Michael Gosman: Buy A Home, Build A Community (Pt 2)

When Father Dennis Lewis was assigned to St. Michael’s parish in Milwaukee, he discovered a growing number of Hmong and Laotians seeking refuge from the Vietnam War. Many were subjected to a terrible slumlord and so Father decided to start a homebuying ministry that helped coach them through the process. 33 years later, Acts Housing has helped 4,000 low-income families purchase homes!

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Hey, everybody, it's Bill Courtney with an army of normal folks.
And we continue now with part two of our conversation
with Michael Gosman. Right after these brief messages from our
general sponsors. So the city agreed to that deal, and

(00:28):
you guys went out and let the community know what existed.
He started getting people in homes. So now I can't
help but think just from the business side of me,
all right, great, you can buy the home for one
thousand dollars or a dollar, but code's not going to
let you move into it to it's right. Sure, so
you've got to have money to fix it up, which

(00:50):
means you got to borrow money, which many families in
these situations can't go to Bank of America and get
a loan for this. That you guys came up with
a fix for them.

Speaker 2 (01:00):
That's exactly right.

Speaker 3 (01:01):
So we never had any aspirations of being in the
mortgage lending business.

Speaker 1 (01:05):
Yeah, this was things kind of roll downhill and get big.

Speaker 2 (01:08):
Yeah, that wasn't.

Speaker 3 (01:09):
That wasn't on the Bengo card when father Dennis and
John Worm were founding acts and we still partner very
significantly with banks and credit unions to get provide most
of the mortgage financing for our families. But what we
saw in the aftermath of the foreclosure crisis was that
banks were we're trenching. They weren't lending as freely for
some good reasons and maybe some not so great reasons,

(01:32):
And in particular, they weren't lending to families who were
purchasing distressed homes. It's one thing for a bank to
lend on a move and ready home, but a distressed home,
a home that's not livable, the bank looks at that
as a much bigger risk.

Speaker 1 (01:45):
Right well, and in fairness to the bank, it is
it is. Yeah, I mean, how are you going to
land fifty thousand dollars on a place that today is
worth literally a dollar.

Speaker 2 (01:55):
That's exactly right, And.

Speaker 1 (01:57):
You can't really blame the bank. It doesn't mean they're predatory,
but they answer to a board of directors, they answer
to shareholders, they answer to whoever's holding the bag. No
loan officer can justify that, So I kind of get
why that's a barrier.

Speaker 2 (02:11):
I think that's right.

Speaker 3 (02:12):
I think they and so we quickly realized and we
had good relationships a lot of local banks. We pushed
them to do as much as we could get them
to do, and we realized they're not going to do this.
There's no way that they're going to land on these
homes at the scale we need, and so we piloted.

Speaker 2 (02:28):
Our own loan product.

Speaker 1 (02:29):
Hilarious would get it. You know.

Speaker 3 (02:31):
The idea was sort of a return to common sense underwriting.
Let's look at their rental history. Let's make that the
most important thing. Are they paying their rent on time
every single month? What's their rent okay, what's their new
mortgage going to be? That's a great indicator of whether
they're going to pay their mortgage right. Are they paying
their rent on time?

Speaker 1 (02:49):
And I read you guys are actually trying to get
them into a mortgage that is actually a little less
than what they pay for rent, So they're getting ownership
and paying less.

Speaker 2 (02:59):
That's the case scenario.

Speaker 3 (03:00):
And especially in this period where I'm talking about, where
we were offering the ax lending product, we had families
who were spending eight hundred one twelve hundred dollars a
month in rent who wound up having a new mortgage
payment including taxes and insurance that was more like five
or six hundred dollars a month, So just many hundreds
of dollars of savings for the lowest income families, working

(03:22):
families in our in our community. But getting those deals
done we're not easy, you know, setting up your own
mortgage lending effort. Turns out there's a fair amount of
compliance requirements that you got to really pay a lot
of attention to. So we had to be very strategic
in terms of who our volunteers were, because we didn't
have the money to hire a bunch of folks who
were going to spend there all their time on regulations.

(03:44):
But we had some great lawyers and compliance folks who
volunteered for us because they believed in this and thought
it could be successful, and.

Speaker 2 (03:51):
We just started doing We started doing loans.

Speaker 3 (03:53):
I will tell you when I joined, So I didn't
join the organization. I've been on the team now for
thirteen years. I was a volunteer for a couple of
years before that. When I joined the organization, we just
started this lending work, and we'd gotten pretty good at
lending the money. So we were doing maybe you know,
ten fifteen of these loans a year, lending families purchase

(04:14):
and fix up these homes.

Speaker 2 (04:15):
But we weren't really great at getting paid back.

Speaker 3 (04:19):
And when I was a volunteer, I was like, oh,
that's that's a little bit troubling, Like it would it
would be good if we were getting getting monthly payments people.

Speaker 2 (04:26):
People weren't paying their notes.

Speaker 3 (04:28):
And so you know, there's a question of okay, well
this only works if people are actually paying us back.
So let's figure out what's going on. And the organization.
You have to understand we were tiny. You know, I
was a volunteer for the organization, but there were only
six full time staff members, and so as a volunteer,
they let me dig in a little bit to the
lending work because again, there wasn't someone to do everything.
So all right, you got this guy who's volunteering to

(04:50):
help out. Let's give him as much as they'll take.

Speaker 1 (04:52):
And when I.

Speaker 3 (04:53):
Dug in, I realized that we weren't invoicing families. You know,
they weren't getting any sort of monthly reminder that do.

Speaker 1 (05:02):
So that people get why this might be what would
what before this world? You would what was your discipline,
your occupation?

Speaker 2 (05:13):
Yeah, so I was practicing law.

Speaker 3 (05:14):
I was working at a sort of large Milwaukee Milwaukee
law firm and was completely unsatisfied with the practice of law.

Speaker 2 (05:21):
Where'd you go to law school University of Chicago?

Speaker 1 (05:24):
You're smart? How'd you pay to go to that place?
It's expensive?

Speaker 2 (05:29):
Oh well, that's that's a whole nother story.

Speaker 3 (05:31):
I actually so I started law school, and I started law.

Speaker 2 (05:36):
School in two thousand and four.

Speaker 3 (05:38):
And I don't know if you're I don't know if
you're a poker player at all.

Speaker 1 (05:42):
Actually, I love like, that's why you wanted me to ask.
I'll be in a place out west, in the very
southern tip of Nevada, playing poker, fearing about ten nice.

Speaker 3 (05:55):
Yeah, well, so I grew up in a card playing face.
I learned cards from my grandfather, a lottage and rummy,
a lot of jen rummy, a lot of fun and
then and then a fair amount of poker. And when
Texas Hold Them started to get a little popular in
the early two thousands, I started reading Texas Hold'em books

(06:18):
because I just I'd always liked poker and I was
sort of curious about it and the game. You know,
for anyone who plays pot, it just exploded in popularity.
It just became it went from being something that most
people had never heard of to being something that was
televised on.

