The Preacher Developer: How to Change Your Neighborhood Without Moving Away (Pt 2)

Most people think success means getting out of the hood. Reverend Kevass Harding chose to stay—and is a highly unusual preacher who will have developed 50 affordable homes by the end of the year and generational change in the very Wichita neighborhood that raised him. In this episode, you’ll learn a practical blueprint for turning your own zip code into a place of opportunity instead of escape.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Everybody is Bill Corty with an army and normal folks.
And we continue now with part two of our conversation
with Kevis Harding, right after these brief messages from our
general sponsors. So you build this church, you take this

(00:29):
church that's about gone and you build it and it
has a healthy congregation and you're in the community doing
all that you're doing seems like a.

Speaker 2 (00:39):
Lot, but you build a team though, So like right now,
the church is functioning right now without em there. I
mean when I say the church, the people who are
in there from my facility, office, minister business, my other
ministers involved, my sickness shutting. So I have a great
team of people. And it's that not all paid people either.
But because we have that's love for our community. I

(01:01):
can be here and know that there's still that ministry
still going.

Speaker 3 (01:05):
But the point is that's a lot. Yes, you got
a job. Yes, So.

Speaker 1 (01:12):
What made you decide to take on kind of second
calling as what you call a lifelong community activist and what.

Speaker 3 (01:23):
Kind of sparked that? Bill? Thank you, Fred.

Speaker 2 (01:26):
Now, I like that you asked that question because people
are like, man, you're doing a lot, and I'll yes,
it is a lot.

Speaker 3 (01:32):
I got to qualify with you.

Speaker 2 (01:35):
But what I've learned is when you build enough capital
of team, you can do more. And so me growing
up in that neighborhood and doing community policing and just
trying to I go back to a shooler West Coast
I used to go to his conferences.

Speaker 3 (01:55):
I never forget.

Speaker 2 (01:56):
I still use it and I still tell people this,
and you doing it right now, I see you doing it.
You find a need and you feel it, you find
a hurt.

Speaker 3 (02:08):
You just do not know how ironic it is. You
just said that.

Speaker 1 (02:11):
We say all the time the amazing things that happen
in the world are when you have a passion and
when that passion and need collode. Yes, or passion and
opportunity co lode. You're saying the same thing, same thing.
You're passionate about your community and you find a need
and you see needs because your community pastoring, and so

(02:34):
you decide you're going to become a life long community activist.
Now let's just pause. Those words can be scary. Yes,
it is scary. Yeah, it can be scary to decide
you're going to go do it. It can also be
scary to hear it because community activism very unfortunately can

(02:59):
have a uh you correct, shades of a negative connotation,
because when you hear community activism, oftentimes you think about
the very very loud, very very crazy person holding signs,
throwing rocks, raising hell, all in the name of God
knows what, And oftentimes lately these people are actually paid

(03:22):
for to be disruptors.

Speaker 3 (03:24):
Yes, I was.

Speaker 1 (03:26):
Yes, So distinguish for our audience when I say, here's
a pastor in an inner city area there wants to
be a community activist. Let's distinguish your goals and your
role in how you saw yourself working in the community
versus the noise.

Speaker 3 (03:46):
What gets? What gets really the noise? The noise. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (03:51):
So, while I was in ministry, like I had in
two thousand and three, I ran for school board and
would you tell I read two terms.

Speaker 3 (03:59):
So I remember sitting at those board.

Speaker 2 (04:00):
Meetings and having community activists come and yelling at it.
After you're just going this is so when I so
when I hear it's sponge bull, this is crazy. You're
not solving nothing. All you're doing is screaming. You're yelling.
You know, your your own TV for a moment that

(04:21):
people who can see.

Speaker 3 (04:22):
It and but what are you gonna do?

Speaker 2 (04:26):
And so when I say community actor, I really just
breaking down. I'm a person who's in the community, who's
actively trying to make a change for better, for the
whole community, not just for a few, but for and
for those who want to be a part of the movement,
the neighborhood movements that I see across the country. You

(04:48):
gotta get in there and just just getting up and
pointing fingers and sounding crazy. No, I am a I
am a pastor who's heavily invested in my community, who's
very active.

Speaker 3 (05:03):
If you want, you know there it is. That's the
best way I can describe community. Tell you you did it?
So you you brought up what'd you say?

