NCRC - National Community Reinvestment Coalition Inc.

06/13/2025 | News release | Distributed by Public on 06/13/2025 09:47

Video: Just Economy Conversations: Valuing Homes in Black Communities Through Restorative Opportunities

Online Event Archive Recorded: June 3, 2025

Spotlight Innovators from the Valuing Homes in Black Communities Challenge, hosted by Economic Architecture and the Brookings Institution, shared new innovations and strategies in the housing equity space. Hear from Ashon Nesbitt from the Florida Housing Coalition, Cat Goughnour from the Maryland Department of Housing and Community Development, and Gabe Ewing del Rio from the Homeownership Council of America on how new restorative efforts create impact at the local, state and national level to advance fairness in the housing market.

Speakers:

Ashon Nesbitt, CEO, Florida Housing Coalition
Cat Goughnour, Assistant Secretary of Just Communities, Maryland Department of Housing
Gabe Ewing del Rio, President and CEO, Homeownership Council of America
Stuart Yasgur, Prinicpal, Economic Architecture
Andre Perry, Senior Fellow, The Brookings InstitutionJacelyn Matthews, Director, National Training Academy, NCRC

Transcript:

NCRC video transcripts are produced by a third-party transcription service and may contain errors. They are lightly edited for style and clarity.

Matthews 0:08
Okay, so welcome everyone to Just Economy Conversations: Valuing Homes in Black Communities Through Restorative Opportunities. We are grateful that you're with us this afternoon. Just to give you a little bit of background: Just Economy Conversations was worked out of the idea that there are so many people that come to the NCRC conference, but many people that are not able to come as well. And so how do we give them an opportunity to be a part of these really important conversations that are starting at our conference and continuing on. So we thought, Hey, we should do a webinar series to get more people to hear what's happening on the ground, hear from the people that are doing the work, ask the questions of the work that they're doing as well. And so that's why we are here today. My name is Jacelyn Matthews. I'm the Director of the National Training Academy here at NCRC, where our mission is to make a just economy a national priority and a local reality. So with that being said, I'm going to get myself out the way and pass you over to our two great moderators. We have Stuart yasker from economic architecture project and Andre Perry from the Brookings Institution. I will pass it over to you, Stuart and Andre.

Perry 1:16
Hello. Well, thank you for that wonderful introduction. I'm going to kick us off by just giving a little bit of history. But I'm Andre Perry, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, and author of the new book Black Power Scorecard, Measuring the Racial Wealth Gap and What We Can Do to Close It. And I'll have my colleague Stuart introduce himself.

Yasgur 1:40
Hello, everyone. My name is Stuart yasker. I lead Economic Architecture, and we'd like to thank you all for joining us here today.

Perry 1:47
Very good. Well, in 2018 my colleague, Jonathan Rothwell, David Harshbarger and I released a report entitled the devaluation of assets in Black communities. And in that effort, we sought to measure the intrinsic value of homes in neighborhoods where the share of the Black population was 50% and higher. Compare it to places where the share of the Black population was less than a percent. And after controlling for a number of variables, education, crime, walkability, all those fancy Zillow metrics, we discovered that homes in Black neighborhoods are still under-priced by 23% about $48,000 per home. Cumulatively, there's about $156 billion in lost equity in Black neighborhoods, and we updated that number to about $162 billion a few years ago. But I always put those numbers in context that that $156 billion would have financed more than 4 million Black-owned businesses based upon the average amount Black people used to start their firms. It would have paid for more than 8,000,004 year degrees based upon the average amount of a four-year public education replace the pipes in Flint, Michigan, 3-times over, double the economic burden of the opioid or opioid crisis is a big number. And it's not just coming from appraising. It's coming from a number of factors that require structural change. In my work really emphasizes the need for not just to look at individual acts of discrimination, but structures that produce inequalities without anyone carrying a tiki torch or wearing a white hood. And so we sought out, well actually, I met Stuart Yasgur over a delightful lunch, and he described activities that he will describe to you. But a few years ago, was it three? Four years, five years ago, maybe…

Yasgur 4:02
Around six years now, Andre.

Perry 4:04
Six years, six years. Time flies when you're having fun. But since we've met, he's helped me take my research and put it into action by identifying innovators who are really working on structural change. So I'm going to kick it off to Stuart, who's going to describe a little bit about where the panelists are coming from and what we're doing to address these issues.

Yasgur 4:33
Great. Thank you. Andre. Yes, and just as we gather here today, I just want to acknowledge, you know, I think we're we're living in interesting times, and I think we just have to acknowledge that as we're gathering here today. You know, every, every day, there's new headlines coming out of Washington, DC about kind of the latest emergency. And I we need to, I think it's very important that we acknowledge that as we're here today, because, you know, these, these emergencies are important for us to pay attention to, but we also have to be really careful that we don't let them set the agenda. We have to stay focused on the really important issues that need to be addressed. And so, you know, as Andre mentioned, we started working together in 2019 on valuing homes in Black communities. And you know, we recognize right from the outset that this is the problem of historic proportions, and there is no single silver bullet solution to it. So our effort really here is not to pick one solution or another, but rather to work together collectively to foster a new generation of structural innovations. And I think, and what we're going to hear about today are three of the innovators that were identified in the 2025 Valueing Homes of Black Communities spotlight innovator challenge. And I think that part of why this conversation is so important in this context is they're all focused on the kinds of innovations that we need that can address problems at the structural levels. You'll see there's commonalities that run through the work, but there are also real distinct differences. And so I think as we kind of move from problem discussion to into kind of solutions, I'd love to invite the innovators to join us. Cat, Ashon, Gabe, if you could join us, and let's get the conversation started. Maybe we can ask you each to kind of introduce yourselves and a little word about each of your innovations, if we can.

Perry 6:29
Who's going to go first? Should we go, Cat?

Goughnour 6:33
Good afternoon, everyone. It's great to be with you. I'm Cat Goughnour, our Assistant Secretary of Just Communities at Maryland Department of Housing Community Development. Very excited to talk a little bit about how the government is addressing structural inquality and really setting an agenda that has promised, not only for the state of Maryland, but also across the country, thinking about the ecosystem that supports or disadvantages Black communities, marginalized communities of all sorts in the state of Maryland in particular, and how we are implementing a new way forward, a new way of looking at a legal framework and changing the allocation of resources in certain geographies through a data and geospatial enabled approach to targeting the people and the places that need us the most.

Nesbitt 7:30
I'll jump in. Ashon Nesbitt - I'm the CEO of the Florida Housing Coalition, and versus, It's good to see some Florida people joining in the chat. Know a couple personally, so it's good to see you all. So the Florida Housing Coalition has an organization, we've been around for 43 years, and we work statewide, primarily doing training and technical assistance, but our big mission is about everyone in Florida having access to housing that's affordable. We are a big proponent of permanent affordability, primarily through the removal of land from the speculative market. You might know that as community land trusts, and we do think that this is really important, both in terms of increasing homeownership, particularly for those that have been historically shut out of the opportunity to realize that opportunity to build wealth, and as our as our prices continue to grow and subsidies continue to grow, to make that happen, preserving those opportunities for folks going forward is very, very important in a state that is constantly under attack from the weather, we know that that has a destabilizing impact on communities, particularly those where there is a large amount of renters, so creating more homeowners, first of all, you know, help stabilize communities, but also going forward, if we can, you know, build in a resilient way, while also increasing production permanently affordable housing, particularly on the homeownership side, we do think that that has a positive trend towards increasing property values and builds wealth for everyone in a community.

