Community Development at Work: Community Renewal & Development, Inc. and North Newstead Association

Boosting Capacity to Serve North City: Community Renewal and Development, Inc. and North Newstead Association Formally Merge

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Community Renewal and Development, Inc. Annual Community Dinner at Fresh Starts Community Garden in the Jeff-Vander-Lou neighborhood

Effective January 1st, two community development corporations (CDCs) that have been serving North St. Louis City for years joined together to boost their capacity, broaden their reach, and expand their collective expertise. Community Renewal and Development, Inc. (CRD) and North Newstead Association (NNA) decided last fall to formally merge into a new North Newstead Association. Former CRD Executive Director Sal Martinez, who previously served on NNA’s Board of Directors until November of 2016, has assumed the role of NNA’s new Executive Director. The plan to combine entities evolved from conversations facilitated by the Community Builders Network of Metro St. Louis (CBN) and was originally the idea of the new NNA’s Board President, Brian Davies of Great Southern Bank.

In response to the challenging environment facing CDCs in the St. Louis region, CBN has led ongoing conversations on potential partnerships and mergers among CDCs for several years. In 2016, Creating Whole Communities published a case study on the 2014 merger of Shaw Neighborhood Housing Corporation, Grand Oak Hill Community Corporation, and Southwest Garden Housing Corporation into Tower Grove Neighborhoods Community Development Corporation. That report emphasized increased capacity, diverse programming, and enhanced resilience as possible major benefits of CDC mergers.

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Brian Davies, North Newstead Association Board President

Those opportunities were drivers behind NNA and CRD’s joint decision to merge. The CDCs had complementary missions, skill sets, and place-based footprints, and they liked the idea of pursuing funding and resources as a stronger unified body. All stakeholders felt the merger was in the best interest of the organizations and their neighborhood residents, and both Boards of Directors supported the move unanimously.

“We’re bringing together some great things under one roof,” Martinez explained. Although both organizations primarily serve North St. Louis City residents, NNA has focused chiefly on housing production, while CRD has concentrated more heavily on human and social services.

NNA has been serving the neighborhoods of Penrose, O’Fallon, Fairgrounds, and the Greater Ville for over 20 years. The organization owns 128 units of affordable housing and provides programming related to economic development, beautification, and landlord and energy conservation training. Over the past 12 years, CRD has been both a facilitator of housing development and a social service provider in the neighborhoods it serves, coordinating initiatives related to public safety, jobs for young adults, neighborhood beautification, and support for minority- and women-owned construction firms. CRD has also supported the Jeff-Vander-Lou neighborhood’s Fresh Starts Community Garden by recruiting volunteers and raising funds to pay workers, expand raised beds, and purchase garden equipment and supplies. Garden leader Rosie Willis is one of two of CRD’s neighborhood residents who will be serving on the new NNA’s 10-member Board of Directors.

With the two organizations merged under NNA’s name, CRD’s previous service area—which covered the Jeff-Vander-Lou, St. Louis Place, Columbus Square and Carr Square neighborhoods alongside part of Old North—will now be a part of NNA’s footprint, too. NNA recently received re-certification as a Community Based Development Organization (CBDO) from St. Louis City’s Community Development Administration (CDA).

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Sal Martinez, North Newstead Association Executive Director

Both NNA and CRD transferred ongoing projects to the new NNA’s umbrella. NNA was already preparing to convert the O’Fallon neighborhood’s vacant, historic Harrison School into quality, affordable senior housing, a community need highlighted by recent market studies. NNA has also partnered with residents, the St. Louis City Metropolitan Police Department, the Circuit Attorney’s Office, and the St. Louis Agency on Training and Employment (SLATE) to roll out the NNA Neighborhood Safety Initiative, a CDA-funded, citizen-led training effort to reduce neighborhood crime. The program will include training sessions with community development experts, law enforcement, and consultants. A Crime Summit that will host national figures to discuss strategies for crime reduction, safety initiatives, and funding opportunities is planned for later this year.

