The Community Effect Podcast Episode 1
Following is a transcript of Episode 1 of The Community Effect
Voiceover Narrator: In every corner of America, there are stories of resilience, innovation and the unwavering spirit of community. Welcome to the Community Effect, the podcast where we explore the intersection of community development, affordable housing and the impact it has on us all. We'll uncover the blueprint for building thriving communities, one story at a time.
Marietta Rodriguez (President & CEO, NeighborWorks America): Welcome, everyone, to the inaugural episode of The Community Effect, a podcast dedicated to exploring the transformative power of place and the people who shape it. I'm your host, Marietta Rodriguez, President & CEO of NeighborWorks America. At NeighborWorks, we have spent 45 years cultivating a wealth of knowledge and resources dedicated to strengthening communities.
For this inaugural episode, we are tackling the big question, how can [00:01:00] strategic partnerships Between the public and private sectors create more equitable and accessible pathways to home ownership. To kick things off, we have two incredible guests. First, Joanie Strassman Brandon, a true champion of our mission with over 30 years of experience with us.
And Steve Tuminaro, a visionary leader who played a key role in shaping NeighborWorks public policy initiatives for over two decades. Steve and Joanie, thank you so much for being here. Let's, let's get started.
Travel back with me to the establishment of NeighborWorks in 1978. The average price of a gallon of milk was just over a dollar. You could fill up your tank for about 65 cents a gallon. And if you were lucky enough to be buying your first home, you were looking at an average mortgage rate of 9. 5%. Steve, I want to start with you.
Take us back to those early days as NeighborWorks was forming in the midst of what economists called the Great Inflation. Who were the key players and what was their vision to form us?
Steve Tuminaro: Clearly one of the real key players was William Whiteside. Bill Whiteside could probably be called the father of Neighborhood Reinvestment.
He was hired initially by the Federal Home Loan Bank Board in 1970 and his primary role was to look for ways to increase savings bank lending. In the course of doing that, he came across a model in Pittsburgh. It was Dorothy Richardson who was fighting to save her neighborhood. She was a homeowner, in many ways a very average person, which makes the story particularly exciting.
Returning to Bill for a moment.
Marietta Rodriguez (President & CEO, NeighborWorks America): Hang on, Steve. Let's, before we go into the way Bill Whiteside wanted to approach things, tell us what was going on in Pittsburgh. Paint that picture for us.
Steve Tuminaro: Yeah, in some ways it was typical of what was happening in so many neighborhoods. The city had developed plans for the neighborhood, involved road construction and other things.
And as a result of these plans being marked on a city map, the lenders were not willing to provide loans in the neighborhood. And Dorothy was a homeowner and managed to gather some of her neighbors together, first just complaining about why can't we get loans to fix our homes. When they finally understood what was happening, they approached the city.
It began as a somewhat confrontational approach, but Dorothy was looking for solutions. And slowly there was this discussion of if the [00:04:00] city says they're not going to develop for a certain number of years, then maybe the lenders will lend if enough people in the community are willing to improve their homes.
And it became this building blocks. And that became the beginnings of saying we might be able to create an organization here. So it, it evolved. But once that model was together, people began to look and say, well, wait a minute. This has the makings of a real solution here. They went on.
Marietta Rodriguez (President & CEO, NeighborWorks America): So it sounds like what Dorothy did is brought people together to have a conversation.
Steve Tuminaro: Absolutely. Absolutely. And in a time where there were a lot of confrontational examples, the fact that this became more 'can't we just gather around the table?' I mean, Dorothy literally had the people in her [home]. You know, and Bill came across this model in Pittsburgh and [00:05:00] decided rather than just conduct seminars with lenders, which was primarily what he had been involved in, he convinced the bank board to try to replicate this Pittsburgh model, and slowly others joined in this effort.
But, Bill, I think his primary interest was in empowering the residents themselves. Housing became his vehicle to do that.
Marietta Rodriguez (President & CEO, NeighborWorks America): And, and take us back into community. What were communities facing during this time? What were those challenges like?
Steve Tuminaro: On one hand, you had an enormous amount of money flowing into downtown areas, hotels, sports stadiums, shopping centers.
In addition, a good deal of public housing being built, road construction occurring. So on one hand, a lot of activity. But [00:06:00] unfortunately, much of that activity led to demolition of communities, and even where housing was built, the housing wasn't designed for the existing class of residents.
Marietta Rodriguez (President & CEO, NeighborWorks America): Joanie, let me turn to you.
In those early days, is there an illustrative story or community that you think about even today, about the impact that this organization has had?