Speaker 1 (06:31):
TV and Chris Moneymaker, Chris.

Speaker 2 (06:34):
The money Maker effect exactly.

Speaker 3 (06:35):
And and so I'd read, you know, sort of the
poker books, the best books of the time.

Speaker 2 (06:41):
I sort of understood them.

Speaker 3 (06:43):
And what I found very quickly was and I was
playing at fairly low stakes at first, but just having
done that little bit of work and also then being
able to take what I learned and apply it, it
meant in two thousand and four, two thousand and five,
two thousand and six, you had a massive edge on
a to any game you'd play in. And so I
went from playing very low stakes to playing sort of

(07:06):
incredibly high stakes a poker, cash games. I wasn't a
tournament player, and that wound up being how I how
I paid for my law school for my wife's graduate school.

Speaker 1 (07:15):
You paid for school at the University of Chicago being
an attorney playing poker.

Speaker 2 (07:23):
Yeah it wasn't it was that.

Speaker 1 (07:27):
Yeah, I got your wife's graduate school. Yeah it was.

Speaker 2 (07:29):
It was an interesting period.

Speaker 3 (07:30):
I never thought that I would I would make a
living playing playing cards.

Speaker 2 (07:34):
I never thought it was going to be a career.

Speaker 3 (07:36):
But there was a moment where there was that you know,
really significant opportunity. And I didn't have the vision at
that time to realize the difference that that that that
income would make on my life's trajectory. But it's the
very rare, I think, like poker success story, because if
I had not been able to pay for my graduate school,
my wife's graduate school with poker, I think I would

(07:58):
have felt compelled to stay working at the law firm,
even though I was pretty unsatisfied because I had a
lot of debt to pay and you know, we were
starting a family, we had kids. But because I had
that freedom of not having that debt, when I started
volunteering for ACTS, and I just I saw that my
work there was making a difference. That this extra you know,
the extra effort that they would be able to put

(08:19):
forth with another member of the team was significant. I
was able to transition into a job that I thought,
you know, could be deeply meaningful and not be as
concerned with the fact that, you know, the pay wasn't
quite quite what I was making at the law firm.

Speaker 1 (08:32):
Is a credit. Did you you still play?

Speaker 3 (08:34):
I play very recreationally now, but I still love the game,
and yeah, I try and play, you know, ten fifteen
times a year.

Speaker 1 (08:40):
Do you know? For me, it's really not about the stakes.
I want to play, right, h I played a lot
of chess coming up. Oh okay, so I see the
game the same way, and so it doesn't matter if
I'm playing one, three or fifty hundred. I want to

(09:01):
I just want to play well. I want to play right.
I don't want to get had and I want to
you know, I don't want to be a fish. So
it's it's more about playing the game than it is
about stakes for me, is it? Is it the same
for you? By any chance? I'm just curious. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (09:15):
So I love and I love playing with people who
are trying to win. I think that's really it. If
I'm playing with people who all are really trying to win,
that's a fun game.

Speaker 1 (09:23):
That's fun.

Speaker 3 (09:24):
Is a fun that's a fun game to be a
part of, regardless of regardless of.

Speaker 1 (09:26):
Okay, well I chase like like a squirrel up a tree.
It has nothing to do with the story except I
think it's that's hilarious. That's the greatest thing in the world.
I could talk to you about that for four hours too.
All right, So back to where we are. So which
you're so you guys start lending money, right, And because

(09:47):
you're an attorney and from u Ver Chicago and pretty
bright and a volunteer, at this point you found out
that maybe one of the reasons people are paying their pills,
you guys are sending them a bill. Right.

Speaker 2 (10:02):
And you know this was.

Speaker 3 (10:06):
This wasn't a brilliant observation, right, And they knew it, right,
they knew they weren't doing it. But the reality was
tiny operation, lots of things going on. There wasn't anyone
to set out the invoices. So I became the invoice guy. Right,
So if I get the invoices out, let's see if
that makes a difference. And lo and behold, you know
the portfolio went from like being deeply distressed to performing

(10:26):
great with the addition of the invoices. Right, we just
need to remind people how to pay us. We needed
to remind them that we wanted to get repaid. And
very quickly the payments started coming in.

Speaker 1 (10:38):
And so it begs the question because if I'm just
listening to story, this is the first thing it is. Okay,
so now you're helping people get the houses, did they
acts thing? You've got this kind of private public partnership
for access to the house. Is it cheap? You've got
this this mentorship, and what to do with the house

(11:00):
is to fix them up to get code I would
imagine the code enforcement department knows what you guys are
doing and is somewhat helpful. And now you're lending money.
What is the what is the default rate?

Speaker 3 (11:16):
Yeah, so when we started this loan program, there was
a lot of a lot of naysayers. You know, a
lot of the bankers who saw what we were doing said,
you know, this will never work.

Speaker 2 (11:25):
It's not done that way.

Speaker 3 (11:26):
You know, you need to focus on credit score, you
need to focus you know, look at these loans differently.
And what we found was because of the stability that
home ownership offers, because of how affordable these homes are,
families are, they're going to do everything they can to
keep these homes. And so we now have been We've
lent more than fifteen million dollars over the last decade

(11:48):
to families. That's spread out across two hundred plus loans
that we've made, and we've had total write offs in
our portfolio of eighty thousand dollars.

Speaker 1 (12:00):
Yes, that's less than time for percent. Yeah, and look
at me, do, Matt.

Speaker 3 (12:06):
That's very good, And it's even better than that because
those are the right offs. But typically even on the
three loans that we've written off, we wind up getting
some of that money back right because you know, right
off just means that we decided that the loan isn't
isn't doesn't have a highlight gohood of prepaying. But typically
we're still able to work with the families to figure
out a way either upon transfer or if they need

(12:27):
to sell the home.

Speaker 2 (12:28):
And so it's been a remarkably sustainable program.

Speaker 1 (12:31):
You know.

Speaker 2 (12:31):
The great thing about there's two things.

Speaker 1 (12:33):
You mean, the poor people, poor people who don't pay
their bills and bad areas. It turns out that actually,
if you give them access and a chance, they actually
will do what they're supposed to do. Is that what
you're saying to me?

Speaker 3 (12:45):
The strength we see every single day in the community
is remarkable.

Speaker 1 (12:50):
You know, he's probably going to look this up if
you don't know the answer, But I'm curious, do you
have any idea what the default right is for traditional
banking relationships on home loans?

Speaker 3 (12:59):
Well, so I don't have that answer. That answer is
actually a shockingly low number. It's even lower than what
what our families have done.

Speaker 1 (13:06):
I just wonder how compares.

Speaker 3 (13:07):
But we did an analysis over the last thirty years,
looking at all the families who've bought homes through acts
and comparing them the foreclosure rate for the four thousand
alumni we now have. And these aren't all loans we've originated, right,
most of them are loans that banks and credit unions
have done.

Speaker 2 (13:24):
But these borrowers, our borrowers, are.