Ewing del Rio 9:13
Thanks, Ashon. Hi everyone. I'm Gabe Del Rio or Ewing Del Rio. Sorry, I still get used to my married name. It took us a long time to squish that together, and everyone now asks me, where's that name from? And we are the ones who started it. So anyway, Gabe Ewing Del Rio, I head up Homeownership Council of America. We're on a mission to build more equitable access to credit for America's underserved communities. And the a bit about me. I've been in this space for a couple of decades, I am a mortgage lending geek, and I have a huge mission heart, and so that's why I do this work, and I represent my team, because we're all very similar in that way. What we do as an organization is we provide technical assistance to both nonprofits and lenders, primarily to lenders at scale. And in that work, we are always focused on expanding products, programs, access, partnerships that affect these mission communities that we that we focus on. So we solve our mission through scaled lender partners. And in doing that work, and in the work that we've all previously done at local organizations, we found many problem statements in down payment assistance and several that are focused on scale, and so that's our solution. Is now national DPA platform. What we see out there for some of those problem statements from a consumer perspective, there's about 150,000 transactions that fall out of escrow each year, and eight out of 10 of them are low-income or BIPOC. So very much mission customers. And then, you know, when you look at the landscape of down payment assistance, there's 1,000s of programs out there and millions of people who qualify for those programs, but much of that goes under-utilized. And so there are a variety of challenges in the delivery system and the methodology of having so many programs and so many local rules. And so we set about to solve for a program that can go to any market and be in any place in the country. And so we think of that from a platform perspective, and then we've got products that are out on that platform, and the products and the results that we focused on were special purpose credit and closing the racial wealth gap, and so that's what you're going to hear the results on today.

Perry 11:35
Well, I'm glad the panelists have chosen to share their ideas with us now, there are a number of innovations out there on trying to increase value, homeownership loan assists or mortgage financial assistance programs and the like. Not all of them will succeed, obviously. What will it take for your individual idea to bear fruit. Give the audience a sense of what are the headwinds you're dealing with, what are the structural challenges you face. And we'll start off with Ashon, then Gabe, and then go to Cat.

Nesbitt 12:19
Yeah. So our innovation touches on a few things and kind of, I guess, combined several things. So we look at both the just the concept of the Community Land Trust, and a lot of folks get it in terms of, we like permanent affordability, but in terms of carrying that out and all the steps that it takes, there's, you know, the financing, I think it's been, you know, probably the biggest challenge. And, you know, so to really make this succeed and make the permanent affordability, Shared Equity kind of space really take off, just from a business standpoint, there needs to be, you know, more transactions. There needs to be, you know, greater uniformity in the market. So, you know, those are two things that we've been tackling. First of all, you know, we've had the opportunity to work with both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to create a system that provides that uniformity, which lenders need in order to….

Perry 13:21
When you say uniformity, can you explain what that is?

Nesbitt 13:28
Yes. So across the country, of course, every every market is different. So when we talk about, you know what strategies particularly people are trying to implement is really market-driven, and so how folks operate, and what that looks like in the community land trust might be, you could have, you know, five CLTs in a community, and they have five different ground leases, but, you know, one lender is trying to work with all five, and if they have to review five different ground leases, You know, that's that's time that they quite they just don't want to spend doing that can kind of deter even offering products, you know, for those that want to purchase in a CLT. And so, you know, we've seen that, and what Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have done is, you know, try to support creating that uniformity, to reduce that, that burden on lenders. And so we've had the opportunity to work with Freddie Mac and create a certification program that enforce, not really, I shouldn't say enforced, but really promotes those standards and gets kind of folks operating in mostly the same way across the board, so everyone's using the same type of ground lease. Everyone has certain things in their operating procedures, and we can certify that, and lenders can rely upon our certification of those CLTs meeting those standards, and they don't have to do that review, which you know. So definitely, you know, stops over a hurdle that's really important to lenders and in terms of extending credit to CLTs. And so you know, we're happy to have, you know, 11 certified CLTs, and we're working with Freddie Mac to to extend that regionally across the southeast. And, of course, partner with granted Solutions Network as well, which is the National CLT organization. So, you know, that's, that's one of the biggest things in terms of scaling,

Perry 15:31
Wait, no go, go..

Nesbitt 15:33
Yeah, I would just say, you know, the other part of it is, you know, building, you know, multi unit structures, and still taking, you know, one parcel instead of building one unit, building three or four. So there's kind of just the inroads with local governments in terms of, you know, allowing that type of development to happen in the first place, in neighborhoods, and then on the back end, as we build resiliently, you know, really homeowners getting the credit that they need in terms of reduced insurance costs for, you know, building to a higher standard. So all of those three things, working together will really scale this and and benefit communities and increase those values.

Perry 16:17
I like that. In particular, I love when the innovators are really talking about the actors in the structural space, and there are actors, and when it comes to housing, you're dealing with federal, state, local and everything in between. So it's complicated. Gabe, what does success look like for you? What will it take for your idea to come to fruition?

Ewing del Rio 16:42
Well, we're seeing it. I mean, we've been in, you know, pilot of it. We're expanding from that pilot now. We were, you know, first focused on making sure we could do it, you know, proving that we could support DPA in any state, piloting that out with a variety of lender types. Now we're expanding and I would say the biggest focus is to prove its efficacy, as well as to handle the headwinds and pivot in this environment where folks are concerned about SPCPs, and you know that's been really tough, frankly, because our organization did a great deal of work to facilitate the use of SPCPs and ECOA by many, many lenders around the country and right now, it's an environment where lenders are fearful. Depends on the lender type, but, but certainly folks that do business with the federal government and a lot of depositories you know are more worried about SPCPs. We have, you know, low-income provisions as well, so you don't have to have the SPCP. So we're sort of explaining that portion, you know, and still supporting the SPCP Wherever it's, wherever it's welcome and has funding. And then, you know, like I said, the big focus this year will be in that expansion to prove that this program pays for itself. And so what we think of by that is the folks that I mentioned earlier who are lost in escrow, right? That's someone who they had a realtor, they had a loan officer, they had a pre-approval. They were all the way down the line. They put money down in escrow, all the way, and then they were just short to close, and sometimes being short to close, and my brother had a conversation with me and pointed this out, can just be, you know, the day that you're closing escrow. If you close escrow on the first, you have 29 days of interest to collect. If you close escrow on the 29th you have one day of interest to collect. So right there can be 1,000s of dollars difference for a home buyer. And so in that scenario right there where just a little bit of cash to close is what's preventing that closing from following through, we're very focused on that, that not losing that customer is a big pay for for a lender. And so as we encourage lenders to put money into the fund, right and fund these programs so that we've got dollars to give out to consumers. We've got to show that there is a business impact and that that business impact is positive. And so we're starting with the not losing those customers. There are also, as we focus on communities of color and the SPCP benefits of the program, the increase of market share that lenders are seeing, the increased production across a variety of loan products, even when you're not using the DPA for that same borrower, is another indicator. And so that's another sort of business case piece. We also expanded to allow FHA-first mortgages. And FHA-first mortgages drive more revenue to the lender, like 200 basis points more, so significant, and when they can access that mortgage product with the DPA, again, it pays for itself, because that's something they couldn't do on their own. And so that's where we are focused on expanding, but also continuing to prove that this is the right investment, that it's good for lenders, it's good for consumers and everyone wins and that it functions smoothly, right? That I think we proved in the pilot, but continuing to prove that as we expand is also really key. And so those are the things we're focused on.

