Lori Gay has led California’s Neighborhood Housing Services of Los Angeles County, a NeighborWorks network nonprofit with a focus on revitalizing neighborhoods, for three decades now. During that time, she’s helped her community through adversities that have included the mortgage crisis, fires, earthquakes, riots and a pandemic. For the past five months, Los Angeles County has been in the spotlight again as wildfires ripped through Altadena and the Pacific Palisades. We asked Gay to share a few thoughts about leading during times like this.
NeighborWorks: How have disasters informed your leadership strategy?
Gay: I’ve learned that you have to be strategic about time. It's really like being the hub in a wheel and knowing that every spoke has to be dealt with.
NeighborWorks: How do you stay in communication with your team?
Gay: It's this constant huddle. Reconnaissance, and then you go back out, you know? If you keep to a sports analogy, it's like being on the football field: You're the quarterback, but every player has got to know exactly what they're doing every play, or you're wasting time, you're ineffective, you're not achieving.
I immediately started hosting Fridays at 9:30 meetings for all staff, just a 30-minute check-in to focus on what we’ve learned this week. Who do we need to tap? Are there any changes every staff member needs to know?
What are the days like now?
The main disaster already happened, but people are still in trauma, they're in recovery. It’s all over the continuum and we just want to be at our best all the time. The language we use now is "self-care" and "awareness" and just staying on point. That wasn't the way people used to communicate in business. But I think with COVID, all of that changed, and I don't think we'll go back to that anything that was pre-COVID on wellness and mental health. It's almost a small miracle, that COVID precedes something like this disaster, so it's not uncommon to look out for each other, because we need that.
I've been a person of faith my whole life, and I'm one of those kids who thought my father being a
pastor was fun and exciting. So I have always said words of care and nurture to people, even though it can be uncomfortable in business. I think COVID did was help us realize some of that's okay; that it's not weird to take good care of people. It makes it easier for a person like me to just be myself and to lead in love and concern for people. I think that my staff needs it. My funders need it. The families need it. And that really becomes the bottom line.
How does the current crisis impact your day-to-day management?
You have to finish something important every day in this space. And so that's probably the most different thing that I see in the disaster space: just a constant need for completion. If you don't review someone's case adequately or accurately, if you don't call the funder back or make sure that the loan is closed – whatever the issue is, you have to finish.
Every single staffer counts, right? Every single family we serve counts. So how can you resolve and get them feeling like they're making progress?
What are some of your frustrations?
The waiting – people are waiting for whatever relief they can get. And then the homeowners, many of them didn't have insurance, so it's one of the higher uninsured populations we're seeing in the home ownership space, and that's dangerous. And in every disaster, there's misinformation, lack of information. Clarity is needed, and people don't know how to make life decisions – they've lost everything. We feel it, and we’re trying to have our staff be “boots on the ground” and be available. Having the right information has been part of our goal.
We’re talking a lot about insurance. There was some misinformation, telling people not to sign the insurance check. It’s left people living in their cars or on a relative’s couch. There’s complete disruption, and then the grief surrounding everything that burnt down – and if they weren't properly insured, or underinsured, how do they make their way back? We’re talking about generational wealth building, and trying to convince people not to sell. Part of our relief work is free property inspections and free financial counseling, so we are trying to get the word out about that. Those who had heavier wind or smoke or some fire damage were grateful for those free property assessments. It helped them know whether to file a claim, and people just knowing there's someone walking alongside them through this. That builds trust for the future.
What’s next?
We’re looking to open an office in Pasadena, to be closer and to give people a space to just be.
The pace of disaster response is a little bit every day. And then it becomes a lot every day. But you're in a marathon, right? And whether you're jogging it or walking it, you've got to keep moving because there's a tape at the end of that doggone 26.2 miles.