Speaker 3 (13:26):
The lowest income sort of you know, on paper, the
least prepared for home ownership as compared to the overall market.
And we've seen that the foreclosure rate that our families
have experienced is about fifty percent lower than what's been
experienced overall in the market.

Speaker 4 (13:42):
So for prime borrowers, look it up because you cued
that for me. So for prime borrowers it's one to
two percent. For FHA loans it's three to six percent,
and for some prime mortgages it's ten percent plus.

Speaker 1 (13:56):
What is what foreclosure? What's the way? Look is that
that's foreclosure saying default rates, default rights.

Speaker 3 (14:06):
So and what I shared was a little bit I
shore I shared write offs, right, So what I would say, well,
and that's a different.

Speaker 1 (14:14):
Yeah, that is different.

Speaker 3 (14:15):
What I would say is, and this is maybe important
for people to understand our portfolio. Performing well does not
mean that we get paid on time every month from
every single borrower. In any given month, we might have
between three to seven percent of our borrowers who are
going to miss a payment because these are the lowest
income families who own homes, and if they are in

(14:37):
a car accident, if they've got a death in the family,
if they lose a job, sometimes there's not enough savings
for them to meet all their obligations that month. The
beauty of us having the relationship we have with these
families is that they let us know when they're having
these challenges and we work with them. Right, so, we
need to get repaid on this loan, but if we
need to reduce the monthly payment on the loan for

(14:58):
a few months because we nderstand the challenge they're dealing
with to help them get to the other side of that,
and then move those payments to the end of the loan,
that actually doesn't cost us very much, but it is
a huge investment in our vision for what these communities
can be and it can be the difference between a
family maintaining their home, which are families. Through our program,
we haven't needed to foreclose on even one family. Who's

(15:20):
who's who we've lent money to. So the sustainability of
it's been really significant and it's well worth, you know,
for our vision. The last thing we want to do
is foreclosed. So so long as it's a hard working
family that's trying to make things right, we're going to
go on that journey with them right and figure out
how to make sure that they can maintain that home.

Speaker 1 (15:37):
Where do you how do you establish interest rates?

Speaker 3 (15:40):
So our interest rates are actually set based on sort
of the prime rate. We charge a fifty basis point
premium over the prime rate a half point a half point,
so it's it's, you know, depending on who you ask.

Speaker 2 (15:53):
These families can't get credits.

Speaker 3 (15:58):
This is this is you know, you could think of
it as reduced rate, but we think it's important that
we charge a fifty fifty basis point premium or or
a half a percent premium over what the banks offer
only because if families can access a banking relationship, if
they can get a mortgage from a bank or credit union,
that's great. You know, we want them to be full
participants in the market, and so we're not trying to

(16:19):
be like we don't want to be we're not competing
with the banks. But if there's good loans that the
banks for a myriad of reasons aren't able or aren't
willing to do, we want to be able to do
those and we want to be able to do so sustainably.

Speaker 2 (16:32):
And that's also really important.

Speaker 3 (16:33):
You know, long term, our lending program is designed to
be a self sustaining program. It doesn't require philanthropy in
order for us to do this work, and we think
that's really important because there's lots of things that require
philanthropy and aspects of our program that require philanthropy, and
we're going to ask for those funds and we're grateful
when partners in the community support us in that way.

(16:53):
But it's really important that if we've got an offering
that doesn't require doesn't need giving, we.

Speaker 2 (17:01):
Why would we not make it self sustaining.

Speaker 3 (17:03):
It's going to be able to do more without needing
sort of the community to step up in that way.

Speaker 1 (17:07):
That's also a selling point when you go up and
ask for philanthropy, because if you go to somebody and
we want these donations. But let me tell you, the
people that you're helping, they're meeting you halfway. Absolutely, So
it's not just a giveaway, it's not a handout. That's
actually it's a legitimate help AUP because the people that
you're your hard earned dollars you're donating to are meeting

(17:32):
you halfway because they're in the game with you. That's exactly.
That feels like an easier sell when you're out trying
to raise money too.

Speaker 3 (17:39):
Yeah, we have you know, we've got our organizations collectively
now have around a fifteen million dollar budget on an
annual basis, and about three and a half million of
that is philanthropy.

Speaker 1 (17:50):
You know.

Speaker 3 (17:51):
The rest comes from you know, nonfilanthropic sources earned income,
and we think it's really important to have as sustainable
an organization.

Speaker 2 (17:59):
As we can.

Speaker 1 (18:00):
Everything about this makes so much freaking.

Speaker 4 (18:03):
Bill I got the right off rates. So for prime
borrowers it's point oh one percent two point one percent, okay,
FHA and VA loans zo point five percent to two percent,
and subprime per two thousand and eight it was ten
to twenty five percent.

Speaker 1 (18:17):
Actually, yeah, so we're you're right in there.

Speaker 3 (18:20):
Yeah, so we're right in line with the FH FHA
and VA loans.

Speaker 1 (18:24):
Yeah okay, But the point is you're right in line
with FHA on default, but you're making loans that the
FHA would never make correct freaking unbelievable. We'll be right back, okay.

(18:50):
So you get this partnership with the city so that
you can find these places and after thirty sixty days
they're done. Then you've got the mentorship on how to
fix it up, and now you got the loan to
fix it up. And we touched on it earlier. But
you also found out that having an in house real

(19:13):
estate brokerage helps, So you guys went and did that.

Speaker 2 (19:17):
Yeah, that was a big key to our success.

Speaker 3 (19:21):
Was the reality was when our families, you know, these
mung families, or over time as we helped more African
American Hispanic families through the program, they often struggled to
find the right real estate representation because of their low
preapproval amount. They might not be able to find an
agent that really wanted to work with them, or an

(19:42):
agent that was comfortable doing the work of finding the
affordable homes. These, you know, often were homes that were
there were the dollar homes.

Speaker 2 (19:51):
They were twenty five fifty.

Speaker 1 (19:53):
Thousand dollars agent making live in selling a dollar hunt.

Speaker 2 (19:56):
Not a big commission on those, you know.

Speaker 1 (19:59):
Seven so it's not much.

Speaker 3 (20:01):
And so typically the agents who are working in that
part of the market, they're representing investors, right because the
investors will buy a ton of properties, and you know,
they'll have some some rate that they're charging that doesn't
make sense. And so we gave an opportunity for members
of the community that were agents that really wanted to
work with families to become a member of our team,
be a part of the mission and focus on helping
families find homes they could truly afford without having that

(20:24):
mean that the commission was so low that you know,
you couldn't you couldn't give them good service.

Speaker 2 (20:29):
So that's been a big part of what we've done.

Speaker 3 (20:31):
We've had we typically have a handful of agents that
are actually under our umbrella or our own real estate brokerage,
and that's been a key ingredient to helping families be successful.

Speaker 2 (20:43):
And there's also the trust component.

Speaker 3 (20:45):
Once a family starts working with us and they're getting
prepared to become a homeowner, throughout the journey. They know
you've got a team here that wants to help you.
And it's not just that that your home buyer coach
who you're working with now, but we're going to add
a real church to your team. We're going to add
a home rehab coach to your team if you need it.
We're going to connect you to lenders, whether that's a
bank or credit union, or maybe it's a lender in house.