Speaker 1 (05:12):
Hope something hope CDC, which is a hope is so
my everything I do is I call it a biblical foundation.

Speaker 3 (05:21):
You gotta have a biblical why you do. So people
want to ask you you're why.

Speaker 2 (05:24):
My part of my why it comes from two places,
Jeremiah and Isaiah. Jeremiah twenty nine eleven, not Jesus. God
says I didn't come to hurt.

Speaker 3 (05:35):
You or harm you.

Speaker 2 (05:36):
He's talking to the people, But I came to give
you hope in the future, and I hope just rolls up.

Speaker 3 (05:44):
Everybody uses hope for this hope, hope, hope, but.

Speaker 2 (05:48):
My hope was an acronym as an activist community act
is like Lord, help me, help other people excel h ope,
hope that they might have a future where God is
trying to prosper and to lift them up out of
that area. And it's not just a neighborhood, but just

(06:09):
also a mindset spiritually, physically, mentally, emotionally and financially. How
do you take up people and help them become a
whole person. And the whole person is when you are
healthy spiritually, physically, mentally. Now when I say spiritually, I'm
not talking. I'm in church all day. But you have
a faith, there's a higher power whatever you want to

(06:31):
so it's healthy. So you have so spiritually, physically kill
and diabetes, high blood bridge, all those we have, health
go down. Oh you're hidding it. All of those, all
those which tie into your mental, your emotional, which ties
into your financial all that.

Speaker 3 (06:48):
Yeah, very rarely do you find addicts who are unhealthy
financially secure. Now they all go together.

Speaker 2 (06:59):
Yes, So that's the whole Jeremiah piece so in doing
so and really and then connecting Ezekioh with which is
more of a personal pieces, going yes, these bones could live,
but will make it happen. And then I go over
to Jeremy, which is Isaiah sixty one one through four,
which is connected to Luke. This is where my I

(07:20):
tell folks, this is where my theology, my theologian comes
out of me.

Speaker 3 (07:24):
I know much.

Speaker 2 (07:25):
I know the book backwards and forwards, which is connected
which is Jesus. And if you read Isaiah sixty one,
he's like God has called me out into the neighborhood,
into the community to repair the breach, to restore the
city that has been formally devastated ruins. And he's talking
about Jerusalem then, but that's all of our communities. So

(07:47):
I love what Alex is doing. Alex is doing is
it's with the whole piece about the army to go
into the community and we can take this back and rebuild.
And that's what Hope is doing. Were and so my
foundation was where do you find at And mine's was
from being in as a police officer, was housing, cause

(08:09):
we discovered that crime decreases when a person has a
stable housing, a place where they can call home, kids
stay in school, families stay together, Domestic violence go down
when you have a place that you can call home.

Speaker 3 (08:24):
That's part of it.

Speaker 1 (08:26):
It is so simple of a calculation, the way you
just put it, but it's so difficult for off Before
we get into that. I found it really interesting that
near your church, across from your church was an abandoned
strip mall. Yes, and this also speaks to building a

(08:49):
community of hope and one worth investing in staying in.
But tell us about what you did there. So and
this is right at the genesis of the whole hope things.

Speaker 2 (09:00):
Right sold two thousand, this old abandoned strip mall was
still had some tenants in it, but it was on
the backside you had what's it New Year Church across
the street.

Speaker 3 (09:13):
Right. I could throw.

Speaker 1 (09:14):
At these places in Memphis all over the place where
I'm gonna just be real wrong, candid here Memphis.

Speaker 4 (09:24):
Do you remember what Travis Moody said, what Memphis is
the payday loan capital of the country.

Speaker 3 (09:29):
Wow.

Speaker 4 (09:29):
And so he's like, you come outside of a church
and there's three payday loan stores and store and it's
line that's amazing because you go inside to prey and
you come outside and get preyed upon.

Speaker 3 (09:39):
Yes, the other the pr how about that line.