Before becoming a part of NNA, CRD (in partnership with Rise Community Development) was developing a blended homebuyer and home repair assistance program as a part of the recently funded Choice Neighborhoods Initiative in North St. Louis City. Further support for that project comes from a CBN- and St. Louis Community Reinvestment Association-sponsored Ladder of Capacity Building Grant, as well as $1 million in collective support from three local banks: Midland States Bank, Great Southern Bank, and Commerce Bank. The arrival of the new National Geospatial Agency (NGA) campus in the Choice Neighborhoods footprint could spark further momentum for the project.

As it moves forward with these projects, NNA is also seeking out new ways to spur ongoing revitalization in the communities it serves. Martinez is looking forward to bringing new services to the community and building bridges between local officials and residents. “One of the most important roles of a CDC in today’s urban environment is that of a liaison between the community and law enforcement,” he said. “We have a lot more in common than we do differences.”

When asked about the merger process, Martinez credited the smooth transition to the clear vision of both Boards of Directors. When Deanetta James, who had served as CRD’s Board President since the organization’s inception, learned she might be replaced in an election that would determine the Board President of the new NNA, her response was gracious: “I don’t care about the title. I care about making the community better.”

“She was selfless enough to not get upset about that,” Martinez said. He went on to explain that during organizational mergers, it’s important that everyone keep their egos in check. “We all have them,” he acknowledged. “But you have to keep your eyes on the prize. If we’re committed to the improvement of the community, our actions have to reflect that.”

Martinez also emphasized the importance of ensuring all stakeholders are treated with respect. Since merger-related tensions are sometimes inevitable, he suggested that organizations consider bringing in a skilled facilitator to navigate conflicts and help everyone understand the passions and contributions each stakeholder brings to the table. “A merger always means change, and sometimes people are afraid of and resistant to change,” Martinez observed.

For the most part, NNA and CRD avoided these types of roadblocks. All involved saw that the merger was in everyone’s best interest, including the community’s. Martinez further attributed their success to the counsel of Spencer Fane’s Tom Jerry, who helped handle legal details. Jerry also serves on the Board of Commissioners for the St. Louis Housing Authority.

As the new NNA hits the ground running, Martinez will be making rounds at neighborhood meetings during coming weeks to introduce himself and the new organization. “In the neighborhoods that CRD used to serve, I’m now the common bond,” Martinez said. “I’ll be going in to say, ‘I’m still here, and this is my hat now. Here’s our commitment.’ As hard as CRD worked, NNA will work even harder.”

Fortunately, Martinez already has many friends, acquaintances, and associates in NNA’s footprint thanks to his decades of experience in the St. Louis community development world. The same is true of former CRD and NNA board members, many of whom know one another socially even if they haven’t worked together before.

Moreover, they’re united by a collective mindset and what Martinez called “a shared love of community.”

“What happens in Jeff-Vander-Lou affects O’Fallon. What happens in Penrose affects Carr Square,” Martinez said. “We’re all in North City, trying to bring resources to the community. Let’s do it together.”

Below are photos (courtesy of John Scott) from North Newstead Association’s First Annual Community Development Celebration, held in November 2016.

Written by Jenny Connelly-Bowen, CBN Graduate Research Assistant

Community Development at Work: Lemay

Collaboration Continues to Lift the Community of Lemay

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Lemay Homes Grand Opening and Ribbon Cutting Ceremony, November 2016

The community of Lemay in South St. Louis County gained 40 brand-new single-family homes this year with the completion of Lemay Homes, a project co-developed by Lemay Housing Partnership, Inc. (LHP) and Rise Community Development (Rise). The lease-purchase homes are affordable to families earning 60 percent or less of the Area Median Income. The units were financed using State and Federal Low-Income Housing Tax Credits and with support from the Missouri Housing Development Commission (MHDC), the St. Louis County Office of Community Development, PNC Bank, and Sugar Creek Capital.

“Lemay Homes is really providing an opportunity for more housing options in this community,” said Reginald Scott, LHP’s Executive Director. “That’s one of LHP’s goals, to create more quality housing options for people who live here and also to encourage folks to move here.”

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Reginald Scott, Executive Director of Lemay Housing Partnership, Inc.