(21:05):
And so it gives them confidence knowing that throughout the
whole process they've got a partner that wants them to
be successful and isn't just focused on sort of you know,
what's the largest profit I can generate from working with
this one family?

Speaker 1 (21:18):
So you said, was it cha, Bliah?

Speaker 2 (21:22):
Cha?

Speaker 1 (21:23):
Yeah? All right. She retired in twenty seventeen after twenty
four years, and you said she helped eight hundred families
by home.

Speaker 3 (21:31):
I think that I think that's right, which is just
I mean, it's sort of stunning to think that that
number of families is possible.

Speaker 1 (21:39):
But then I think for the Hispanic group, you found
Rios or somebody named Rios or another situation, another type agent. Right,
what's the.

Speaker 3 (21:52):
Story critical to our success that we have agents who
represent the communities that we serve, and so we've had
a lot of success over time, whether it's in the
Hispanic community or the African American community, finding really good
people who care about their communities and see real estate
and helping families a chief home ownership is something that

(22:13):
can be important, and we've been able to have them
on the team, have them earn a nice living, and
have them just have this incredible impact that I know.

Speaker 2 (22:25):
I'm just so proud of what they've been able to achieve.

Speaker 1 (22:28):
So Hilaria Rios is the name I was thinking coming
up with that. The thing is, if I'm remembering all
this right, is Jah helped in that Washington Park area
around the church, but then there was on the south
side of Milwaukee, I have a Hispanic area, and then
this Hilario Rio started doing for her community what y'all

(22:50):
did for her community. And now all of a sudden
access expanding beyond what the priest originally thought for his
community around as church to the whole city.

Speaker 2 (23:01):
That's exactly right.

Speaker 3 (23:02):
You know that after a decade or so of success,
there was a moment where the organization sort of took
stock of itself and said, well, this is great that
we're doing such a good job serving this refugee population.
That's that's it's been wonderful for the neighborhood. It's been
good for families. What about the rest of the families
who live in our community. What about the Hispanic population,

(23:22):
mostly on Milwaukee's near south side growing population, They also
are having trouble accessing homeownership. Milwaukee, you know, the largest
has a large black population, that that community has not
had the same opportunities for homeownership that other families have had.
How do we make sure that there's a pathway that's
meaningful for them towards home ownership. And through these key

(23:43):
hires of real estate agents, we began making inroads in
those communities and.

Speaker 1 (23:49):
Really community real estate agents from the community that knows
the market, that knows the neighborhoods and can connect the
neighborhoods to the community. And candidly, if I'm a Hispanic
person in the South side of was Milwaukee, I'm going
to connect within trust Hillary Rios a whole lot more

(24:11):
than I am a white guy named Bill Courtney. So
the connection to the families is in a grole because
this agent is this from them. Is them right? I mean,
is that not?

Speaker 2 (24:23):
It makes It makes a huge difference in terms of
building trust.

Speaker 3 (24:26):
And that's something that you know, we've taken very seriously
and a huge part of the recipe is that our
agents aren't seen as other you know, they're seeing they're
from and all of the communities that they're serving. And
they also just then build great networks they have. They
come to us already having a network in their community,
and that grows over time. And you have someone like
Billia who helps eight hundred families purchase homes. You know,

(24:49):
think about how many how many of those deals, the
vast majority of them, they wind up being referrals from
from these past families who've been through the program. People
look at a new homeowner and they say, how did
you do this and they say, you know, we hope
they say, it was really hard work, but I was
able to do it. You can do it too. By
the way, there's this group X Housing. They could probably help.

(25:10):
They can put you in the right direction, they can
help support you on the journey.

Speaker 1 (25:13):
And let me tell let you talk to someone who
looks just like you named Chaw exactly.

Speaker 2 (25:17):
Let me make that connection.

Speaker 1 (25:18):
How once again, this really isn't you know, rocket surgery.
It all just makes so much fundamental sense. Okay, so
that's the beginning from the end of the Vietnam War
and refugees coming to Milwaukee and the priest and the

(25:39):
housing and the community and all these things going up.
So now let's get to you. All this is set up,
and so tell me about acts. Once you decided I've
played enough poker that I don't have to be an
attorney anymore, and I think I can do something really
meaningful with my life.

Speaker 3 (25:57):
Yeah, well, I was really just so impressed with what
the team had done. And so there were seven employees.
I became I think the eighth employee. They brought me
on in the assistant director role. So I was sort of,
you know, a little bit of everything. My job included
answering the door because I was usually the only one
in the office. I was doing our fundraising, I was

(26:18):
doing our marketing, and I was running our loan fund.

Speaker 2 (26:20):
So those were my sort of funds.

Speaker 1 (26:22):
I say, when you said, you know, I've put myself
through the University of Chicago and got a law of degree.
I mean a law degree from the Universe Chicago is meaningful.
I mean, you're humble and everything else, but I'm going
to say it. I mean, that's top ten boss daddy
stuff right there. What did you and your wife got

(26:44):
her degree? Or you said her graduate degree and what
in NBA?

Speaker 3 (26:47):
I guess no, No, So my wife's a teacher, so
she has multiple graduate degrees in English and in education.

Speaker 1 (26:54):
I bet your children are really dumb coming from it.
But anyway, so what does she say? Yeah, when University
of Chicago guy who's obviously a tactician. So you because
you're good at poker, so you read the room, well

(27:15):
says you know, I know you married a lawyer from
the universe Chicago and all this, but I'm gonna go
work for this thing called acts and probably take a
massive pay cut. What was her.

Speaker 3 (27:25):
Reaction, Well, I married exceptionally. Well, so, my wife is
a teacher. She loves being a teacher. She spent most
of her career in urban education. And she had found
before I did, a career that she found great meaning
in and she saw how how important that was. So
she was only encouraging of me pursuing this, and you know,

(27:48):
just speaks to the importance of having shared values with
the person you're going to spend spent your life with
in terms of her support for that transition. And I
should say one of the great things about Malwa is
you don't need the most massive income ever to make
it a great place to live. Right, So we lived
in New York City for the better part of seven years,

(28:08):
you know, making this sort of transition. If I was
in that sort of environment, I think would have been
extremely difficult.

Speaker 2 (28:14):
It would have required massive sacrifice.

Speaker 3 (28:16):
I feel like in a city like Milwaukee, it's sort
of the best of both worlds where if you are
in a good income and you've got two people who
are working, you can do well enough and you can
and if you love the work you do and you
find that there's meaning in it, it's really tough to
imagine doing something else.

Speaker 1 (28:32):
Yeah, we say almost every show the magic happens when
somebody's passion and abilities intersected opportunity. Sounds like that's exactly
what happened with you, all right, So you joined as
session director of two years later become the president CEO
of this thing. You're clearly passionate about it. On fire Forward,

(28:55):
tell me some things you've been able to do at
ACT since you join, give me some success metrics, yeah,
you know, and any other stories that I know that
you know, I'm going to want to hear about ACTS now. Well,
so that since you became the bram poo Bah.