Perry 20:20
Can you, can you just briefly go over the sort of environment where, what, what banks are still in business with special purpose credit programs, and what banks are not?

Ewing del Rio 20:34
Well, I mean, okay, listing folks out probably not the right thing to do, but…

Perry 20:40
Under the Trump administration, there were some executive orders….

Ewing del Rio 20:45
Yup, and I would say most banks are still in the SPCP business, right? However, many of the qualifiers and the words around the program are being changed and so and change to not use trigger words that have been identified by the administration as being sort of do not use lists on the words, and in doing so, you know it remains to be seen with the impact is how, how many fewer folks will be served? How much less effective might these programs be? And that's yet to be determined, but there has been a big shift in sort of reframing, repackaging, reworking all of these programs in just over the past quarter so that they can continue to exist. Because at least we do see on it really, really clearly on this one Andre and Stuart and everyone, is that lenders understand that the growth market is in BIPCO, is in communities of color for first-time homebuyers. And so there is not a lack of focus on that borrower set on that market. Any smart lender who uses data, which would be one in the same, would be focused on that segment. And so there, I don't see people letting off the gas. I do see people changing labels and triggers so that they can continue moving forward today.

Perry 22:08
And we'll move on to Cat, but why I'm very interested in special purpose credit programs are generally because underwriting standards do not reflect often the on-the-ground realities of many Americans that we mean. We have lots of them, folks who are doing everything right. They got a great job. They live in a market where they've been paying rent well above the what they would pay in a mortgage, but they just don't have a product for them. And so I think for me, why I'm very interested in these innovations, because it really gets at this structure of our underwriting practices, missing these, these kinds of consumers. But Cat, what does success look like for you what, what needs to change in order for your idea to take fruit?

Perry 23:11
Oh, you're on mute. I think.

Goughnour 23:15
Oh can you hear me?

Perry 23:15
There you are, now.

Goughnour 23:16
Okay, small delay, always a Tech Challenge, yeah, um, well, I think I sit in a very auspicious seat. We passed the Just Communities Act, April 2024. Governor Moore of Maryland signed that into law. It was enacted the first of July 2024 and we're getting ready to launch our first tranche of communities, July 2025 with the new fiscal year. So the headwinds are with us, which is wonderful to have actually codified a law that passed through the General Assembly in the state of Maryland. And you know, it is a very muscular approach to thinking about the challenge before us, thinking about the root causes that have are driving this kind of economic and racial inequality, looking at segregation, redlining, the siting of freeways, thinking about urban renewal, imminent domain, also looking at factors like imprisonment rates, socio-economic factors, more generally, looking at disproportionality and asthma and, you know, exposure to lead. And looking at these factors through a geospatial lens, being able to see census tracks that have a disproportionate amount of these inequities, and being able to use that to make recommendation to the governor, which we have done for approval, which then enables him to allocate state budget differently, which is the most important part of the Just Communities legislation - House Bill 241, Senate Bill 308, Not only for Maryland Department of Housing Community Development, which is the state's housing finance agency. So, you know, we do community development. We do neighborhood revitalization. All of the programs within DHCD are subject to this new way of investing, to rectify the wrongs of the past, to think about restoring communities, repairing communities, correcting system structures, institutions that are still driving inequities. And being able to start evaluating, starting very soon. What are these outcomes? DHCD is starting not as a pilot, but as the first agency that's going to allocate budget, and then it will go across the governor's cabinet in subsequent years. These designations last for five years. So we will also be looking at, you know, transportation dollars, health dollars, looking at how we use natural resources, looking at Department of the Environment. Being able to take a whole of government approach to really understanding what are the sequence, the phases and the pacing of funds that need to go into communities to ensure that we aren't driving displacement, right? That we're not driving speculation, gentrification, this new round of structural factors that are also pushing people out who are meant to be targeted by funding. So I'm very excited that we have this law enacted. You know, prior to this change in federal landscape, it's really wonderful to be able to also talk about justice, spatial justice, and talking about the communities that have been purposefully excluded and left behind, targeted, whose wealth has been stripped. And then thinking about, you know, we have Uplift this new way of investing in legacy communities, retaining properties, thinking about how we increase appreciation, thinking about how we incentivize other forms of development. Also thinking about small businesses. How do we, you know, kind of holistically support a community? Five years, we will see what we're able to accomplish in five years, but I'm always very optimistic, especially if you have an entire state apparatus focused on this very concerted effort and thinking about what are, how might we mitigate risk? How might we also incentivize private sector philanthropy, you know, all of these other actors that have also been a part of the challenge, how do we help them to become a part of the solution? So I feel optimistic.

Yasgur 27:25
That is, that was fantastic. Cut and and just, I don't know if everybody's seen, but just the kind of representation that's on the call as well. It's remarkable. People have joined us from all over the country, which is really phenomenal. And I just, would just invite you all, if there any questions, we're gonna leave some time for Q and A at the end. So please do feel free to submit written questions in the Q and A if there's anything you wanna hear more about. I think you know we're already getting a sense of just the breadth and thoughtfulness of these different approaches, which is really remarkable. Can we maybe let's take it even a step back and share, where do they come from, where, if you can each share your story of kind of the inspiration that led you to these innovations and kind of following this round robin approach, Gabe, can you? Can you get us started here?

Ewing del Rio 28:14
Sure. So you know, when we work with lenders, one of the things that we focus on is how they can deploy more affordable programs. How they can encourage more loan officers to help more first time home buyers. How they can use data to see if there are segments they're not serving, if there's populations they're not serving, in their footprint and where they therefore then have opportunity. And so how to use all those things together, right? One of the things you use in that, in that sort of recipe, is down payment assistance. And so we always recommend, you know, do you have down payment assistance? Is it? What tools do you have? Do you have a portfolio of your own? Which would only apply to banks. Most lenders in the mortgage space, though, are not banks. They're independent mortgage banks that don't have portfolios, they don't have deposits, they don't have CRA they don't have the same dollars and the same investments that banks make and so so, you know, they then have to access local programs. When you look at that, if you're, you know, just a standard mortgage bank is probably not even going to be one state. They would be a few states, right? I'm talking a small, small mortgage bank would be a few states right in licensing, when they then look at, okay, how, if I've got representation in all the markets in these few states, then how am I going to access down payment assistance? Well, if you, if you try and plug into the 1,000, you know, program for, actually a couple 1,000 programs out there today, then it's similar to what Ashon said earlier, where you've got to go through each and every program's documents. You've got to look at the loan docs themselves, which is like the Note, the deed, the disclosures. You've got to look at the guidelines.You have to make sure that those that that program those guidelines, and the application and use of that product meets your own investor guidelines. So where you're as a lender, delivering your mortgages. And so that's a lot of work, and to do that across a landscape of even just a few states which most lenders are bigger than that, you're talking about hundreds of programs. And so, let's say they went through that work at the end of the day, each one of those programs have enough money for 20 people, maybe 10, 20, 30 folks, right? And so let's say that they do all that work, and then they get down and they discover that they only help one customer or two customers with that DPA program that would be a business loss from an operations perspective, right? They would have spent more time getting the program approved, updating their system and training their staff than they would have accessing a program for a borrower. And so that's, this is basically the the core problem statement here for from an operational perspective, and so that that is what we set about to solve for. We said, okay, let's say we have multiple products, but let's start with two. You know, we have two products now that folks can access, and it's the same in every single geography and all states. And so once you look through the guidelines and loan documents once, you can turn them on for your entire footprint. Once you've gone through that, you can train your entire staff on those couple of programs. Now your loan officers at the loan officer meeting don't need to remember 20 programs or 30 programs or four, but just to get these two right, and here's how and when you use them to save a deal. The other thing that we looked at and were inspired by is the saving the deal notion. When you have down payment assistance in-house, you have to apply it to everyone. You have to give it to everyone who qualifies. In other words, you have to offer it to everyone who qualifies. When you're third party, you don't. Okay, and so that's always been utilized on a local level and and been important. You know, local programs have saved a deal and come in at the end and help the consumer. That means those precious dollars, which are few and, you know, hard to come by, are only applied for the people who really need it in those cases. So that we also wanted to solve for, and have solved for. And so when you have and it's different than like the SPCP piece we did with mortgage companies, where the lender would apply the down payment, they would offer it directly themselves. That meant it went to everybody, right? And it went quick. It wasn't going out to just the greatest needs who could not close without it. When you have the third party. We're now proving out that we can be applied only to those scenarios, and that means that it's more cost-effective. I think it's more mission that we are helping the people on the margin who there but for this assistance could not close, and so that's who we end up helping. And so the deal saving and the scaling and the use of this by lenders at scale to solve for the 100 numbers that we can see the home mortgage disclosure act, numbers of folks who are denied just because of cash to close. That's a simple one, also debt to income ratios are affected. Number one reason for decline by applying down payment assistance. And so those are the, you know, the things we're working on and and why we're inspired to do it.

