is joining us here. Welcome and please tell us about you and your consulting. Thank you so much. I really appreciate being here today. I know we're going to have such an amazing conversation and really dive into the partnerships with affordable housing and nonprofits. But a little bit of background about me. Like you said, my name is Jenna Juniper. I am the president and CEO of Panesta Juniper Consulting. I've been in the affordable housing industry. It seems like quite a while, but it's hitting almost 17 years now. And my passion to end homelessness, to really expand affordable housing all across the nation. Just grows day by day by day. We have this continued need for affordable housing nationwide. And it is my goal to reduce that number drastically every year. So I have a big mission, but it seems like there are millions of people out there with the same mission and the same goals as me. And so just connecting everyone to make that dream a reality. Well, it is I love what Jared said, because it's such a hot topic. It's not a new problem, but it just seems like we are addressing this more and more. And I think it would help me if we'd start out by having you help us to figure out how we define this. Yes, yes, absolutely. Because I think a lot of people also see affordable housing and they don't really understand what affordable housing is. They just know it's a term. So affordable housing is any rental housing that is across the United States that is rented at a reduced rent based on your income and the number of household members that are in your household unit. That's pretty much it. The rents can be anywhere from 30 percent of your monthly income to a flat lower set aside. It just depends on the program. And so I think a lot of people think affordable housing and we immediately go into that public housing mindset, the section eight mindset. And that's not what it is. While public housing and section eight are types of affordable housing, there are certainly many other programs that are out there that aren't as stigmatic and as. readily available to everyone versus a voucher program that's only accessible to specific members. So we're really seeing an expansion of affordable housing programs, not just in public housing and in section eight. We're seeing it what's called tax credit as well. And there's other grant programs that are out there. So we are expanding affordable housing in many different areas. So just because you see an apartment complex within your neighborhood, it could be anything. It could be a tax credit site. It could be a section eight site. We are putting up properties all across the nation in every neighborhood right now. Wow. I love this base definition. And I'm so glad we started at that core. How is affordable housing defined? And I'm curious, Jennifer, Jennifer, if you could also speak to it, because this is not like a siloed issue. This is a national issue that many of us across the nation are facing. Can you speak to that magnitude? Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, when you think about it, shelter is one of our basic human needs. So as a result of quarantine and COVID, excuse me, we saw building costs go up, a delay in construction. And as a result of the past two to three years, there's been an increase in homelessness. And so really we are seeing this this massive need for housing, right? But it's not out there. And we're doing everything we can to to help expand housing and the outreach. But it's it's even our efforts sometimes are a little jaded just because we've got entities that might not want our properties there. And sometimes even finding the properties is difficult. So really expanding our affordable housing is a struggle right now for all of us. Wow. Yeah. Go ahead, Jared. Well, I was just going to say, so one of the things that I've been focused on in my consulting practice is that human service, you know, support system and that continuum of care and really that base, as you said, it is a basic need. And so so many organizations have really looked at this and provided innovation. This is impacting nonprofits, but it is impacting and creating innovation of programs, innovation of funding, innovation of solutions. And so as we move forward to talk about the affordable housing and those impacts on the NPO's as we like to refer the nonprofit organizations, what are you seeing this as at its core? Well, and let's be clear, both the impact on both is positive, right? When you partner affordable housing with a nonprofit, it's a win-win. It's very rarely a win-lose situation. But what we're seeing is because of this massive need for shelter by us being able to get individuals just stabilized with shelter, just a roof over their head. Now they have one of their basic needs met. Now they're open to supportive services. They're able to stabilize their household, their family unit, their children in school and therefore they're better able to receive your supportive services or the programs that you might offer the offering either on site or within your organization. And that's where this partnership blends beautifully is we've got affordable housing communities scattered throughout the nation. It's not just here in Arizona that are making that connection, whether it's after school programs and just simply opening your community center from, you know, what, three thirty to six, you're allowing parents that are working in a low income community to work additional hours and have that income and knowing that their kids are in a safe environment after school as parents, that's a peace of mind in and of itself, right? So little things nonprofits can do to begin partnering with affordable housing entities. After school programs are typically one of the quickest and easiest ways to get in. And it's one of the ones that we see a lot