Lemay Homes is the latest in a series of efforts to lift the well-being of the Lemay community. After the flood of 1993 wiped out many area homes and part of what was then downtown Lemay, local leaders and residents worked together and developed plans and implementation strategies that eventually led to the formation of LHP in 1998.

For Scott, those foundations speak to the resilient, engaged spirit of Lemay’s residents. “LHP was created via concerned people in the community coming together and working hard to look out for one another,” he said. “They decided that there needed to be an organization in the community that dealt with housing issues. With additional seed funds from the St. Louis County Port Authority, LHP was born.”

Since then, LHP has worked to implement projects and programs that strengthen and support that community. As a certified Community Housing Development Organization (CHDO) and U.S. Housing Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)-Certified Housing Counseling Agency, LHP provides homebuyer training and counseling, home repair financial assistance through forgivable loans, and down payment and closing cost assistance as a participant in St. Louis County’s HOME Consortium 1st Home Program.

LHP also executes residential development projects like Lemay Homes. The Lemay Homes development provided a valuable opportunity to tackle blight in the community. During the property acquisition process, the project team targeted derelict and vacant properties that had been causing problems for existing residents, St. Louis County Public Works, and/or the St. Louis County Police. One lot, for example, was the former site of a now-demolished methamphetamine lab.

Standing in the place of those properties now are 40 high-quality, affordable three- and four-bedroom homes. All will remain rental properties for the next 15 years. However, since the project is designed as a lease-purchase program, residents will become eligible to purchase their units at the end of the tax credit compliance period. The longer a resident family remains in their home, the lower their potential home’s effective purchase price at the end of the mandatory lease period.

Until then, residents have the opportunity to prepare for homeownership with help from LHP. That includes coaching as well as a gradual transfer of homeownership responsibilities, which started this year with participation in lawn care upkeep. “They will learn to be homeowners,” Scott explained. “A lot of the units came online over the summer, and we gave them hoses and sprinklers so they could water the sod and seed. And each year we hope to pass on more responsibilities, so at the end of the day they can function comfortably and confidently.”

Scott cites this capacity to provide comfort and security as one of Lemay Homes’ biggest strengths. “For some of the new residents, it’s been amazing to see the impact on them and their family living in a brand-new, single-family home. It can have a huge impact on your self-esteem,” he said. “What’s occurred in other lease-purchase projects similar to this one is that people really take ownership and pride in a brand-new home with new appliances and modern features. So we hope that the new home will be a motivator and stabilizer for the new residents and that its affordable price will create and sustain an improved quality of life for all the families.”

The positive impact of Lemay Homes has also carried over to the community at-large. Expanded housing options and improved housing stock mean higher home values for area residents, and the new construction projects have drawn noticeable responses from neighbors who have been inspired to complete their own home improvements. “Once we started doing development work of scale, we saw a lot of folks come out and start to invest,” Scott said. “A lot of fix-up, painting, new windows, et cetera.”

LHP’s home repair program makes that home repair work more economically viable for Lemay residents. “We’re trying to reinforce and provide services to existing homeowners so that they don’t feel like they can’t improve their conditions as well,” Scott explained. “Maybe they’re not able to purchase or rent one of the new homes because of the pricing or demand, but they can make improvements and critical repairs. We are assisting them with making sure that their homes are safe and healthy.”

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Dr. Kevin Carl, Superintendent of Schools, Hancock Place School District

The Lemay Homes development has added families to the Lemay community, too. All but a few residents are new to the area, and most have children who are now students in Lemay’s Hancock Place School District (HPSD), where local resident enrollment increased this year for the first time in ten years.

For a school district doing all it can to be an active partner and community asset in Lemay, that shift was a big win. Dr. Kevin Carl, HPSD’s Superintendent of Schools, believes this commitment is critical to the area’s well-being. “Here’s the reality,” he said. “I don’t care where you live, but if you’re in Missouri, because we’re not an open enrollment state, one of the questions you’re going to ask when you move somewhere, even if you don’t have kids, is ‘What school district is this?’”