Yasgur 33:22
Great. Cat, can you tell us a little bit about your inspiration, what the seeds were?

Goughnour 33:30
Me too. I'm blessed to have a Secretary and Secretary, Jake day, who is a visionary, as is Governor Wes Moore, the the fruits of this labor, the see seeds of this labor, for this legislation predated my time at DHCD, so it was part of the legislative agenda that was put forward in 2023 I was appointed in December of 2023 and have been brought on to walk the legislation alongside The Secretary through the General Assembly, watching with bated breath at every step to see if it would make it through. And in April of 2024, once it was signed, I'm being tasked with building out a division to support the structure of this legislation and also with the implementation process. So it was a wonderful opportunity to learn about having the opportunity to hear, you know, elected and appointed officials talking about subprime red line, divested and disinvested community members as the people who were the heartbeat of this legislation, and really thinking about what is missing like we. America knows, you know that we have a way of excluding communities of color, low-income communities, but we haven't thought as much. I don't think about, how do we solve this, especially through a structural lens, so being able to create a. A legal framework that allows community members to also become architects of their own lives, to think about and engage with us through Charette processes, which are going to start once the designations are announced, to really think through what does a whole complete community look like? What does it look like when it does affirmatively further fair housing. How do we bring all of these larger frameworks together and allow communities to own wealth, to retain their businesses, but to think also about kinship communities, some of these long-standing communities who bought land, bought bought places over 100 years ago, but haven't been supported in the ways that they could and should be, and making sure that we have gotten our house in order first. So that's, you know, the one thing that I will share. It's not easy turning a government towards justice. So what are those necessary precursors to doing that? How do we inventory what exists? How do we also honor the great programs Maryland already has implemented? A lot of things that have really great outcomes. We have some of the best outcomes through data in the entire country, but we can do better, right? So building upon the legacies of what we've done well, but also being very clear about what are these challenges, especially as we're experiencing such an impact from the efficiency and kind of movement happening across the country. It is definitely impacting Maryland's community significantly. So thinking about how we use our existing funds as a Housing Finance Agency, we're not as wholly dependent on public sector dollars as some others. So there gives us an opportunity to also bring in new market partners and think about what can we leverage that might not already be implemented in the state of Maryland, not wanting to duplicate efforts, definitely not recreate the wheel, especially given our timeline, wanting to demonstrate strong outcomes as soon as possible. So the vision was not mine, but I'm definitely honored to be brought in and bring it to life.

Yasgur 37:23
That's great. And I think, Cat, as you're speaking, I think that you're helping us all see the vision, you know, I think it's it really comes across in how you describe it, and it requires nuance and sophistication. So I think thank you for kind of taking us on that journey. Ashon, in some ways, the early days that inspired your work was that it was kind of more, much more concrete, in a way, right in front of you. Can you share us a little bit about how this work started?

Nesbitt 37:49
Yeah, I might actually go a little bit further back, Stuart, than I previously shared. Actually, as a graduate student, I wrote a thesis on gentrification and creating a actual model for how we can predict and plan for gentrification, looking at different factors. And you know, sometimes you know we want community uplift, but we don't want the displacement. So a lot of times we talk about gentrification, what we're really thinking about is the displacement that happens as a result of the community rising up, which is something we want to prevent. And most of the times, it's not, it's reactive. And react, we're acting too late. And so, you know, thinking about, you know, plans when they're made, they're made, you know, 30 years ago, what we're seeing today was, was a plan in somebody's mind, you know, 30 years ago, 50 years ago. And oftentimes, with the action that we're taking today, is too late in the process. And so looking at ways to stabilize communities before the displacement takes place. And we actually have a community here in Florida, Delray Beach, working with their CRA. They actually decided early on, as the CRA was getting started, you know, we expect to succeed. We expect our efforts to bring up the community to succeed. How do we prevent the displacement that's likely to happen if we do succeed at our efforts, and that's why they started the Delray Beach community land trust. And part of my thesis, even before I knew about that, was, hey, early in the process, let's start a community land trust. And this was before I really knew, really all the ins and outs of a community land trust, but I just knew it was a great thing to do. And so when I started at the Florida Housing Coalition, my CEO said, you're going to run our CLT Institute, just from reading my my thesis. And so that's when I really started to get into it and understand, you know, how it could be a amazing tool to stabilize communities, to increase homeownership, and that in itself, you know, hedges against some of the negative impacts that we kind of see as we succeed in some of our other efforts. And so, you know, that partly inspired, but in 2017 we had Hurricane Irma, which really kind of went up the gut of the state and impacted every community in the state. It was that big of massive of a storm. And so it started in the Keys, and we went down to the Keys and we saw the devastation. But the thing that stood out was most of the the workforce was living in mobile homes, manufactured homes, and those things were destroyed, and that increased the speculation that was happening down in the Keys. And so there was a real threat of losing the housing that was affordable to the workforce down there. And so philanthropy stepped up and started, you know, buying lots just just to keep them from being picked up by speculators. And we, we partnered with them to form the Florida Keys Community Land Trust, which, you know, now has 30 units, and it's about to get 30 or so more units for workforce housing. Now this was a rental activity, but it really kind of gave the model of, you know, if we can be proactive in communities around the state, get land out of the speculative market and also create more homeowners, because we know on the back end, a lot of the funding that comes down after disaster is really targeted towards homeowners. And so if we can create more homeowners, we can reduce that speculative activity. And also we know that the recovery process is usually long and has negative impacts on property values, and those can linger for many years, particularly if it's the lower income community, and they're not able to recover as faster, as fast as other communities. And so we need to build resiliently in the beginning to protect those assets for folks. And so kind of bringing all of that together is really kind of what's inspiring this, this innovation. And so it's really creating that process that you know, discipline to build, to maximize development opportunities, to build resiliently, and all of that, you know, stabilizes communities, builds wealth, and it really impacts everyone.