Speaker 1 (09:42):
Yeah, but Memphis is full of these neighborhoods that I
mean full of neighborhoods that you can see homes that
were built in the fifties and sixties and seventies that
were very nice, and around them are the typical infrastructure
of these strip malls and what used to be Pigley
Wiggly or a Prover, and really nice churches in restaurants

(10:05):
and restaurants. But over the course of the white flight
and the and the sprawl of the hood you're hitting it,
the churches either get empty or shut down. And then
you ride past these strip malls that that are big
parking lots and maybe fifteen storefronts and there's a cricket

(10:27):
cellular service and storefront three three more empty ones, maybe
a Mexican restaurant and a nail shop in one, and
then absolutely a hair nail shop or maybe just wigs.

Speaker 3 (10:40):
Yes, that's all only by my Asian brother Mashes is laughing.
I really could get pashes.

Speaker 2 (10:47):
It's that not all over Memphis, and it's all and
they're not even owned by the folks who live there.
And by then in March first through May fifteenth, the
i'll do your tax people show up and get one
of them for about two months.

Speaker 3 (11:05):
A man, right, man, you right, that's it neighborhood.

Speaker 1 (11:09):
And maybe and maybe there might be a barber college
in one of them.

Speaker 3 (11:14):
Yes, man witched all Memphis, all over the United States.
That's yes. But that's what I'm picturing, is that.

Speaker 1 (11:21):
And yeah, the asphalt parking lot hasn't been repaired, and
it's cracked and got.

Speaker 3 (11:25):
A little you gotta go drive around the street.

Speaker 1 (11:28):
In front of it's big to accommodate what used to
be a lot of traffic, but now it's just a big,
old empty kind of street. Yes, and you use that
that's across the street from the church that you're working
to build, and they start hope, and you like, we
got to do something with that, and.

Speaker 3 (11:43):
We and we did. We. Uh.

Speaker 2 (11:45):
My first major commercial development was I bought that whole
strip mall two point five million dollars.

Speaker 3 (11:53):
You bought it? Who where'd you get the money for
all that?

Speaker 2 (11:56):
Again, entrepreneurial spirit didn't. It wasn't my own money. Built
a great team. I went out and found a couple
of developers. So I got my I had my real
estate agent who became a part of the team, Landmark Commercial,
Landmark Commercial. I had my architect construction company and the developer,

(12:20):
and I had Adam Joe Law firm, and then myself
as the pastor. We built and we created this team
and we called it was uh. We created an LLC.
It was called I called it H and H, which
was I asked him, I, hey, this is a this
is a herding and harding project.

Speaker 3 (12:37):
I was doing any remembers of.

Speaker 2 (12:38):
My my, my, my dad who and his brother who
were entrepreneurs. I didn't they had a little shop, but
their deceased now. But so it's H and H LLC.
And we created this and put and put all of
our businesses. I was t K Investments, which was my
LLC was inside this LLC. We all had our ll
cs and we went. I shared my vision and my mission.

(13:01):
That was your vision.

Speaker 1 (13:02):
You're you're buying an empty strip in the hood for
three point five million dollars. Some might call you crazy.

Speaker 3 (13:08):
Oh I got everything it was I got.

Speaker 2 (13:11):
I was you know when you do a tiff, you know,
now mess with people's taxes, and tax tiff is a
tax increment finance district, right, and and so when I
did this, the reason I did it was I was
trying to eliminate what we call the food desert we had.

Speaker 3 (13:29):
I mean.

Speaker 2 (13:31):
It was it's for we used to have grocery stores
in our neighborhood. You can there were none. They all
went out the big boxes, you know, they all they're
all out on the edges. And so all we had
was these little storefront unhealthy grocery stores.

Speaker 1 (13:48):
It's where people in the hoods say they're going to
the corner.

Speaker 3 (13:52):
Store, thank you. And then we got those and the.

Speaker 1 (13:55):
Corner store ain't nothing but a bunch of processed chips
and chips and so and so AOC one's going back
to one of your top five things physical health. Without
when you have a food desert, it just continues to
propagate the degeneration of the neighborhood and the people in.

Speaker 2 (14:14):
It and physically, I mean physically, mentally, emostly all of them.

Speaker 3 (14:19):
So you want to turn this thing into a grocer store?
Is that what you're doing? So we did.

Speaker 2 (14:22):
We contact Walmart, who was at the time was doing
a new concept called Neighborhood. There is the Walmart neighborhood
grocery store. Yeah, we got a bunch of them around here.