That’s why HPSD provides top-notch technology and teaching resources to students and wraparound services to area families, including a free health clinic that’s open to all residents of the 63125 zip code. It’s also why Dr. Carl spends so much time seeking out ways to collaborate with other community organizations. “In the end, we all want the same positive outcome in the community,” he said. So when leaders and residents come together, the question they often consider is, “How do we think we can best facilitate that?”

Rise, too, has been a key partner in these long-term efforts to engage and revitalize the Lemay community. Rise provided a portion of the start-up capital for local news and outreach through the Community Link, a local quarterly newspaper that’s managed by LHP, HPSD, Lemay Development Corporation, and the Lemay Chamber of Commerce. In 2014, LHP broke ground on its first relatively large residential development project, Smith Place at Linn, which featured ten new affordable for-sale homes. Rise provided some predevelopment funding and helped secure a Priority Markets Grant from Wells-Fargo to cover part of the project’s cost. Midwest Bank Centre, the St. Louis County Office of Community Development, and the St. Louis County Port Authority also supplied financing. The homes sold quickly once they were completed, and in 2015, Smith Place at Linn earned LHP a Better Neighborhoods Award from DeSales Community Housing Corporation.

Both Smith Place and Lemay Homes have been outgrowths of the Lemay Comprehensive Plan, adopted by St. Louis County in 2006. The Plan was developed by the County Council and Lemay stakeholders to identify community needs and strategies for improvements. Using the comprehensive plan, LHP worked with local residents and stakeholders to develop the East of Broadway Neighborhood Plan. Smith Place was the initial project implemented as a result of the neighborhood plan. Next in line could be a series of economic development projects along South Broadway, which will likely focus on local services prioritized by Lemay neighbors at a recent charrette. “I give this community credit—they do show up and are engaged in the planning,” Scott said. Residents said they’d like to see coffee and ice cream shops, cafes, and other small, community-oriented businesses within walking distance. Development work might also feature service providers that offer workforce training, financial services and counseling, health services, or office space for local professionals.

These possibilities and completed projects have lifted the collective spirit of Lemay residents, many of whom have faced uncertainty about the area’s future in years past. The community has been hit with foreclosures and tax delinquencies, previous development plans included speculation about a potential industrial park, and some residents worried that an expansion of River City Casino might capture vacant land for parking. The result, Scott said, was that “people held off on really making significant equity investments in their property.”

Larry Perlmutter, Communications and Development Manager, Rise Community Development

Thanks to committed community partners like LHP, Rise, and HPSD, that’s no longer the case. Larry Perlmutter, Rise’s Communications and Development Manager, links their shared work in Lemay to powerful ripple effects. “Anytime you can create a development that not only improves the appearance of the community, but that contributes to the overall community’s quality of life, it’s a good thing,” he said. “When you bring in more tax revenue, when you bring in more students to the school system, when you create work in the community—all of those things are good.”

Dr. Carl agrees. He encourages community-building organizations and partnerships to “think big”: “Don’t underestimate the ability of your community to do things that they’ve not seen before, or to think about things they haven’t otherwise thought of,” he said. “Foundationally, you need to make sure you’ve got the right people in the right places. That’s number one. And then, don’t limit yourself. Include everybody in that conversation.”

That inclusive, cooperative framework is important to LHP, too. “The coolest thing about doing this work is that we are trying to constantly stay engaged with the local residents, institutions, and businesses to make sure that LHP’s work reflects programming and projects consistent with the real needs in the community. That’s important,” Scott emphasized. “You have to really work to create a game plan, and make sure you have shared ownership of the plan with the stakeholders in the community.”

As far as that plan is concerned, LHP remains committed to celebrating the community’s achievements along the way as it continues to explore next steps. “We’re one of many folks out here trying to figure it out,” Scott said. “And collectively we’ll get there sooner rather than later.”

Click here to watch a video of testimonials from LHP stakeholders and community members who have been touched by the organization’s work. Below are photos from November’s Lemay Homes Grand Opening and Ribbon Cutting Ceremony, courtesy of Rise.