Perry 42:37
Now, some of your responses, you we could hear some of the answers that you may put forth to this question, but I just want you to be very pointed around what challenges your specific innovation addresses. What are the structural things that existed before this administration, or, I mean, it certainly could address this administration, federal administration, but these, these problems have been ongoing. What specific challenges does your innovation address? And I'll start with Cat on this one.

Goughnour 43:28
Make sure my microphone is working. Excellent. Thank you. So the way that we are evaluating our work is around the three-part framework: work, wages and wealth. We are looking at reducing cost burden for renters and homeowners. That's part of the data we are going to be tracking, looking at how we leverage energy investments from the federal government, looking at ways that we are creating jobs, green jobs, being able to ensure that people have access to living wage jobs through some of the efforts that are happening through DHCD, and then, as I said, more broadly, across the state agencies, we definitely are looking to close or address bridge close the racial wealth gap. But you know, in the work that I've done historically is working on racial economic equity, racial wealth divide. So trying to think really about alleviating poverty, reducing homelessness, thinking about increasing living wages. But there's also, you know, around issues around debt, thinking about, how do we do forgivable loans also provide some more kinds of down payment assistance that might be in the form of grants, and being able to think about growing assets as then a feature of longer-term wealth building. So, you know, I want to say specifically that in five years, we will see X, Y and Z. Part of the challenge with doing system change work, you have to set in place a lot of the structures the discipline, as Ashon said, you know, ways of thinking a little bit differently about our theories of change. If we invest our money in these ways, what kinds of outcomes will we see? And so this year, that is part of what DHCD will be spearheading, as we are specifically looking at bonus points for our neighborhood revitalization dollars. Those are everything from facade improvements to technical assistance to operating dollars, small business supports. Being able to also look at the ways that we're doing multi-family development, single-family homes. I'm doing bonus points and basis points around those so there are multiple levers that we are pulling concurrently, and being able to evaluate in real-time is a goal of the Moore/Miller administration. So being able to do data-driven decision-making before the five years is completed, and also thinking about what opportunities do we have for innovation? So government is a little bit newer at innovation, let's be honest. So you know, I think also using data to drive decision-making is a newer endeavor. So as we're rolling all of this out, as I said, starting next month, sooner, we'll be able to do in real time, some of what Gabe has mentioned, right? How do we do proof of concept? How do we think about minimally viable products? What are some of the parts of the work that the state government has already, already been taking on, that we don't need to focus on because we're getting amazing, disproportionate outcomes, disproportionately positive outcomes. Where do we need to focus and bring in more subject matter experts, some more models, more partners to make sure that we are reaching some of the people who are harder to reach. And I'll give a specific example. So we've created a division of homeless solutions. Most recently, we know that our multi-family housing is generally designed for people 60% area median income and above our single-family housing is usually for 80% area median income and above. Our homeless population in the state of Maryland is earning, you know, 10% AMI at best. So we're also thinking about economic mobility. How do we create these pathways and pipelines to ensure that people who don't yet qualify for set-asides for low- to moderate-income and asset-holding communities can actually become first-time homebuyers? There's an interesting program that we saw recently where people can move directly from homelessness into homeownership. There are some examples in Baltimore where that is possible through land trusts and other ways that we're doing shared equity models. So part of my work will also be getting out on the ground now that I get to stop being as much of a nerd internally developing and designing and being able to go out and identify, what are those replicable, scalable opportunities that exist in our urban, our suburban and our rural parts of the state? They say Maryland is America in miniature. So it is, you know, got a very interesting topography, while also being able to ensure that people are able to do place, keeping and to create the kinds of economies that support culture and heritage, which is something that's very near and dear to my heart. Gentrification is one thing when we think about the changes and economic circumstance, but we also see a lot of the erasure of cultural and legacy communities as part of that process. And Maryland is very proud some of the communities I've spoken to their 10th generation on lands you know that their their ancestors purchased. So how do we think about enabling them to access resources they might not have already had access to, but also to be thought leaders and to be able to tell the stories of how investments can actually strengthen their communities.

Perry 49:15
Let's go to Ashon on this. What specific challenges is your innovation addressing?

Nesbitt 49:23
Yeah, I think straight to it, investments in historically minority communities, low-income communities, you know, are seen as inherently more risky, and what we are looking to is to reduce that risk. You know, the community land trust model, for example, has built in it the ability of the community land trust's organization to cure defaults on behalf of homeowners, in case they get into an issue. And so, you know, we look at, you know, that, in and of itself, you know, reduces risk. And so, combined with education on the front end, you know, these are very low-risk loans that banks are making because they have that extra protection. So if you add on to that, that, you know, we're building in a way that also protects the asset in the case of a natural disaster, you know, hopefully, that that's reducing the risk profile, both for individual homeowners as well as if we do it on at scale, you know, that reduces the risk profile of a community. And so, you know, everybody should be able to benefit from that. And so this is, this is what this is about, reducing risk.

Perry 50:36
You know, I just want you to wax poetic just a little bit on this, because we hear all the time that Black communities, Brown communities, carry greater risk, and the counter is, well, racism is the actual risk. How do you juggle in that rhetorical language and how does your innovation address sort of the racism that is ultimately creating risk?

Nesbitt 51:13
Yeah, I think, you know, historically, it was over, you know, now it's, you know, those same proxies that we use to to get things to address that are the same proxies that are, you know, creating. And some people in processes that the higher risk. So, you know, a lower income homeowner, which you know, are disproportionately Black and Brown people, that's, that's a that's a high risk. And so, you know, and so that's kind of what we're dealing with. And so how do we, you know, make it so that that is a safe investment for those and bring brings capital back? And so, you know, that's, that's kind of where we're at. So things are baked in. And so, you know, we have to deal with that, that situation, and look at, you know, what now is considered, you know, the primary risk factor, if it's not race, then it's, then it's income, or, you know, it's, it's location, and so, you know, those are the things that we have to to address directly and within by addressing those things, it should hopefully touch on the racial aspect as well.

Ewing del Rio 52:25
Andre, if I could jump into that, go for it, go for talk to a ton of institutions and literally, that very discussion right there. I've even been in a insurance. It was mortgage insurance and insurance providers, their trade associations, talking about this risk that Ashon's referencing, is that there's this assumption of risk there, that there is more risk that that's inherent with communities of color. And so, you know, data is always the best thing, and real performance data is where it's at right in the mortgage business. And what I can say is what we saw in special purpose credit, which was predominantly for people of color. And if you compare that to other comparable loan products, which would be high loan to value so like 97% loan to value products, right? And you can see that with the GSEs and with FHA. Look at the portfolio, or look at the performance of those loan products, those high LTV products, and compare them to the same high LTV products we were using in special purpose credit, but mostly to communities of color. Right? The performance in the SPCP portfolio is slightly better than the performance that you see in the high LTV portfolio, which is sort of everyone at that similar credit risk. And so A) it's a false perception, right? That the data shows that there is no more risk. And B) the other way we got there is that we didn't change the credit box that much. So when we talk about credit and credit risk, it matters greatly how much you increase that credit box. And when we're removing barriers to credit, we're not necessarily expanding the credit box. We are removing something that prevents someone from getting to the credit box. And so that is how we tend to focus on this work, is we remove the barriers that let people access what is already a very standardized and decent credit box, but getting rid of the barriers will let people utilize that credit box. And so that's how that's how we approach it. And we've convinced every one of our partners, that that is the case, and they see good results.

