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Joseph F. Garlick Jr. is executive director of Woonsocket Neighborhood
Development Corporation, the developer of the Constitution Hill
initiative in Woonsocket, Rhode Island. The development received
a $320,000 grant and a $510,000 subsidized advance from the Federal
Home Loan Bank of Boston's Affordable Housing program in 1994.
The neighborhood is one of the oldest in the city of Woonsocket.
Back in the 1980s and early 1990s it really took a hit. By the early
1990s about 20 percent of the houses in the neighborhood were boarded
up and abandoned.
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Hill.
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Constitution Hill is a racially mixed neighborhood with a lot of
multifamily housing. When we started the project, two or three houses
on our block were boarded up. There was also a lot of crime in the
neighborhood.
We rehabbed 110 affordable units - about 35 houses - scattered across
a 10-block area.
Managing this number of buildings makes it more complicated. We've
learned that it's important to keep our eye on the numbers. This
really helps us manage better. You use your numbers to inform your
day-to-day management - your maintenance and customer service.
We also keep an eye on resident turnover. It's important to keep
people living in the units. We try to focus on maintenance and services,
which have an impact on turnover.
It's important to keep the properties attractive so that people
will want to live in them. There's a lot of bureaucracy in affordable
housing. Constitution Hill is a Low Income Housing Tax Credit project,
so people have to fill out a lot of papers and forms. We spend a
lot of time verifying people's income because of the many funding
sources involved. Our competitors in the private market don't put
people through as many hoops.
On a number of fronts our housing shouldn't be as successful as
it is. It succeeds because of our management practices. Day-to-day
maintenance, having an apartment ready quickly after someone moves
out, and just keeping an eye on how things look is what makes or
breaks you. In addition to the housing, we also provide a number
of resident services: we have a learning center, a free after-school
program, and an artist in residence who does programming in exchange
for a free apartment.
Good management also depends on good design. It's important to design
a family-friendly environment. Families are our market, so we need
to have units that can accommodate families. Are the units large
enough for families or are we just trying to squeeze them into small
four-bedroom or three-bedroom apartments without space for study
or play? Is there a dining room for family celebrations? Is there
a yard where the kids can play?
We've spent a lot of time in the design phase, which has made it
easier for us to manage the properties. In some ways, the early
design phase - and being attentive to housing development 101 issues
- will dictate your management later on.
Neighborhood Reinvestment provides extensive training that focuses
on all aspects of design with an eye toward management. When all
is said and done, building the development is the easy part, but
keeping it up for 40 years is the real struggle. Getting it built
can be traumatic, but the building period only lasts a couple of
years. The ongoing management is really the key for the next 40
years.
We contract with Dimeo Properties Inc., a for-profit company, to
manage the properties. But we're very involved with the management.
The manager works out of our office. I think this makes a big difference.
It makes us much more aware of what is happening. I don't think
the management company would do as good a job if we weren't so involved.
I think our involvement makes them more responsive.
I have colleagues who have delegated management to an outside company
and I don't think it goes as well. Having rental property that is
an asset to the community is part of our core mission, so we don't
want to turn it over completely to a private management company.
Our turnover is less than 10 percent, which is a really good number.
About half of the people who leave do so because of a behavioral
issue. Our property manager is amazing at dealing with those issues.
She was a psychology major, which is probably good training for
a property manager. She's a people person. She doesn't shy away
from tough conversations. She'll call people in and talk to them.
We give people three chances to turn things around.
If it's a major problem we'll initiate proceedings right away, but
still give the tenant a chance to turn things around. Our manager
will actually give a tenant the telephone number of a legal-services
lawyer and tell him: "Look, you're going to need a lawyer because
we're evicting you; here's the number." Probably no other property
management in New England will give a tenant the number of a legal-services
lawyer.
Drug problems, cleanliness issues, lease violations, and general
unruliness are some of the behaviors that would be cause for eviction.
In multifamily buildings, we can't have tenants making noise that
disturbs other residents to the extreme.
We did this project in part to revitalize the neighborhood. The
houses on Constitution Hill were basically abandoned and real eyesores
and a drain on the neighborhood. When you intervene in that kind
of market, you want to set a better standard; you want to set the
bar higher for property management in the neighborhood.
There's an attitude in our community that rental housing isn't an
asset to a community and that people should all be homeowners. There's
the sense that rental housing can't be as good as homeownership.
We approach it from the point of view that rental housing can be
an asset. We want the residents to be proud of where they live.
Good management really involves staying on top of the details. Our
office is very close to our rental development, so we're always
driving through to keep an eye on things. We have a very close relationship
with our neighbors, who are not shy about calling us if they see
something slipping. It's important to have a good maintenance guy.
We currently have an excellent one. He takes it personally if the
properties aren't up to his standards.
Our property manager is always driving through the neighborhood
and keeping an eye on maintenance issues. We've just started to
survey residents on property upkeep and management issues to see
what we can do better.
I think people see Constitution Hill as being a very safe place
to live now. I think our houses look as good today as they did the
day we finished construction. The quality is still there, the curb
appeal; things can decline quickly but I think we have stayed on
top of things over the last decade. When we give tours, people still
say, in a good way, "Your houses really stand out; we can always
tell which houses are yours."
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