Speaker 3 (29:11):
The thing I'm most proud of is so when I
took over as as CEO, I replaced this legendary guy,
Carl Quindel. He'd been the executive director there for six
or seven years something like that, maybe eight years. Unbelievably smart,
and he knew everything about every aspect of our business.
He was this guy who could do anything in the
world and he chose to devote his energy to ACTS

(29:33):
for that eight year period. Just remarkable. But he he'd
sort of shown a vision of leadership that I wasn't
going to be able to. I was never going to
be the best person at every single thing ACTS. Did
you know this is a guy who knew everything about rehab,
he knew everything about home construction, he knew everything about
the real estate market. And here I'm coming from you know,
law school and these different you know, different talents.

Speaker 1 (29:53):
He apparently didn't know anything about invoicing.

Speaker 3 (29:55):
But so when I became the CEO with an understanding
from the board Hey, we're going to need to build
a world class team, because the only way that we're
going to be able to do a lot more is
if we have someone leading each of these important functions
who is the expert, because I can't be the expert
and everything. If if we're trying to make me the

(30:16):
expert in everything, we're not going to be as successful
as we need to be. And so I'm just truly
proud at how we've been able to grow our team
and bring in people who are better, more knowledgeable, who
can add value that I couldn't possibly add. And the
result is sort of magic in terms of how our
program has evolved, how we've been able to offer better

(30:37):
and more services, and how we've been able to set
families up for success at a scale that wasn't imaginable
when I joined the organization.

Speaker 1 (30:46):
Tell me, so, what does that look like? Give us
some numbers.

Speaker 3 (30:50):
Well, every single year now we're helping more than three
hundred families purchase.

Speaker 1 (30:53):
Homes, three hundred a year, three hundred again, three hundred
families get off the rental rolls oftim beating slum lords.
And now we're talking monks, Hispanics, African Americans, and I
assume even white low in white blue cover brogues across
the space.

Speaker 3 (31:13):
Anyone with challenges to home ownership, who wants to pursue
home ownership, we want to support. Right now, more than
half of our graduates, more than half of our purchaser
are black families. But we serve the whole community, anyone
who needs who needs the support. So yeah, more than
three hundred a year. We just celebrated our four thousandth
homeowner through the program. So we have four thousand families

(31:34):
who now own homes who you know, previously were renting
in three.

Speaker 1 (31:38):
Hundred dilapidated properties on the tax rolls, fixing up light
in communities.

Speaker 4 (31:45):
Well, Michael, did you say, I just want to clarify
before we keep going down that train. I think four
thousand total, and one thousand were from the tax rolls.

Speaker 3 (31:52):
Yeah, so four thousand total, one thousand foreclosures, I got it.
Of the thousand four closures, it's probably fifty to fifty
between tax foreclosures and bank foreclosures.

Speaker 1 (32:06):
Okay, Still, yeah, twenty five percent are crappy. But even
if they're even if they're not foreclosures, there's still houses
probably that need attention and a lot of it.

Speaker 3 (32:18):
Yeah, their houses that typically haven't gotten a lot of
a lot of love there. We're helping families typically buy
the most affordable homes in the market. So this is
the bottom of the market we're operating in. And the
belief is is that transitioning a home from renting to
owning benefits that family and benefits the block, whether it's
a modest amount of work that goes into the home
or a massive amount of work that goes into the home.

(32:40):
Homeowners they take care of their properties and the way
landlords don't. They're more concerned about putting flowers out right,
they're more concerned about connecting with their neighbors, all those things,
and the stability of home ownership that we've seen is
really remarkable. So, you know, I mentioned before foreclosure rates
for families through our program are about half of what
otherwise has been experience in the neighborhoods we work in.

(33:02):
And what I think is really important. It's not talked
about a lot. You know, when people look at the
cost of home ownership versus the cost of rent, first
of all, they often look at that as what is
it right now? If I bought a home now what's
the cost going to be, what's my monthly cost going
to be, and what's the cost of rent? And in
many cases through our program, immediately there's a cost savings.

Speaker 2 (33:23):
But there's also times, especially.

Speaker 3 (33:25):
As the market is improved, homes are more expensive where
families are spending somewhat more to own than to rent,
but the rent keeps going up every single year.

Speaker 1 (33:35):
I was going to say that fixed on a fixed
rate over fifteen, thirty, twenty years, it says the same
rent goes up. So it may be a little more now,
but in five years it's going to be less than
what you're eventually going to be paying. And that's what
you're saying.

Speaker 2 (33:50):
That's exactly right.

Speaker 1 (33:51):
That's so true.

Speaker 3 (33:53):
And home ownership offers a couple of things. Being you know,
it offers some great things for the family in terms
of the living opportunity, in terms of the structure, but
financially it offers a couple of things. One that people
don't talk about anywhere near enough is the force savings
of home ownership. The fact that every month when you
pay your mortgage, you're paying some of that payment is principal.
Right when you make your rent payment, that money's gone.

(34:17):
But the contributions you're making to your principle, the paid
down to your principle, that's now equity. And we're working
in communities that often you know, when they start working
with us, these families do not have a positive they
don't have a positive net worth, and every single month
when they make that mortgage payment, they now all of
a sudden, are building equity in their home. Now, appreciation

(34:38):
is also wonderful, right, and so when homes go up
in value, that's tremendous and that adds to that equity.
We now are at a point with our alumni homeowners,
those that still own their homes, that group collectively has
has achieved and built one hundred and forty three million
dollars in equity in the homes that they own. Hundred

(35:00):
and forty three million dollars right, real wealth, real wealth,
and the difference that that can make in terms of
their ability to overcome challenges, their ability to invest in themselves,
their ability to provide for their kids' education. It's really
significant that those are funds that can be drawn on
or if you don't need to draw on it, which

(35:20):
is great. We have a lot of families who are
passing these homes down, right, I was.

Speaker 1 (35:24):
About to say, and for the first time ever at
these and this demographic is second generational access and opportunity
that breaks that proverbial generational decline.

Speaker 2 (35:39):
That's exactly right.

Speaker 3 (35:40):
And we think it's fascinating how clear this is to
the families in our program when we say, we always
ask them, as part of our coaching, why are you
pursuing home ownership? Because then that's something their coach is
going to remind them of throughout the journey when things
get hard, we want to remind them of why did
they say they were pursuing home ownership. One thing they
always often say say. The first thing they say is freedom.

(36:01):
The freedom to be able to paint my house the color.
I want the freedom to be able to do what
I want to do. No one's gonna tell me so
long as I'm paying my mortgage and paying my taxes.
No one's gonna tell me what I can and can't do.
No one's gonna tell me I need to leave. So
freedom is a really big one. But the number two
thing we hear from families purchasing Home Star program is

(36:22):
I want something to pass down. I want something that's
mine that my family's going to long term benefit from.
And so that's something that's really important in something that
now you know, four thousand families who are graduates of
our program are able to do for their for their kids.