Perry 54:46
Very good.

Yasgur 54:48
That's great. And, you know, I think you know, and I think that folks who are on the call today, we are a bit of a self-selecting crew, so I'm sure most people are familiar with technical terms like credit box and things like that. Yeah, but, you know, as we talk about all these technicalities, I think it's also important to focus on the human, the people that are impacted by all this work. And so can maybe just share a little bit. And you know, I kind of take your point, which is a lot of this work is structural change, is bringing about a total change. And so we can't go in with preconceived notions that we are going to have a clear understanding of exactly what's, you know, what form this is going to take as it's as it, you know, five years into the future, because some of this is emergent, and we're going to learn, and we're going to grow and we're going to adapt. But so with that in mind, you know, how do we start to think about the impact that those of this work is happening on the people who are here, the residents? And Gabe, maybe just as a follow-up to your previous start us off?

Ewing del Rio 55:45
Yeah, I mean, well, we measure it in wealth building, you know? I mean, we sort of say, what's the point of all of this? Is wealth building. It's, yes, you get a home and it's stable and that, you know, that's an investment in your community. That's another one we celebrate. But where we can measure on that individual basis is what's the wealth difference? And so just to give you an example, in our pilot, we saw the average assistance amount was about $5,000 and just two years after becoming a homeowner, the average wealth equity that they had built, right? You know, equity in their home was $50,000 so 10 times the amount of assistance that was needed that was missing from that household as missing wealth that they didn't couldn't tap into, didn't have someone, I always like to say, their aunt or their uncle, that they could call or mom or dad to get - they were missing that generational and familial wealth. Now that's there, and in just a couple of years. So that's the kind of, you know, individual impact that we're talking about. When I talk about closing the homeownership gap, I'm really talking about closing the wealth gap. It's about making sure that we see parity amongst all communities and that future generations will be able to benefit from that, from that parity and from that wealth, we will be a much stronger country when people talk about making America great again, I'll tell you what would actually do it is erasing and closing this racial wealth gap and and making sure that we have parity among communities in America. That's what would do it.

Yasgur 57:21
That is great. It's a perfect segue. Cat, can you pick up on that a little bit, on the impact that this work is gonna have for people and communities in Maryland? Absolutely,

Goughnour 57:32
I echo Gabe. His answer was perfect, and I liked what you said, Stuart, about this work being emergent. It's one of the big challenges of being the first in doing some of the work, and it's also the opportunity. To your point, we wanted to start with quantitative data. The next step is doing qualitative data. So being able to go out into the communities and get a sense for what they need and being able to deliver. My goal was that I didn't want to do another needs assessment. I think that very much exists. Studies have been done. The United States has multitudes of studies on this work. On 2018 I had read that there are a lot of reports by Citibank and others about the cost of exclusion. But what I'm already hearing people are very excited that this kind of legislation exists. They believe that it marks a sea change, a commitment by the government that we will do our work differently. There are a lot of folks who testified in support of this bill, and even at our panel, there were many people in Maryland who came up and, you know, are expressing how much hope they have in it. So, you know, is it psychological? Yes, and wanting material change. That is my goal always for doing this work. But the other part of this legislation is creating a feedback loop, where we are bringing community members in as decision-makers. So, you know, I'm always loathe to use the word empowerment. You can't confer an empowerment process to others, but I think to Gabe's point, you can remove barriers that actually allow people to have power. So because we're looking at census tracks, it's also easier to get a sense for what 4,000 people in a certain geography might need in order to change their community landscape, what they also need, you know, as individuals and households. So I'm very excited about the ability to bring our community members in as thought leaders, thought partners, and also to ensure that we're doing the right kind of outreach that brings our existing programs to the people so that we can see them in applications. And also thinking about how do we need to retool some of the programs and processes we have because they might have within them seeds of exclusion.

Yasgur 1:00:02
Great. Ashon, same question to you, the impact on people?

Nesbitt 1:00:06
Yeah. So a couple of years ago, we hosted a panel where we actually brought in, you know, homeowners in the CLT, and just to see, you know, what their experience has been. And so it was really great to hear from a couple of homeowners in some communities, you know, the first how it really created a stable environment, you know, which was was important to them to be able to stabilize their family and stay in the community, in a nice house. And so, you know, that was super important, just to hear that that testimony. And the other was from testimony from a family that purchased in the CLT as a young married couple, the family expanded, and so they were able to take the equity that they gained through the CLT home and moved to fee simple on the market, which, you know, they wouldn't otherwise have been able to do, you know, coming straight out of renting that to have that additional capital go and buy on the market and see that happen. They also have to be now on the board for that particular CLT. So they're giving back in in a number of ways. And so we kind of see that the community growing, you know, with the operation, the CLT, giving the opportunity to someone come behind them and building wealth. And so, you know, if that, that churn can happen, you know, a lot more folks can, can build wealth. And so just to hear those personal stories, because we're often a couple steps removed from that, but to see the impact of our work on individual lives is so, so important and really inspiring for us to keep going.

Perry 1:01:57
You know, there's been a lot of talk about wealth in the these last couple remarks, I'm going to go back to Gabe. I know I mean, you eloquently talked about the dynamics that go into whether someone has a down payment. But can you just go through how being of lower wealth compromises your ability to own a home.

Ewing del Rio 1:02:23
Yeah, I like to use DeAndre example. I think he's a perfect example of this. He's a video we have on the website that people can check out. But DeAndre is someone who his mother, single mother, you know, really did a great job raising him, clearly, because he went to grad school, he works at Microsoft. He's a great has a great job and a great income, a 401K, you know, 750 something. FICO score. Thanks for letting us disclose that DeAndre, but you know, really smart, really done everything right. His mom never owned a home. They were renters, but she instilled in him the value of homeownership and that he needed to get there as soon as he could. And he was looking around at Microsoft and seeing his friends, his peers buy homes, right? Because they're moving on up in the world, and they've got good jobs, et cetera. And unlike many of his peers, there was not someone he could call to say, Hey, mom, dad, grandma, grandpa, could you put in $5,000 bucks or $10,000 bucks to help me buy my first home? And that is the case for many of his white peers, especially not all of that, of his, you know, of his white peers. But certainly is the case for communities that have built generational wealth, right? And so it is more predominantly the case in communities with that generational wealth. And he's not from that community and so DeAndre didn't have that experience. He also thought that, like many folks, that he needed 20% down. So there's that absolute myth out there. And he explains in the video, 'I thought I needed 20% down,' you know. So he needed folks to help him understand that wasn't as big of a barrier. And he needed some help to add to his savings. Because you can imagine, he was already paying really high rent. You know, living in Southern California, even though he's got a great job, rent where he lives is basically equivalent to a mortgage. And so, you know, saving and getting ahead and building up that savings will take years and years, and that would be outpaced by the increase in price, right? So, and we've done math and done some infographics that show that trying to save that down payment will be outpaced by the increase in price, right? And so what we really needed was just to get DeAndre a few $1,000 to overcome to add to his down payment. He ended up getting doing a rate buy down that permanently reduced his interest rate and his payment, and that was part of his closing costs and his down payment. And so that's what he utilized the funds for. It allowed his loan to be approved. He is now a happy, proud homeowner, doing great, you know, has a strong ability to repay, but was just missing a little bit to get over the hump. And that, I think, is, is, you know, a representative of that population. What we saw in special purpose credit was that, you know, we were helping people of color who are making 140, 150, 200% you know, 120 What? What? Not low income, basically, not 80% AMI or less, which is low income, okay, and so they're, you know, median income earners and above that have a strong ability to repay, but do not have generational wealth. Do not have familial wealth to tap into and pay high prices like the rest of us in rent and have a hard time getting ahead to save that down payment. So that's a perfect spcp borrower, and it's a perfect borrower for us too, because we're, we can, we can convert that person into a homeowner. They will be a great homeowner, and they have the ability to make those payments long-term. They're going to build wealth. They're going to be very successful. They'll look back in 30 years have paid off that home, it'll be worth three times what they paid for it, and they will be able to leave that wealth to their family.