Joan Straussman Brandon (Regional Vice President, Northeast Region, NeighborWorks America): Watching over the years how these residents became leaders... In one example in Ithaca, New York, a woman who came on as an interested resident eventually became a city council person and talked about how much she had learned.
And that was another thing that we did at NeighborWorks: We had so much training for residents so they really did become leaders. There was another instance here, right here in New York City. We were developing an organization in New York City where this really young resident is part of the [00:07:00] process. And we asked her to speak at an event and she was terrified.
And then as we got ready for the event, she just got stronger and stronger. And she got up there in front of like 300 people talking about the program and just those stories of leadership development. So those are just a few examples.
Marietta Rodriguez (President & CEO, NeighborWorks America): Steve and Joanie, you both had a front seat to how NeighborWorks has evolved.
Steve, let me ask you, how did NeighborWorks innovate over those first few decades? What strategies did we use to support the investment into communities? And then how did they evolve over, over time?
Steve Tuminaro: I mean, the first thing to recognize is nothing like this had occurred before.
Marietta Rodriguez (President & CEO, NeighborWorks America): There wasn't a template.
Steve Tuminaro: There was no template at all. Neighborhoods were seen as transitional, in decline, and there was only one direction. And the effort [00:08:00] began as an effort to organize owners of one- to three-unit homes to rehabilitate the homes. Over time, the organization began to respond to the problems of the neighborhood.
So one of the first things they did was develop the strategy to deal with large-scale buildings, rental properties. They then began to deal with economic development issues and other issues. It wasn't so much us sitting back and deciding what would be cool to do. It was responding to the needs of the communities.
Marietta Rodriguez (President & CEO, NeighborWorks America): In real time.
Steve Tuminaro: Yeah. And then internally, a lot of things developed. Our focus on real hard data, data collection, data analysis as a way of reporting to Congress on the federal funding we were receiving. Innovation was just a constant [00:09:00] process.
Marietta Rodriguez (President & CEO, NeighborWorks America): Yeah, I think that's a real key to the kind of impact and success that we've seen at NeighborWorks.
Having our ear to the ground and having the network organizations telegraph their needs and challenges that they were facing. Joanie, let me ask you, let's move up to the aughts. Can you identify a moment in the past 20 years where NeighborWorks has had to quickly adapt to a changing economic landscape in order to really meet the needs of communities?
Joan Straussman Brandon (Regional Vice President, Northeast Region, NeighborWorks America): Well, you know, one thing that really comes to mind is the foreclosure crisis. In the 2000s, it was amazing how well, first of all, NeighborWorks America was seen as the vehicle by the Department of Treasury to manage millions and millions and millions of dollars in funding to assist. These communities and people that were facing the foreclosure.
More recently, you know, we've been recognizing a lot of our organizations and the industry [00:10:00] itself is struggling with recruiting and retaining talent to work in our organizations and to work in the industry. And we've been responding by several pilots that we've been running that provide training, that provide mentorship, that provide creating cohorts to really hopefully help people stay within the industry.
So those are two examples that come to mind for me.
Marietta Rodriguez (President & CEO, NeighborWorks America): And I think what's so powerful of those two examples, both the foreclosure crisis and the retention of talent and attraction of talent into the field, is that we received early indicators about both of those things from the network. In other words, the relationship that we have with the more than 240 organizations is that they tell us what they're dealing with in real time in an ongoing basis. Joanie and Steve, you both have such a, a deep understanding of [00:11:00] our rich history and the communities that we serve. When you think about our next 45 years, what challenges do you see?
Joan Straussman Brandon (Regional Vice President, Northeast Region, NeighborWorks America):
Whew. Where to start? So obviously we've been hearing tremendous concerns about insurance costs, the rising costs of insurance for our organizations, both for homeowners and for our multifamily developers and owners of properties. Housing affordability overall, we're hearing about inheritance-related issues, tangled titles, probate issues for generations afterwards [as people try to] maintain homes that parents and grandparents own. We're hearing about outside investors buying up properties for cash, which affects supply of properties, and of course, the climate issues. Obviously, the good news is there's abundance of resources available to deal with the climate, but a lot of people [00:12:00] haven't gotten their arms around how to really use those resources.
Marietta Rodriguez (President & CEO, NeighborWorks America): And they're all, you know, they're all interrelated, right? So some of the climate issues we're seeing reflected in the rising insurance costs, right? That make it really difficult for our network to own and manage affordable rental units. Um, when you think about these big picture issues like housing shortages, like climate resilience.