Written by Jenny Connelly-Bowen, CBN Graduate Research Assistant

Community Development at Work: LinkSTL Spooktacular

LinkSTL Brings Together Over 500 Neighbors for Trick-Or-Treating and Community Building

When LinkSTL in North St. Louis City’s Hyde Park neighborhood began planning their second annual Spooktacular Halloween event this year, they set sights on a higher turnout than they’d had in 2015. Last October, Spooktacular drew about 150 registered attendees and over 200 by the end of the day’s event. As a part of their aim to grow Spooktacular this year, LinkSTL set its 2016 attendance goal at 300 people.

So even they were surprised when the event drew over 500 registrants—and even more neighbors who stopped by unexpectedly on the day of the event.

For Timetria Murphy-Watson, LinkSTL’s Executive Director, this was a signal of the passion Hyde Park’s residents have for their community. “It’s one thing for people just to come in the park because they see other people, they hear music,” she said. “But they actually took the time to go to the office and get registered and follow protocol, so they can stay in contact and stay engaged.”

LinkSTL faced a slightly different response when pulling together their first Spooktacular event last year. The place-based community organization was met with skepticism from residents as they began announcing the event in 2015. “It wasn’t until the day of the event that I think people really took it seriously,” Murphy-Watson recounted. “We passed out flyers, we had meetings. But the day of, we ordered orange balloons and we put them up along the neighborhood to light a route.”

Those balloons caught the attention of neighbors. Murphy-Watson described residents’ reactions as the President of LinkSTL’s Board of Directors, Michele Duffe, helped to place the balloons: “People are looking at her, and she’s smiling, and people are smiling back. And it was something as simple as one orange balloon that made people smile.”

LinkSTL didn’t start out intending to host a Halloween event. “Our purpose in the neighborhood is to bring the neighbors to different things that already exist,” Murphy-Watson explained. Communities First, a nonprofit agency that serves children and families primarily in North St. Louis City and County, had already been holding Halloween parties in the neighborhood for several years. But in 2015, as LinkSTL began convening community meetings to draw out residents’ thoughts about what they wanted to see in their neighborhood, it quickly became obvious that neighbors wanted to create opportunities for trick-or-treating.

As Murphy-Watson pointed out, trick-or-treating is a natural fit for community-building. “We wanted to provide an opportunity in the neighborhood where people felt like they would in any other neighborhood. People trick-or-treat. That’s how you get to know your neighbors,” she said. “But if you don’t know your neighbors, you’re less likely to trick-or-treat in your neighborhood.”

That type of isolation can dampen residents’ perceptions of their communities. “The kids in this neighborhood always described other neighborhoods with more positive thoughts and emotions,” Murphy-Watson recalled. “So the whole purpose of Spooktacular was to bring the neighbor to the neighborhood and to provide a positive experience through trick-or-treating and going out.”

When the event started that first year, LinkSTL’s office filled up more quickly than the team was expecting. Attendees were clustered into groups of about 15 with adult volunteer chaperones for each group. The trick-or-treating route, which had been planned in advance, consisted of about 30 homes and 5 organizations that had opted in to participate as safe stops along the way. Group leaders were given residents’ names beforehand to allow families and kids participating a chance to meet their neighbors and remember where they lived going forward. LinkSTL created maps to accompany the route and provided candy for homes that volunteered to participate as handout locations.

Once groups started making their way through the neighborhood, other residents came outside to join in. “People were just sending their kids outside, and kids were running to get along the route,” Murphy-Watson said. “They talked about what school they went to and things of that nature.” Trick-or-treating was followed with a party at Clay Elementary, where the team received overwhelmingly positive feedback. Many longtime neighborhood residents shared that they had never taken their children trick-or-treating in Hyde Park before. “It was an awakening moment for us all,” Murphy-Watson shared. “Because we just thought, ‘Let’s just do trick-or-treating. People say that they don’t trick-or-treat here; I think that that’s a positive way to move the community forward. Let’s do it.’ But we didn’t know that all those little things would happen in-between.”