Yasgur 1:06:17
Great Ashon, I don't know if you read the headlines yesterday, apparently, turns out some people in Washington do not out, some people in Washington do not know there's a hurricane season, and it's here you're using, you know, in your work, you use CLTs for kind of pre, pre-disaster and post-disaster resilience. Can you tell us more about how CLTs can really impact the risk profiles and the insurance premiums that people are experiencing?

Nesbitt 1:06:45
Yeah, I think there's two things. Again, reducing that speculative activity that always happens after a storm hits. And the best way to do that is to create more homeowners and so, you know, in a community where there's high numbers of renters, is very and we've seen it happen absentee homeowners or half the owners can, can quickly sell, you know, or walk away, and folks are displaced. And so, you know, that's one aspect of it. And then again, I think the first of all, building, you know, we have a very strong building code here in Florida, pretty tops in the nation. And so even building above that, you know, reduces the risk of destruction. And we've seen it, you know, we've seen the newer stuff we've seen, you know, think, recently, and there's pictures of it in Bradenton. There are some million-dollar mansions that were still standing, even though they were, you know, on these canals and, you know, in high-risk areas. And that's just kind of the strength of the building code. But you know that shouldn't just be available. You know, for higher incomes or higher priced homes, you know that that needs to spread across and so building to a higher standard, you know, definitely reduces that risk ahead of time, so communities can quickly recover or not have to deal with, you know, the destruction that happens in the first place when housing is older built or to a lower standard.

Perry 1:08:29
You know, Cat, I want to direct a question to you, because for many people, they say government is the problem, and there's a lot of history that have shown that federal, state and local governments were the primary culprits of discrimination. With that said, they may be still a problem, but they are an undeniable part of the solution. How are you making government a solution? And what are you conveying to those skeptics who say that government is the problem?

Ewing del Rio 1:09:18
Nope, you're on mute, cat.

Goughnour 1:09:21
There's a delay. Anyway, I said it was my favorite question, and I think what this legislation shows is that government can be reflective. It can take account of history. It can acknowledge its role in it, and then take action to rectify, repair, restore and correct the ways that it has functioned in the past. I think this is a demonstration of what might be possible across the nation if we get it right, which is inspiring to me. The. Thinking about people-centered place-making - we've had fewer skeptics than you might anticipate. People are very excited. And I remember reading Edgar Villanueva and other write-ups about, you know, structural inequality, the root cause, the origins thinking about, you know, philanthropy, the private sector, public sector. And there was, you know, there have been call-ins, how does the government start to become a part of the solution? And so I'm excited to look at how this can prove that there is a role for government. We will, you know, as a state agency, we will be partnering with municipal governments. Local governments, we've been partnering with the legislature. So I think the biggest challenge that is what I think is the hardest part to move is bureaucracy. Because to the point that was mentioned before, some of this is baked in. It's just the way things have been. So being able to be intentional, to understand what are those factors that are preventing people from accessing opportunity, I think that is going to be the biggest grind if I were to put that forward. And you know, the biggest challenge in thinking about is this replicable in other states, because each state government also has a slightly different approach, slightly different opportunities. But the opportunities that we're looking at at the city level and state level really primarily come from like Oregon and Washington, where they're also looking at condemnation actions, redlining, and looking at very significant down payment assistance, $100,000, $150,000 for historically marginalized communities, and thinking about, how do we use the tools that have excluded and oppressed communities to actually center and prioritize them in reinvestment.

Perry 1:12:07
You know, this is a go. Go for it. This is a good time for us to transition a bit to Q and A. I see a number of questions put forth in the in the chat. I'm trying to find some that have not been addressed.

Can we get this displacement modeling? How do you see let's go with this one. Oh, I think that one's been addressed so many the question, I think, Stuart, do you see one that?

Yasgur 1:12:49
Yeah, I read one out that. So really talks about that. Ashon answered a little bit in the chat. But you know, these are, each of these are big innovations in their own right. And they are, they involve a lot of people doing things differently. And, you know, cat as Cat pointed out, there are those who are kind of really receptive. But then we also, you know, innovations always face pushback, those who are less ready, willing, able to kind of move in a new direction. So how do you, how do you start to build kind of the core group, who's, who's kind of that you're going to work with? How do you, how do you kind of create action in the face of kind of the opposition that never really comes with innovation? Who wants it? Who wants to take that first?

Ewing del Rio 1:13:39
Well, I'll jump in on that. Is that, you know, we're sort of our focus this year is that we're, you know, proving out how, transactionally, how from a business perspective, and how, from a reduced compliance cost or potential cost perspective, that this program pays for itself. In other words, that a lender putting money into charitable funds to serve the borrowers that they endeavor to serve makes sense. The other thing is to show because that that sort of is answering your question earlier, Andre is, is where, you know, zoom out, and we're getting more lenders to solve for these gaps and to do so enthusiastically, right? And that's what, really what we're working on, and so and the good news is, the lenders haven't met a qualifying loan that they don't like. You just have to qualify. You just have to meet the qualifications. But if you can fit in that box, they want that loan, and there is not one lender who doesn't want that loan. And so, you know, someone did ask a question, what happens when we show people a population that's predominantly an area of color or a census tract that's majority minority, right? What do lenders think about that? Well, they think about it as opportunity if they're not doing loans in it. They also think about it as something that if their peers are producing in that area and they are not, that's a compliance risk as well. So there's opportunity on one side of the coin, there's compliance risk on the other side of the coin. And when you can show them that, hey, your peers are doing business there and this many units, you're not, because we can with the data. They get upset. They want that business. They all want the business. And so so anyway, we stay very focused on the business, solving for the business model, and in doing that, because of who we're solving for and what we're solving for, means that our mission is affected. But ultimately, these are capitalistic lenders that want to do more lending, so we're using their capitalistic behavior, which is predictable and it's something we can quantify, right? And so that's what we're focused on. And I think if you do those things, you can get more willing partners. Basically, you can make the business case. And just like a business plan does, you know, you can prove that something makes sense for investment.

Perry 1:16:05
There's a question here. Chris Brown wrote it, and I'll read most of it pertaining to educating the community. How would you suggest supporting community members to learn about new programs that make homeownership possible? Additionally, how would local organizations present such plans, mentioned in today's conversation, to community leaders, influencers, etc, presenting a plan to reduce the wealth gap? Now, one of the things that I'm very clear about that this is not necessarily about financial literacy, because we know that wealth predicts for education, not education doesn't necessarily predict for wealth. But how do we get the word out to these, these programs, to communities, so that they may get some uptick so maybe Cat, how are you educating the public on what you're doing?