Speaker 3 (14:35):
They had. So here's it's the beauty and also a
pain to it.

Speaker 2 (14:39):
So we we bought it, refurbished it, tore down half
the strip ball and we after six months, every Monday,
I'm all on Mondays. Every Monday I would call the
relative and say, hey, still got this land, great place
for a grocery store. They kept saying no June of

(15:00):
was it two thousand because it don't sell in O seven?
And yeah, every Monday, and by April first, two thousand
and eight, we bought it.

Speaker 3 (15:10):
And then by that Summers is.

Speaker 2 (15:14):
Back in eight they Walmart finally said yes, we'll come
and we built it.

Speaker 3 (15:21):
And tell him how many times you had to call
this guy? Oh?

Speaker 2 (15:24):
I called him every week every Monday for six months
and they showed up.

Speaker 1 (15:32):
And now you have a full store. But the neighborhood
has a grocer store in it. Well, it had the
gro We got the grocery store. We had a ribbon
cutting and everything and it was going well.

Speaker 2 (15:45):
And then we got close to the since say COVID,
but right around twenty nineteen they saw forecasts or what
but they Walmart didn't like the concept of the neighborhood
grocery store, so they went across this is the country.
Not just were that store, They went across the country
and they found they closed one hundred and fifty those stores,

(16:08):
and the one we work so hard to build and
get and it was phenomenally it was never empty, they
closed it. Uh, And so the only we got was
they were the number one. This this location was the
number one, And I want to I want to thank
Walmart because they first of all, they said yes, and

(16:29):
we were great partners, but business is business, and so
they had they closed one hundred and fifty those stores,
and that was one of them. Although we were the
number one selling grocery stores that model, number one grocery,
number one selling in the region.

Speaker 3 (16:47):
But what hurt us we were also the number one shoplifting.
I was wondering.

Speaker 1 (16:54):
I have a friend, yes in Memphis, and I'm not
going to use this name, but he owns eight grocery stores.
He is one of the best guys on the face
of planet. If you sit down here, you talk from
ten minutes, and you'd love him. He is and he
specifically has a brand of store that he plops down

(17:14):
in food deserts, and he believes that the stores that
he has in the good areas that make him a
lot of money, that if he can just break even
in the good at the in the in the food
doesert areas, in the good areas, that that's just the
right thing to do in his world, right. He'd rather
make a good living and keep grocery stores open in

(17:35):
tough neighborhoods than that get rich and not serve. And
he really does do this. He puts his money where
his mouth is all tell him thank you, but I'm
gonna tell you something. He gets robbed aligned shoplifting and
everything else, and then he calls the police for help.

(17:56):
And what the police is going to do to a
shoplifter when the jails are over crouded anyway, and they
end up arresting the same people over and over and
over and over again, and it's this concentric mess.

Speaker 3 (18:07):
And I was actually wondering if that we.

Speaker 2 (18:10):
Were like, look, don't shoplift. We're telling people. I'm preaching, hey,
we brought we got a story, or to quit shoplifting.

Speaker 3 (18:17):
You're gonna lose it. We're we're literally saying it.

Speaker 2 (18:20):
And was the beauty of that was this same Walmart
grocery store was hiring people from our church I had.

Speaker 1 (18:26):
I can't count how many people who your employees from
who were in church work there. So we created jobs too.
They closed it.

Speaker 2 (18:36):
But the beauty that I and this is with UH
was standing together and Joe with Joe Woodwards were brainstorming like, Okay,
how do we quit working on trying to get a
grocery store in a neighborhood with all this AI and technology.
So what we're I've been trying to do is educate
people on their their phones, their apps. You can have

(18:58):
all your groceries delivered to your house now, so we
can give them cards, those those subscription We're gonna give
them prepaid subscriptions to.

Speaker 3 (19:07):
A Walmart for a year. Now you can go.

Speaker 2 (19:10):
You can still got to buy groceries, but now you
got the subscription that you couldn't afford that, we can
get that subscription to you. Now we can still get
groceries to you. We can't bring the store you know
to you. We'll at least have the store come to you.
But the point is, but that's that's the picture of
the neighborhood. Yes, that now because I made the strip

(19:32):
mall look so great. It's completely full. We have restaurants
are in there, we have a the plumbing as facts
have bought.