Speaker 1 (36:40):
We'll be right back. Agency and legacy. This is what
you just said. And I don't know a human being
on earth that doesn't want to have it. Agency and

(37:00):
what they're doing, and a legacy left behind. And you know,
on Maslov's hierarchy of needs, I mean, you're starting to
bring these folks up the pyramid, you really are. You're
giving them self actualization, you're giving them fulfillment, but you're
not giving it to them. You're helping them.

Speaker 2 (37:22):
That's exactly right.

Speaker 3 (37:24):
We're not giving them anything, but we're helping to make
the market work for them. We're helping them understand how
to navigate these complex systems, and then they're doing the
remarkable work of getting it done and then being not
only successful homeowners but leaders in their communities.

Speaker 1 (37:43):
So let's discuss a little bit the state of housing
and America today and your new announcement.

Speaker 3 (37:52):
Great So, one of the big challenges that we faced
in Milwaukee, and this is a challenge that it's not
a Milwaukee challenge. It's a lot of a lot of
communities throughout the country have seen this is that single
family homes have become an asset class, right, and used
to say that again, single family homes have become an
attractive asset class.

Speaker 1 (38:13):
Okay, what do you mean.

Speaker 3 (38:16):
Private equity funds have realized that in a lot of
these markets, homes are relatively affordable, rents are relatively high,
and that buying up large swaths of communities and having
a rental program, you know, is something that they believe
can be financially viable, can be successful, and they're able
to attract a lot of equity, a lot of investors

(38:37):
who want to be a part of that.

Speaker 1 (38:38):
Yeah, that's why forty percent of Memphians rent because so
many of these homes in these neighborhoods are bought up
candidly by people out of New York and Boston and Chicago.
You would be shocked how many homes in Memphis are
on about people who've never set foot in Memphis. And
then they've got some kind of management like rental manage

(39:00):
group that goes around and slaps pain on them, fixes
them up, and then Clucks Front.

Speaker 2 (39:08):
Yeah, that's exactly right.

Speaker 1 (39:09):
Well, that doesn't build any community.

Speaker 3 (39:12):
Yeah, it's not. Listen, our communities need great landlords. Not
everyone is going to own or want to own at
any given time. But it's our firm belief that typically
great landlords, they typically come from the community, they have
some relationship to the place. When you talk about these
outfits that own thousands and thousands of homes throughout the
country that aren't you know, that are based in other places,

(39:34):
the likelihood that they care about something other than just
sort of getting every last dollar out of this home
is pretty low.

Speaker 2 (39:41):
And so so that's the asset So that's.

Speaker 3 (39:44):
The asset class that's you know, all of a sudden,
it's not just competing against maybe a local landlord who
might want to buy another property. It's competing against these
enormous private equity outfits that want to buy up these homes.
And so increasingly, what we saw over the last handful
years was, you know, we're doing this hard work. The
families are this hard work. We'll have two thousand families

(40:05):
a year that start our program that say I want
to be a homeowner? Can I start home by our education?
And we've got a great way of getting them started.
They work with a coach and then they do the
incredibly hard work of getting ready. Sometimes that takes years,
depending on how much work they have to do and
when they're ready. We see them losing consistently in the
market because the best deals are going to these private

(40:28):
equity and other investors who are making cash no contingency offers.
So our families are often offering more money. It's not
that they can't compete on price, but they need an
inspection contingency because there's no way we're going to let
them buy a home without knowing what work it might need.
And they need a financing contingency because they don't have
enough money to pay cash for these properties. And so

(40:51):
increasingly all the best deals are getting snapped up by
the investors, leaving our families, our alumni who've done all
this hard work sort of with.

Speaker 1 (40:58):
The dregs, actually live in the city. You live in
the community, and got their kids go there and spend
their money there.

Speaker 3 (41:05):
It's inverted, it is, and so we felt like we
were letting our community down. You know what we've always
told families, the promise is if you do the hard
work of preparing for home ownership. We're going to help
you find a good home that you can afford them
meet your needs. And over the last several years, we
found at times that we felt like the families were
doing their part of the equation. And because of this,

(41:28):
these investors coming in from all over the country, we
weren't actually holding up our end of the bargain because
the only homes available to them weren't really the homes
that were good deals. And so we spent a couple
of years we worked in partnership with some other local
groups that cared about this cared about this work. We
talked to a number of philanthropies and supporters who you

(41:49):
believed in us, and we were able to launch a
two and a half years ago a program where we're
actually now a large buyer of these homes in the city.
So we're competing with these private equity groups. We're buying
portfolios of homes. We're buying homes for cash. But unlike
these investor groups that you know are based wherever they're

(42:12):
based and are focused just on a financial profit, we're
focused one hundred percent on converting these homes into owner
occupancy and making them good affordable home ownership opportunities for
graduates of home buyer education.

Speaker 1 (42:26):
And you're blocking them out and.

Speaker 3 (42:28):
And we're we're competing, We're we're doing well. So this year,
our goal from inception was we wanted to be able
to sell at least one hundred of these homes every
single year to families who graduate Home by your Education.

Speaker 1 (42:41):
So one hundred times what's the average price of a
home in your group, Probably.

Speaker 3 (42:45):
The ones that we're selling, the average price right now
is one hundred and twenty five thousand dollars.

Speaker 1 (42:50):
Well, then that's twelve million dollars.

Speaker 3 (42:52):
Yeah, So it's a big investment, big investment in the
purchase and the rehabit these homes that you need. We've
been successful at raising most of the philanthropy we need,
so we've got a revolving fund that lets us do
this purchase and rehab activity. We've raised just about ten
million dollars actually to do that work. And this year,
two and a half years into launching this initiative, we're

(43:12):
confident that we're actually going to sell a hundred of
these homes to families who are graduates of our program.
And the thing I'm really proud of is that not
only are we doing it, but it's it's very sustainable.
And so the way this model works is, you know,
we're able to buy the home, rehab the home, sell
the home at an affordable price, but there's enough enough

(43:33):
profit and I'll put that in quotes that we're able
to cover all of our staffing costs of doing this wedside.

Speaker 1 (43:39):
There's enough coverage, enough coverage that when you sell it,
that sale goes to the kitty to buy.

Speaker 2 (43:46):
More home exactly.

Speaker 3 (43:47):
So we're hoping and we believe we can grow this fund,
this fund beyond ten million dollars just through the operating
of the fund, not with needing additional philanthropy, but because
you know, we approach this work in a smart way.
You know, this is we're nonprofit, but this is a business.
We're trying to do it in a strategic and thoughtful
way and the result is a really good product for

(44:09):
families and a sustainable program that we believe every single
year now will contribute at least one hundred new owner
occupants in the communities we operate.

Speaker 2 (44:18):
So we're really we're excited about that.

Speaker 1 (44:24):
I have done two years of shows now and I
have loved all my guests and everything else. Us is
one of the most sensible everybody wins ideas except for
maybe New York slum lords that buy us maybe they
don't like it, But everybody else I am I'm beside

(44:48):
myself thinking about what this need want I want. I
want this in my city so bad, and everybody else
should do. Where are you expanding to? You got to
be scaling well.