Goughnour 1:17:02
So we have, you know, quite a few affirmative marketing plans. We're also doing, as I said before, an inventory of the programs that we have to get a sense for who can qualify, and also starting to automate and standardize more of those processes. And part of what Just Communities will also do is try to create an application that can apply to multiple programs. You know, some of these things are, are they innovative? They're innovative when you're in a new geography, doing something, even if it is proven elsewhere. So those are some of the main ways that we're doing it. But the other part is being able to signal to community members that we have changed the rules. So we've changed the game, is very inspiring. I get so many emails. People are very interested. And once the governor's designation happens, I foresee a lot more in reach happening. But we have also recently hired a director of community engagement that is shifting also how we've historically engaged with communities. So the goal will be for us to not just take out brochures or tell people when our funding rounds are open, but be able to talk people through if this is where you are socioeconomically, these are things that you can qualify for. These are new kinds of products. I'm interested always in talking to Gabe and Ashon and others in Economic Architecture Challenge to understand what other kinds of market-based innovations can we put on a list that are things that we might want to replicate in these Just Communities should communities identify those as needs.

Perry 1:18:43
Now, Gabe, I want you to answer this same question. But do you have to do a lot of educating for institutions, for financial institutions as well? Or No?

Ewing del Rio 1:19:00
I would say their loan officers are dying for and asking for programs like this and so and they're, they're, you know, our big internal advocate at a lender is that they're asking their management for programs and solutions like this that they can then deploy. And they see the problems in the marketplace. There's a loan officer in the chat who said, when I was mentioning how, you know, a lot of White consumers do have someone that they in their family can tap into. And they said, 'that's exactly what I see. I see it all the time,' right? So, So in any event, I think, you know, we partner with those folks to make sure that the story is told about the need and how that can help them close more loans. How it helps the lender retain and attract more loan officers as well? That's how they get to production. That's really key. The question, I think, was about the outreach for these and education. So I would say to we take a different approach on this. I would say you don't want to try and get your preacher or your community leader to all of a sudden be an expert on underwriting guidelines of 20 different down payment assistance programs. Not going to happen. But could we get them to understand that, guess what? You don't need 20% down. You need three, maybe zero. Could you get that message out there. That there are programs. That's all you need to know. You don't need 20%. That's all you need to know. That's the kind of thing I think we need more community lenders to help do with dispelling myths. Then when it comes time to the what, you know, there are resources out there to help you find those things. There's down payment resource helps is a tool to search and find down payment assistance programs. And then we take a little different tack. We certify lenders, and we started in the SPCP space. So if you go to equity certified.org you can search for lenders with SPCPs, including down payment assistance in your state. We're now expanding that certification to all affordable programs and solutions, and we take it from a lender approach. It's like it's not important to know about all the products. What's important is to know who you can call who will sort through all of those products on your behalf and see what you qualify for and disclose that to you honestly, because that's what the lending process does. And so if we can just get people into a loan officer, and if that loan officer works at a lender that has all the right tools and programs, then they're going to be taken care of. And this is exactly how we try and solve for this as an organization. So that's what we're doing for the and I would say the certification is a longer outreach game, right? We're not doing direct marketing. It's not a direct marketing plan, but it is something that folks out on this call can use. They can search that, they can find those lenders. And as that certification expands, what's most important is to know who are the lenders with the different programs and products that have removed the barriers and that have access to credit for the communities that we wish to serve. That's who you need to send folks to. It's an actionable item. It's not about a product with an government agency. It's about who does that consumer call and who's going to truly help them sort through what they qualify for and get it for them.

Perry 1:22:21
As we were approaching the end, and I would like the three panelists to this close out on how should folks on this call take action? And we'll start with Ashon.

Nesbitt 1:22:37
Yeah, I like the conversation that was just happening before. I think, you know, just again, spreading the word about, you know, what, what you've heard here today. And you know, a lot of this deals with, you know, it's not just economic issues. It's very emotional. It's very, you know, rooted in, in history and personal experience. And I think you know that's important is remembering that. And you know, as we're having conversations, to to think about, you know, all of those factors you know, specifically you know, just to learn, you know, to learn about the models you know, learn about CLT, learn about the benefits of purchase assistance. And you know, to not and to look at government as part of the solution. You know, in that we all can play a part in the solution wherever we sit. And can can plug into each one of these. And so that would be my closing remarks.

Perry
Gabe?

Ewing del Rio 1:23:40
Goodness. Well, I mean, I would say, encourage lenders to look at underserved communities as an opportunity for growth and opportunity for production, and so flip that coin onto its other side. That's something that everyone can take action on, is to show the business opportunity that is what an underserved community is. And so to because we've got to encourage these businesses to come in and facilitate that growth and facilitate that investment. There's that and then another one is, you know, I know we talk about getting DPA funds out the door. If you're an organization that literally has funds set aside and you can't get them out the door, call us. We will either help you do it or we'll put it in a fund through our methodology and platform that will likely get those funds matched and deployed for who you want them deployed to. But whether it's through our platform or helping you do it, it's a problem that frustrates the heck out of us, and we know how to fix it.

Perry 1:24:48
Now, finally, Cat, you want to close this out?

Goughnour 1:24:52
Sure. Ours is still a newer initiative. So 2024 was starting up. 2025e is standing up as we're thinking about scale, I am requesting partners, anyone who has any knowledge that you think could be leveraged within this kind of public sector ecosystem. My ears are open. My inbox is open. Definitely have been taking more meetings with subject matter experts, technical experts, about what could we try quickly in this framework that could help increase markets, but could also help with increasing the amount of investments in our historically underserved communities, trying to move from competition to collaboration, and to me, the biggest risk of inequity is it's an economic drag, right? If we are really thinking about making strong economies, it requires everyone to have a stake in it and to be able to build wealth and assets. So my ears are open, and I welcome anybody who would like to continue conversation.

Perry 1:26:02
Well, I'll just say a few closing remarks before I pass it on to Stewart, I'd say Take action by getting Black Power Scorecard, certainly available wherever fine books are sold. But also just to look out for future challenges, the Valuing Homes and Black Community Challenges produce a number of innovations that are really getting traction all across the country. So we're so proud of the panelists and other award I keep saying, award winners spotlight innovators, but But thank you all from my perspective, for joining us. Stuart?

Yasgur 1:26:46
Thank you, Andre and you know, I would just want to start with one piece that was mentioned up in some of the conversations, is that, you know, I think one of the reasons why these innovations are working, besides the kind of remarkable people who are driving them forward is that we all, we all have a shared interest in addressing our history and in moving forward these restorative approaches. And so I think that that's incredibly powerful. Thank you. I think the conversation today is such a contrast with so many political conversations, because these are each concrete innovations that are moving forward and creating change today, and that there's opportunities for all of us to act, to support them, to engage with them, to learn from them, to further these kinds of innovations in our own space, in our own community. There is some people have asked on the chat, you can read about each of these innovations, each on their own sites, but also collectively, on the Economic Architecture Project.org, website has information about each of these innovations. We are in midst of a series of papers that describe each of these innovations, which will be on our site and on the Brookings Institution website. There are also, we are in the middle of a series, this a series of talks that are going on right now with NCRC. We have another talk that's coming up next month, so please be on the lookout for that. We also are just at the very beginning of our work focusing on dealing with climate and disaster. So there would be an initial public event coming out in mid-June, I believe mid-June about that, so we will send you information about that. If you're interested, please do let us know. And I want to thank for hosting us today, NCRC has been a remarkable organization in bringing together conversations on just economy and Andre. Thank you and Brookings Institution for years of partnership on this and Cat, Gabe and Ashon for helping lead the way in this tremendous work. Thank you all very much.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Take care.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

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