of nonprofits already have established, but there's others ways. We see nonprofits coming in and offering support groups, even career advancement or job placement. That's another great one that is incredibly successful on our properties. And, you know, it's not requiring somebody to be on site for these these positions 40 hours a week. It can be two days a week that you offer a counselor to help them even just complete a resume or look for a job, just those little extra hands on resources we can provide to our clients, removes the barriers for them. And that's what our ultimate goal is in partnering with nonprofits. It's to remove any type of barriers that they might have for success. Jenna, it seems to me that if you are a nonprofit and you navigate with a partnership in this, in some ways, you are arresting even harsher situations for your constituency, where if you can meet them at this point, they're going to need less support or less help that you can't turn around from. Is that fair to say? Absolutely. Absolutely. It's being provided right then and there. You're removing the transportation barrier. You're really making it easier for them to engage in your services, right, and enroll in your services as well as be successful in their futures. And so just even partnering with affordable housing providers to have an office two days a week or one day a week and provide some sort of services can move mountains, absolutely. Move mountains and ultimately impact generations because we know that affordable housing is generational. And so if you can help one family, you can be helping that generation there. Yeah, and break that cycle, as you said, that that continues. You know, I was talking to a very large ride share company that is in our nation and services, many, many communities. They were saying statistically 70 percent of their rides start or end in low income neighborhoods. And many of this is that affordable housing, you know, and really looking at these wraparound services. Transportation is one of them. And in many major cities, you know, when it comes to that employment and transportation barrier that you spoke of, Jenna, you know, I'm sitting in a privileged place that, you know, I work that eight to five plus the personal car. But many of these individuals, you know, they depend on transportation. They might be working hours that transportation is no longer available. And so having these wraparound services is so imperative. I love what you're saying. Where, you know, where are some of your affordable housing now? Because I heard you say, like, it's it's in multiple states. Absolutely. So there's affordable housing nationwide. There's not a city that doesn't have it. Right. The biggest barrier we're seeing, though, is clients and even some of your nonprofits, they don't even know where to look for. They have no clue. Where do I even start to find an affordable housing community? So there's several different places, besides reaching out to me and I'm happy to pair anyone with their local agency. The best resource is what's called affordable housing dot com. It's a website and it's a national database search that pulls up every apartment complex within the nation that has some sort of affordable component on it. We as affordable housing providers are required to public or I'm sorry, to market our properties on this website. So that's the best place to go. You type in your zip code. You can even filter it by bedroom size and it will let you know what you have in your city or your location. So it's a great first step. There's other websites. You can always go to hot dot gov and take a look at the the national database if you wanted to. But we really found that affordable housing dot com is the best one to utilize immediately. But, you know, even within your city, wherever your nonprofit is located, I really always advise connect with your local housing authority and you can Google that simply, you know, your county or even your state agency connect with your local housing authority. And the reason why I say that is because then you can outreach to all of the property management companies, the developers, everyone that is associated with that housing authority or that entity to really begin to network and expand your your outreach. I personally have a list of all nonprofits that are listed in each state. And every time I have a vacancy or property that is is being developed, I immediately reach out to this email list of all these nonprofits and let them know this is what I have coming available. Here's the property brochure and most apartment complexes will do the same thing on a routine basis. So connecting with an apartment complex or a property management team and just getting your foot in the door can lead to so many more options for your clients, and that's huge. That is really, really huge, giving them the resources and the tools to say, here's where you can go for housing or let me even help you fill out the application. We know of a property that has availability. You are helping your clients on a level that that is just it's so needed. Like we said, you're removing one of those barriers for them. You really, really are. You talk about this in that position where you can start to engage and start to inform, but how does this look for a nonprofit? Let's say they're a cultural organization or they're a healthcare organization. How is it, would they go about connecting into this concept in that same way? I mean, what does that look like? Absolutely. Absolutely. A nonprofit doesn't have to have any tie to affordable housing. Like you said, a medical based nonprofit can certainly get their foot in the door. There's many different avenues to partner with affordable housing providers. The first one is just establishing those connections, beginning that conversation to see