Speaker 2 (44:59):
I appreciate that, Thank you.

Speaker 3 (45:01):
And what I'll say is it has been really cool
to see that the work we do it resonates, and
it resonates across things that normally separate us. And I
think at a time when there's so much division, it's
awesome to be working in a space where, you know,
we have people with different political beliefs, different religious beliefs,
all different sorts of beliefs you might have. It is

(45:22):
not controversial that giving families the chance to own the
homes they live in is a good thing for them,
a good thing for the community, and so it means
that we get to have a lot of partners, and
that's a fun space to be in. We've been really
cautious about growing beyond our current geographies, so we operate
in the city of Milwaukee. That's where we've done this
work for thirty years, and then we haven't starting with

(45:44):
the exactly wouldn't be here without them? And then seven
years ago we opened an office in Beloit, Wisconsin, which
is a small a smaller city on the border with
the state of Illinois.

Speaker 1 (45:56):
How far is that from the walk about now ur.

Speaker 2 (45:58):
And fifteen minutes?

Speaker 1 (45:59):
Why there?

Speaker 2 (46:00):
We wanted an opportunity.

Speaker 3 (46:01):
To see in a community where we had no name, recognition,
no awareness, if we could replicate the success of our
work in Milwaukee. But we wanted it to be drivable,
and we wanted to have the support of the local community.
We needed the churches to want us, We needed the
neighborhood groups to want us, We needed government to want
to partner with us, and we needed philanthropic partners that

(46:24):
would support the initiative right and bloy it's an amazing city.
It was pretty incredible to see how quickly things came
together there, starting with a philanthropist who was very excited
about the work, but quickly then spread into government, doing
a lot of work in community with neighborhood groups to
make sure that you know, we would be seen not
as an interloper but as a group that could really

(46:46):
help address one of the community's big challenges. And it's
been incredible sort of bringing our work there, it's been exciting.
It has been a huge challenge. We have learned so
much trying to you know, it's one thing to do
something well in one place, and it is a different
thing to all of a sudden, you know, open up
an office somewhere where your brand new hire new people,

(47:08):
trying to track this work, try and do this work
the same way. And pretty often you realize, well, most
of what we do works well somewhere else, and there's
some things that are very different. And so we've learned
a lot about how we need to approach attracting families
to the program. It's very different in Beloit than it
is in Milwaukee.

Speaker 4 (47:26):
Michael's Beloit is that where they had a Forward plant
closure or a GM plant closure. That region had some challenges,
right Jamesville, which is a right nearby, right right nearby.

Speaker 3 (47:35):
Yeah, so it's it's a community that you know, has
a sort of a thriving history. Definitely, you know, with
sort of de industrialization, fell on very hard times. It
Beloit is a remarkable place, extremely resilient, there's a philanthropist's
who's from Beloit, Diane Hendrix, who has made a major
commitment to the city, and so she's she's part of

(47:56):
the reason that Beloit right now is a remarkable place,
great place to visit. You know, They've got a brand
new minor league baseball stadium, they've got new hotels, they
have extremely low unemployment, and they have actually a big
challenge around enough affordable housing because it's become a really attractive,
you know, attractive place for people to live and work

(48:16):
and play. But we've learned a lot through that expansion,
and one of the things we learned was that it
can be it can be a distraction. And so while
I am very excited about what we've done in Beloit
and we are in a really good place in that
community now and we're going to continue to grow and
do more in the city of Beloit, there are times
where we were asking ourselves, you know, is this work

(48:37):
that we're doing in Beloit detracting from our ability to
serve what was our primary market, Milwaukee, right And so
this is how we think about expansion now. We believe
we owe it to the rest of the country to
take some of the things we've learned and share them
and we're committed to that. That doesn't necessarily mean we're

(48:59):
opening up offices all over the country, you know. It
might mean that certain of the things we do we
can provide to other communities that have key partners that
are already doing maybe other aspects of the work. It
might mean that we train and develop individuals who are
excited to sort of start things that look something like
what we do, but then we let them sort of,

(49:20):
you know, run with it and flourish and develop new
ways to build on the strategy. So we're not we
haven't sort of made that call yet in terms of
exactly what a larger expansion.

Speaker 1 (49:32):
What scale look like for it.

Speaker 3 (49:34):
And a big part of that reason is, you know,
I mentioned the effort to buy, rehab and sell one
hundred homes a year.

Speaker 2 (49:40):
That was a big lift.

Speaker 3 (49:41):
We also are right now in the process of massively
expanding our lending function. So we had been doing two
to three dozen loans a year through our affiliate acts lending.
Our four year plan has us scaling that to two
hundred loans a year. So we're sort of massively expanding

(50:01):
the services we can provide to the two communities that
we have committed to, Milwaukee and Beloite.

Speaker 2 (50:07):
But I have to tell you.

Speaker 3 (50:08):
Now that we are proving that the ax homes model
works so well, now that we are expanding our lending
model that has been long term sustainable, it has us
thinking much more intentionally about, Okay, how do we take
these key pieces and how do we make sure that
if there's other cities that could benefit from them, we
have a compelling way to share them that can set

(50:29):
them up for success.

Speaker 1 (50:31):
Methis, barbeque, music, cool downtown is right for this, but
for bringing you back, Michael. If people want to hear
more about this website, where do they go? It's something
that people can find out more.

Speaker 3 (50:50):
Absolutely so if you go to our website, which is
actshousing dot org, all sorts of information about our program,
report that sort of stuff. I do want to caution
your listeners. You know, we are providing services now to
families who live in the communities where we're located. So occasionally,
when we're fortunate enough to get some national exposure like this,

(51:12):
you know, we'll start to get you know, someone who's
an aspiring homeowner in California or in Texas and Unfortunately,
we don't have the capacity to do that yet, but
who knows what the future might hope.

Speaker 1 (51:26):
We'll be right back. I dude, I cannot. I just
this is it's a sweet spot for me again. I

(51:46):
love all the stories. But ironically enough, a very dear
friend of mine, who I've known since high school I
played football against, who coached football with me, who played
at the University of Alabama, was our Shelby County Assessor
at one time, which is a publicly that he had
to run for office and one and through a couple

(52:10):
of conversations over copy work, more than a couple mini
conversations over wine and beer and coffee with him, I
learned from him the drag it is on the county
and the community to have all of these blighted properties
hanging around. And I learned what the drag it is
on city revenue not to have these properties producing property

(52:33):
tax dollars, and how destructive it is to communities and
the people that live in them. And it has been
on my mind for fifteen years, and in this story,
and you come along, and it's the answer to something
I've been thinking about for ten or fifteen years and
bothered by legitimately bothered by. I mean, tell me this,

(52:56):
I'm just curious to schools improve in the neighborhoods too.
I mean, I would think that even the school system
gets better. I can't remember who the guest was, Oh,
I think it was from Charlotte, but one of the
one of the things he taught us was one of
the problems with elementary education was transiency. Because if a