And I wonder, Steve, if this feels at all familiar.
Steve Tuminaro: Yeah, I mean, in one respect, it's been our entire history. You know, I think in the early days, we thought there might be some quick fix. You could kind of change the way banking lending is done in the country. When I think back, I'd have to say we haven't changed the world, except we have changed [00:13:00] the world for hundreds of thousands of people and tens of thousands of communities.
One of the very first places I visited when I joined NeighborWorks was a neighborhood in Dallas known as Love Park. A housing professional, as I drove through that neighborhood, I have to admit, even I was questioning, is this worth it? I mean, these buildings were in pretty sad shape. Well, that was nearly 50 years ago.
Fast forward. And I'm getting a little emotional thinking of it. My son bought a home in the Love Park area of Dallas. A wonderful, diverse neighborhood that so many people, sadly, perhaps even I, were ready to give up on.
Marietta Rodriguez (President & CEO, NeighborWorks America): That's an incredible full circle moment. I really love it. You know, those [00:14:00] early pioneers really thought they were changing the world.
They had a determination and a commitment that was unwavering. And, and I think that still is true for people who work at NeighborWorks and work in NeighborWorks organizations. But as Joanie, you've said, attracting talent and retaining them is so important. Oftentimes, people don't know they can make a career out of community development work.
So, it would be remiss if we ended this without asking each of you: What piece of advice would you have for someone who feels strongly about giving back to their communities but doesn't know what an entry point is or who are just starting their careers in community development? What piece of advice do you wish someone had given you?
Steve, we'll start with you.
Steve Tuminaro: Hmm. Well, going back to Bill Whiteside and the early days of the organization, one of the things that was [00:15:00] almost drummed into us was no matter how knowledgeable, experienced, informed we were, our role was never that of flying into a city, dropping in as the expert to solve their problems.
Our role was to be a facilitator, to bring people together, to try to identify leaders, not necessarily the recognized leader. Might have been the guy in the barbershop. Or the woman behind the counter in a grocery store. But people had seeds of leadership in them, and by talking to people, begin to identify them.
So I would say for people interested in community development work, the things that I have found to be most important is first to actively listen to the community. I mean, not to assume what the problems are, not to assume [00:16:00] what the priorities are, but listen, be patient, you can't do this work on a timetable.
I mean, we would work out timelines for our planning purposes. But you can't squeeze a community into your timeline. Your timeline needs to be flexible, it needs to adjust. Again, going back to the early days, there was a small book, it's not very involved, but it was really viewed as required reading then.
Joanie's probably familiar with it, it was The Servant as Leader. The Servant as Leader. It's a simple book. It's almost a pamphlet by Robert Greenleaf. Anyone involved in this work or interested in this work, I highly recommend you get your hands on that. Read it. It may change you.
Marietta Rodriguez (President & CEO, NeighborWorks America): Thank [00:17:00] you, Steve. Joanie, the same question.
What would you advise someone, or what do you wish someone had told you?
Joan Straussman Brandon (Regional Vice President, Northeast Region, NeighborWorks America): Yeah, yeah, yeah, everything Steve said. I mean, absolutely. And you can't just assume, you know, you can't have any assumptions. The other thing I say, a book that unfortunately only came out a few years ago, I think we're all familiar with, but everybody should read is The Color of Law.
So we, we all get a real understanding of how we got to where we are today, the history, the history of getting there and taking advantage of all learning opportunities that are out there.
Marietta Rodriguez (President & CEO, NeighborWorks America): Thank you. You know, I've been at NeighborWorks for about half of its life, so I really appreciate and owe so much to those who were there in the early days who paved the way and developed these tools and strategies so that we continue this incredible, incredible mission.
Thank you so much. I have to say, Steve and Joanie, as we wrap this [00:18:00] episode, I'm really filled with a sense of hope for what's to come when I think about the challenges of the past and how we rose to the occasion. It's clear that the work of NeighborWorks and its network is more important and more critical than ever.
Thank you both for sharing your wisdom and your passion today. Your insights have been invaluable. Your dedication to community development and to the mission of NeighborWorks is truly inspiring. And I have to say to those listeners, thank you for joining us for this journey today. Remember The Community Effect is about empowering people, fostering connections, and creating places where everyone can thrive.
We hope this podcast can be one of those places for you. Join us next week as we continue to explore the stories and strategies They're shaping communities that we call home. Until then, keep believing in the power of place and the people who make it possible.
Voiceover Narrator: [00:19:00] This is The Community Effect brought to you by NeighborWorks America.