what services you provide if they can be offered on this property or maybe it's not a good fit. Maybe you're simply advertising or marketing for your services at your facility that would benefit this individual property. But for companies that have no experience whatsoever, I'd advise you partner with a developer first that has some experience. Don't go in an experience. Please don't do that. But definitely start with your state agency, your state local housing authority or the local apartment association is going to be another great resource for you. They're going to be able to connect you with all the apartment complexes or management teams in that state and really help you see where you can put your services on which specific properties. And there are apartment associations nationwide, pretty much in every state. And that is a great first place to get plugged in because I can tell you I have several properties and the minute nonprofits reach out to us, we get excited. It's it's what new project or service do we finally get to offer? So it's nothing to stop. The other thing I want to I want to mention is is we need nonprofits. We desperately need nonprofits. There is actually developer points for when we develop properties that if we partner with a nonprofit, we get additional points that help us award or be awarded money and grants and funding. So it goes both ways. So you really the minute you get your foot in the door with one developer, you have the option to then continue and expand those services because they need you as well. It's not a one way street. It's such an interesting thing to be talking so openly about these partnerships, you know, the public, private, symbiotic relationship. I don't think we talk about this enough. I think it's somewhat of an underground, you know, topic and somewhat of a fearful topic for a lot of nonprofits. Give us and we don't have a lot of time left, but give us kind of the mentality of the developer and who these people are and what are they looking for now? So right now, a lot of our developers are looking to fill the needs that are being set by state legislature, new policy and new regulation and the ongoing demand and growing need for affordable housing and the increased homelessness numbers. So right now, we're seeing that developers are looking for a vacant land to build on. That's that's the first thing. And then even other properties that they can potentially acquire or rehab. So former hotels, shelter facilities, you know, hotels make actually one of the best types of affordable housing because they're easy to rehab and turn, but really they're looking for properties where they can convert to affordable housing and make that impact. But, you know, again, that goes goes into a nonprofit might already own a shelter. And there could be that need where we could go in and put affordable housing, convert that shelter to partially affordable housing and a partial shelter. And then you have transitional housing. You have somebody to go from a shelter to a stable housing environment within the same property and have that peace of mind. Now, the housing market right now, Jenna, like that is impacting, I would imagine, the options. And then you talk about, you know, acquiring land or, you know, rehabbing and existing structure, like talk to us about how the housing market is impacting affordable housing. It is drastically impact our affordable housing market. It's a loaded question. I know, right? Well, the increase in costs for housing has skyrocketed, which then makes it harder for us to even build and finance some of these projects. And so a property that might have taken 12 to 16 months to construct and open up is now taking in between 18 to 24 months. Well, that delay is delaying individuals from from getting into a stable set of housing. And right now, families who three, four years ago could have afforded to buy a house, can afford to buy a house. They can't even afford to rent a house right now. And so it's it's a whole new market that we are seeing in affordable housing. And that's why there's such affordable housing crisis right now that we can't even build it quick enough. That's the downside. Wow. There is so much work to be done. And I love, you know, having you come on and talk about, you know, again, the base core, what is the definition of this? And you even mentioned like the stigmatized section eight, the stigmatized, you know, other definitions. There's so many layers to affordable housing. You know, you talked about the impacts on the nonprofit organizations, how that, you know, really impacts across our nation. And then again, you know, how we can engage in this topic and the policy from the nonprofit standpoint because of the impact to the community that we represent. Yes, absolutely, absolutely. And it's just continuing those conversations. If you have a program that can impact a community or just requires a small little space, a community space, be creative in where you can put your programs and putting it on a property is a great, great solution. And an offering those wraparound services, like you said, removes barriers for our clients. And that's what we want. We want to really see our clients advance and we need that help. We really do affordable housing. We don't offer those supportive services. And so we need that partnership. We really do. Well, I love the nexus between, you know, somebody who knows and understands housing and then an organization that knows and understands service. Yes, how you can instead of trying to go out and recreate this and do it all yourself and struggle through partnering up and coming to the table with something ready to serve that's good, really important. I mean, Jared and I have been talking a lot about this for quite a while. And that is funders, major funders, putting pressure on