This year, LinkSTL set out to make Spooktacular “bigger and better,” Murphy-Watson said. Part of their efforts dovetailed with an initiative that had grown out of LinkSTL’s community development work groups: a desire among residents to rebrand both the neighborhood and park. The LinkSTL team had also heard from residents that they wanted the celebration to feel more like a festival, so Spooktacular this year incorporated a handful of new features: a haunted house, face painting, a bounce house, a game area, and stations to make caramel apples and decorate cupcakes.

Many of these new elements were entirely volunteer-driven. “We had a resident volunteer to make 250 cupcakes, and she did it,” Murphy-Watson said. “She’s a really good baker. And the kids just came in and decorated the cupcakes.” Residents also volunteered to build the haunted house, which was a huge hit among kids and parents. “That was a lot of kids’ first time being in a haunted house,” Murphy-Watson said. “Kids were really running through screaming with their parents. It was good.”

LinkSTL invited local businesses to take part in Spooktacular too. One resident’s company, Creative Balloons, crafted balloon sculptures to display in the park and at event starting locations. Other businesses were invited to set up a table at the event, and many who didn’t opted to send a donation instead.

Spooktacular also held a costume contest for kids. And for families who volunteered to hand out candy along the route, LinkSTL had a special thank-you gift this year: a pumpkin to carve and enter into a pumpkin-decorating contest. “Everything happened so fast last year, and my regret was we didn’t have a culminating time to say ‘thank you’ besides the thank-you letters that we sent out later,” Murphy-Watson said. “So I wanted to give the families something.”

LinkSTL conducted a survey after the event to gather resident feedback. Again, the results were incredibly positive: “The only complaint that some people had was that it ended early,” Murphy-Watson noted.

Spooktacular’s success has done a lot to raise the visibility of LinkSTL and the community-building work it’s been encouraging in Hyde Park. Murphy-Watson, who has led LinkSTL for almost two years and owns a house in the neighborhood, acknowledged that Spooktacular has helped draw many residents in to participate in some of the organization’s longer-term programming, like its summer camp, community work groups, and Youth Council. That movement will ultimately help bolster LinkSTL’s core mission, which focuses on acting as a link between residents and the community’s opportunities. “I think we have to prioritize the things that are smaller, and the things that you do more consistently,” Murphy-Watson said. “We really see ourselves as just the facilitator to community-building, and allowing the neighbors to really take ownership and pride in what they’ve become, and could become.”

So while events like Spooktacular and this spring’s Earth Day celebration provide positive reinforcement, Murphy-Watson wants to “change the ownership dynamic” as neighbors get involved: “I want them to feel like this is something that has been done so we know it’s possible—and now, how can we do it together?” she said. “People are happy; people want to help; people want to be involved. And you know, that’s all I can ask for. We set the example with the community for the things we want to see, and for the goals and the priorities we want to have.”

When asked what makes her proudest about her work at LinkSTL, Murphy-Watson circled back to this theme, reflecting on the connections that the organization’s programs have developed to involve residents in building community. Many participants in LinkSTL’s summer camp, for example, came from different schools. But Murphy-Watson said she now sees many of those kids spending time together in the neighborhood. LinkSTL has also been working with residents on economic development and financial literacy initiatives, helping them to see how opportunities like homeownership might be within their reach, even if that had never seemed possible to them before. “We’re just providing them with the encouragement,” Murphy-Watson said. “We’re saying, ‘You can do this.’ Because some are thinking, ‘Why me? This isn’t for me.’ But no, it’s for you if you want it to be.”

That type of empowerment is at the heart of what LinkSTL hopes to continue building in Hyde Park. “It starts with the people, and it will end with the people,” Murphy-Watson said. “That’s simple, but I think it’s underrated. The more work and energy and time people put into people, the better we will be as a society.”

For Murphy-Watson, that mission is deeply personal. “I’m proud of the neighborhood, and I’m proud of the people in the neighborhood,” she said. “Which is why I made the decision to move into the neighborhood. I think that Hyde Park is a hidden jewel. I really believe that.”

To view photos from Spooktacular, click here.