(53:23):
kid moves in the middle of their school year in first, second,
third grade constantly because they're being put out or have
to change rent or whatever, when the kid goes to
the new school midyear, they're having to go all the
way back and catch up. And if you do that
two or three times, by sixth grade, you're just behind.
And then I have another friend who has a thing

(53:44):
called coaching for literacy, and his demograph or his metrics
say that if you're not reading on grade level by
third grade, that you are three times more likely to
be unemployed by the age of twenty one than you
are if you are reading on third grade. So if
you know that poverty and unemployment in large part can

(54:07):
be predicated by whether or not you read on grade
level by third grade, and then you also know that
transiency among renters almost guarantee that the children involved in
those transients are not going to lead on grade level
about third grade. You can, therefore, because if agles be

(54:28):
in Begal see egle Cee say that unemployment and poverty
has a lot to do with being transient when you're
third grade and before as a result of your parents.
Mean so, given that if instead of renting and moving

(54:50):
and having transient children who end up being unemployed by
the age of twenty one because of the school and
because of the reading things, if those families own a
house and aren't transient, the children will be better two
decades from now, and the schools will be better because
they're not dealing with kids in an out of money time. Now,
am I.

Speaker 3 (55:09):
Stretching No, I think that's very well said. You know,
the average tenure of home ownership through our program is
fourteen years. That's how long the typical family owns the
home that they buy through us. And that's stability of home.
I mean, there's myriad research, whether it's the impact that
has on education, the impact that has on health, the
impact that has on actually violent reductive violence reduction, all

(55:33):
these things are related, and I don't mean to suggest
that if we just solve home ownership, we fix everything,
but it is one of those key building blocks that
if you can address it in a significant way, it
makes the education. It makes educating easier, makes the job
of the police easier, it makes the jobs of our
hospital systems easier. And so that's one of the reasons
I think we've been able to attract a real strong

(55:54):
coalition around this work.

Speaker 1 (55:56):
Acts. Everybody acts in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and has a lot
figured out. And I'm raying that you guys remain your
growth is. You can just see your systematic growth since
the beginning to now, and I just have to believe
with a guy with a brain as big as yours

(56:18):
and a passion as big as yours, that you're going
to figure out how to scale it. Dude, I just
I so bad want you to come back to Memphis
and talk to people here. I absolutely believe in what
you're doing. And most importantly, I can't thank you enough
for sharing your story with the stuff.

Speaker 3 (56:36):
Well, thank thank you. It's been a real honor. I
would I would certainly love to come back. And did
you have do you have a second for one digression?

Speaker 1 (56:43):
Please?

Speaker 3 (56:44):
One because we had something happen to this week that
was really special and I think good.

Speaker 1 (56:47):
I wanted I was going to say close us with
a cool story, so you you you transitioned well for us.

Speaker 2 (56:55):
So we had an event earlier this week.

Speaker 3 (56:57):
It was celebrating our four thousandth alumni homeowner and it
was a cool event. The mayor came out, he proclaimed
it x Housing Day, the mayor of the City Milwaukee.
It was really really fun. But we had a problem,
which was, you know, we had press there and it
was sort of a big event for us, and we
had this amazing charismatic alumnus of the program who bought
a house about eighteen months previous, who was going to

(57:18):
be speaking, and forty five minutes before this event event starts,
she gets called into work. So we're not we're not
in the business of telling our alumni homeowners that they
need to put their jobs in jeopardy.

Speaker 2 (57:29):
So, you know, she needs to go to work. Okay,
we we get that.

Speaker 1 (57:32):
We will have given her a pass, I know, right,
I know, I know.

Speaker 3 (57:37):
So so we're scrambling a little bit because you know,
it's not every day we've got events of the mayor,
and we got pressed there, and we were hosting this
event in the near west side of Milwaukee in a
challenge neighborhood, but a neighborhood that's got some some some good,
some good momentum. And the venue we were hosting the
event at had this caterer. She runs Fruition, which is
a cafe and a catering company, and she she was

(58:01):
putting out the beautiful breakfast spread for us, and she
hears what's going on, and she tells one of my colleagues,
do you know I actually I bought my house through
acts like ten years ago, so I don't know she
own and she owns, She owns the cafe, she owns
the catering company. So I don't know if I could
be helpful, but you know, if if there's something I
can do to help, I'd like to help, righte. And

(58:23):
so turns out, and this is the way I bet
Memphis is the same way. So it turns out once
once our vice president of programs gets there, they wound up.
They'd gone to high school together, so they like knew
each other, right They went to John Marshall High School
in Milwaukee, and she wound up being like, you know,
the speaker at our event talking about how she bought
her home. It was a home that was taken through

(58:44):
tax foreclosure. She'd been renting it. The home got the
landlord lost it. She was renting it from the city.
She got introduced to acts. She never thought that she
would be a homeowner before. You know, she didn't have
She thought she'd have a homeowner, she said, when she
had a husband right now, she didn't.

Speaker 2 (58:58):
She know, she wasn't married, she had a kid. She
didn't think she could do it.

Speaker 3 (59:01):
But she's clearly an incredible person. She put in the
hard work, she worked with our teams, she got ready,
she purchased the home, she fixed it up. The home
is just a few blocks from the venue where she
now owns the catering business. Right, and she was able
to talk so passionately about, you know, the stability that
home ownership has offered her and her son. And it

(59:22):
was so cool because I know these things are happening
sort of academically, and sometimes families will share their testimony,
but this was like in the wild, right, This wasn't
a planned thing. This is just this incredible entrepreneur and
that we are this footnote in her story and hopefully
you know where the services and the support we could

(59:42):
offer her could sort of help her take those next steps.
Who knows where she's going to be, you know where
her business is going to be, where she's going to be.
But it's amazing that we get to partner with families
like that. And as those numbers grow, you know, from
the early days when it was the dozens of families
a year and now it's hundreds of families a year.
How can we create more of that opportunity in Milwaukee
and Beloite and in communities across the country so that

(01:00:05):
more families can experience of the empowerment and the joy
and the stability they can come.

Speaker 1 (01:00:10):
From home ownership. Amen, Michael, I love what you do.
I love what you guys have and thank you so
much for sharing it and the last time them to
say it, promise me you're going to come.

Speaker 2 (01:00:24):
Back well do. Thank you so much. This has been a.

Speaker 1 (01:00:27):
Joy, it's been a real treat. And thank you for
joining us this week. If Michael Gosman has inspired you
in general or better yet, to take action by possibly
exploring as Housing's model for you, community, donating to them,
or something else entirely, let me know, I really do

(01:00:51):
want to hear about it. You can write me anytime
at Bill at normal Folks dot us, and I promise
you I will read it and I will respond. If
you enjoyed this episode, share old friends and on social
subscribe to the podcast, rate and review it. Join the
army at normalfolks dot us. Consider becoming a premium member.

(01:01:12):
There any and all of these things that will hold
us grow an army of normal folks. I'm Bill Courtney.
Until next time, do what you can