our entire sector to partner and to look for these relationships. And so this is a really interesting thing, Jared, to be looking at. I can tell you, Jared, and I don't know what you think, because you you play more in this space far more than I do. I don't hear these conversations. I don't hear them enough. You know, I mean, it depends on the organization, the maturity of the organization, where they are. Because, you know, we talk about this. They're currently one point eight registered non-profits in the US. That's just registered. So imagine, yeah, so imagine the opportunity that exists for many of these and it could be as small as Jenna mentioned, you know, having a couple of days a week at the facility. I mean, that in and of itself is such a fantastic opportunity. Having these conversations, having them openly and consistently, I think is what's going to, you know, point the needle in the right direction. Absolutely. Super interesting. You know, before we let you go, and this is somewhat of like a curve ball. So get your baseball mitt up. Ready. What would serve a non-profit? Well, what type of information or documentation would serve a non-profit if they go before a housing developer to say, this is how we want to partner and this is what we have? I mean, how do you create the information or the foundation for furthering that discussion? That's a great conversation. That's a great question. I would say make sure you have your program or the service that you want to offer, fine-tuned. Make sure you've thought it through. You've you've implemented it. You've ironed out all the details because the biggest thing is if you're coming to a developer or a housing authority, they want to make sure it's all ironed out. And then they also want to understand what is the impact going to be then on their residents? So make sure you can understand how can this play out in six months, a year, five years? When we go into an affordable community and we develop a property, we're committing to 30 years. So it's a big commitment. So keep that in mind. Your services, if they're part of that development package, are pretty much sealed for 30 years. So how can we continue this program and ensure it's going to be successful over 30 years, which is a great timeframe for any program, right? But yes, keep that in mind and then be prepared to have some questions asked, you know, there's always the security and the safety of the residents that are going to be of concern. But really the biggest thing is when we're presented with nonprofits, we just want to see what services can you provide? How is it? What's the success rate? How has it already impacted the community and how can we easily incorporate that onto our property without having to recreate the wheel, as you've said? Yeah, I love it. Well, this has been riveting and this is a conversation that continues to really move to the forefront of all sizes of communities across this nation. And I know, Jared, I'm sure you've had this conversation with other CEOs who will identify this as one of the top concerns that they have. Outside of whatever it is that they do and whatever it is they provide, I'm just hearing it more and more from this piece. So check out Jenna and Juniper's information. junipercompliance.com to learn more about this fascinating topic that we're gonna need to explore more because it's something that we're moving forward. Our funders are looking at this differently. Federal, state, and local funding is changing on this and we need to understand more on the rudimentary level, I think, within our sector so that it's not just the same people playing, right? That we can open it up. It's been really interesting. Jared, big surprises anywhere on this conversation or is this the sort of thing that you've been seeing in your space? Yeah, I've been seeing, because I'm serving in a capacity now that is, like you said, in the heart of this. And so it's been very interesting for me but I definitely have learned that in this conversation, Jennifer, sorry, Jenna, that it doesn't have to be so expansive. Start small, that is a solution. Narrow it down to that micro opportunity. That, to me, building those win-win scenarios, it doesn't have to be the Mac Daddy of them all, right? It's like, let's start small and go there. That is a great benefit. So I love what you're doing. Love bringing this conversation to the forefront because it is an impact of the nation right now, for sure. It really is. Well, Jenna, this is something we need to get you back on in the future and talk about this more and explore some other options for our nonprofit sector because I think a lot of our viewers and listeners, this will spark some conversations that maybe they haven't had and trying to figure out how we can bridge some of those gaps. This has been fascinating, fascinating. Again, I'm Julia Patrick, CEO of the American Nonprofit Academy, joined today by the nonprofit nerd herself, Jared Ransom, CEO of the Raven Group. And again, we are so fortunate to be able to have had a conversation like this today due to our sponsors, such as Blumerine, American Nonprofit Academy, Your Part-Time Controller, Nonprofit Thought Leader, Fundraising Academy at National University, Staffing Boutique, and the Nonprofit Nerd. Again, these are the conversations that change and morph and impact our sector and we are just so thrilled that we could get Jenna on today to talk about it. So thank you very much. Thank you for having me. I appreciate it. It's been really great. Hey everybody, as we like to end every episode, we want to remind ourselves, our viewers, our listeners, our guests, our co-host. And yeah, definitely our producer too. He's always behind the scenes, but he's here. He's doing so much. He's doing some work to stay well. So you can do well. We'll see you again tomorrow.