Written by Jenny Connelly-Bowen, CBN Graduate Research Assistant

Community Development at Work: DeSales Community Housing Corporation

Opportunity Knocks: DeSales Community Housing Corporation Continues to Grow its Property Management Business

When faced with competing the demands of emerging opportunities and strategic planning, DeSales Community Housing Corporation in South St. Louis City has adopted a flexible approach.

As DeSales Executive Director Tom Pickel puts it, “opportunity doesn’t always come just as you want it, when you want it,” especially when you’re working to grow your organization’s sustainability and resilience.

The DeSales team’s most recent accomplishment has the potential to help them do that. Earlier this year, DeSales was approached by the leadership of the St. Louis Equity Fund (SLEFI) to discuss Community Asset Management Company (CAMCO), a property management company SLEFI had formed 20 years before. SLEFI wanted to know if DeSales would be interested in taking over management of CAMCO’s portfolio of about 1,100 units that are concentrated primarily in St. Louis City.

This isn’t the first time that DeSales’ property management expertise has drawn the attention of community stakeholders. The non-profit, 501(c)(3) community development corporation (CDC) was founded in 1976 to promote investment in the Fox Park and Tower Grove East neighborhoods. DeSales began developing housing during the 1990s, but it didn’t enter the property management business until 2005, when it formed Fox Grove Management. Fox Grove was created to manage DeSales’ own portfolio of about 200 apartments.

A few years later, then-President of Northside Community Housing, Inc. (NCHI) Ernecia Coles asked DeSales if Fox Grove could take over the management of NCHI’s properties in The Ville neighborhood as well. DeSales wasn’t quite ready to start managing for other organizations at that point, but when Coles asked again in 2009, they agreed. Fox Grove now manages over 190 units for NCHI. As of early October, Fox Grove had a total of just over 550 units under management.

So when SLEFI approached DeSales this year, Pickel knew immediately that taking on the CAMCO portfolio would mean big changes for the CDC. After the deal closed on October 14th, DeSales/Fox Grove tripled in size “literally overnight,” Pickel said. “We went from managing about 550 units to over 1,600 units, and our total staffing went from 15 to 46.”

This was not a decision that DeSales made lightly. Staff and board members talked at length about what the acquisition would mean for the organization. One of the deciding factors was Pickel’s review of the opportunity with Stan Presson, Fox Grove’s Director of Property Management. “Stan is a great part of our team,” Pickel said. “He has a great reputation in this business. And I thought, if Stan doesn’t want to do this, we’re not going to do it.”

But Presson was receptive to the idea. “He realizes, as much or more than I do, that if we’re going to have a sustainable, resilient organization, it’s going to have to get bigger,” Pickel explained.

Also aiding in the decision was the presence of DeSales’ Controller, Lisette Ortega-Vidal. She came to work for DeSales in 2015 after serving as CAMCO’s Accounting Manager for several years. “Lisette has great knowledge of the organization, the properties, and the people at CAMCO,” Pickel said. “That was an advantage for us.”

Additional revenue from the expanded management company could eventually allow DeSales to expand some of its programming in other focus areas, like community health. It could also make it easier to recruit, promote, and retain good staff members.

There are deeper reasons DeSales decided to move into the property management business in the first place. As Pickel likes to put it, “good property management iscommunity development,” especially in the kinds of neighborhoods where DeSales works, which have a lot of multifamily housing. Management of such properties is a critical function that is all too often overlooked.

Venturing into housing development and management has also enabled DeSales to make a bigger contribution in the neighborhoods it serves. “We’re able to capture some of the wealth and revenue that a neighborhood—even a low-income neighborhood—generates and reinvest that in the neighborhood,” Pickel explained.

So far, the expansion of Fox Grove Management seems to be going well. Pickel is taking the transition one step at a time. “When people congratulate me, I say, ‘come back in about 12 months and I’ll let you know whether we deserve congratulation or condolences,'” he joked. But Pickel and the rest of the DeSales team are confident that the change makes strategic sense for the organization. He said that surprise opportunities like this one are a good reason for organizations to retain a measure of flexibility when it comes to strategic planning: it can be hard to predict how the external environment might change tomorrow, let alone five years down the road.

Written by Jenny Connelly-Bowen, CBN Graduate Research Assistant