Speaker 3 (19:40):
That area and it's but the point is it's developed.

Speaker 1 (19:44):
Its providing jobs and you can picture I hope people
can picture in their mind.

Speaker 3 (19:50):
Cash is sure pain because he was giggling.

Speaker 1 (19:51):
But so that's what your idea is with Hope, is
to redevelop the neighborhood, serve the.

Speaker 3 (19:56):
Neighbor from commercial to residential. We'll be right back.

Speaker 1 (20:14):
You said earlier the importance of having a home and
how abuse goes down and everything else, which is where
we transition to the community development corporation part of your story,
which is what I think is the most phenomenal. But

(20:34):
earlier you said your mom worked three jobs, took care
of you guys, but was never able to own your
own home. And home base was your grandparents' home. But
your mom was never to own own home. And I
can't help but think that that experience as a kid
was a huge part of major while you're doing what
you are doing now, that all of this is kind

(20:57):
of leading up to what you're doing.

Speaker 2 (20:59):
Now, well, it's a major part because growing up. I
can count, I can let me put back up. I
can't count how many elementaries I went to, because you know,
we come home and we had to move.

Speaker 3 (21:17):
And I remember, I remember. I still talk about this vividly.

Speaker 2 (21:21):
I even said in Somer's you know, if I if
God allows me, and this is not before pastoring, is
just because I grew up in my faith, Like if
God allows me to be successful, I want to be
a homeowner. Were when I have kids, uh, they're going
to go to one school one like when I say
one school, they're going to go to one elementary, They're

(21:42):
going to go to one.

Speaker 3 (21:43):
They're not gonna be moved.

Speaker 2 (21:45):
They're gonna they can they both My kids can say
I went to Buckner Elementary in which you tell Buckner Elementary,
Brooks Middle School to Northeast Magnet High School.

Speaker 3 (21:57):
They they they grew up.

Speaker 2 (22:00):
And the house I live in now, my kids who
are in their thirties, now this is where they grew up.
If they only know this, that's home, that's home. When
we say we're having Christmas or it's time to come home,
they know where they're coming to.

Speaker 3 (22:13):
That's its base for them.

Speaker 1 (22:15):
Can I ask you a quick question and Honestly, this
is whoo boy. This is a dumb white guy questions.
But I'm going to ask a dumb white guy dumb questions.
When I first started working an inner city, which is
thirty years ago, so there's a lot in my vernacular
now that didn't exist.

Speaker 3 (22:36):
Prior to them. If you can imagine.

Speaker 1 (22:39):
Yeah, there's so much of my life that has been
enriched by the blessing of having been accepted into and
invited into an x and loved into a culture that
in this country of ours, oftentimes many people don't get

(23:05):
to experience that kind of exposure. And that goes both sides,
right or now all three when you really think about
the Hispanic community.

Speaker 3 (23:18):
But one of the.

Speaker 1 (23:20):
Things that irritates me a lot is when kids I
coach say they stay somewhere. I stay here, I stay
here somewhere. I'd be like, where do you live? Well,
I stay here, coal surfing and I And it irritates
me because one of my degrees is English, and so
I always say, dude, would you quit using stay you

(23:42):
live somewhere? You live somewhere. And that was my approach
for a few years until I started to wonder, are
they actually correct?

Speaker 3 (23:54):
Mm?

Speaker 1 (23:55):
Hm, because when you are on Section eight housing or
your mom has to have government assistance, the minute rent
goes up, she got to go, and you got to
go with her. And so when you when every eight
to nine to fourteen months you're moving from one apartment
to another apartment one, your living room never looks the same,

(24:18):
your bedroom never looks the same. There's no point in
putting any things on the walls and making your place
look nice, because you know you're going to be leaving
the minute the landlord does something, or the pipe's break,
or the governments syste's changes or whatever. And as a kid,
you're constantly going to the next place that you're just
gonna stay, not live.

Speaker 3 (24:41):
And I just wonder if the inner city.

Speaker 1 (24:43):
Vernacular of I stay here, rather than saying I live here,
is actually just accurate.

Speaker 2 (24:52):
I would say so because you if you go back
in earlier our conversation, I told you I grew up
and lived at fifteen thirty three North, your grandparents. That
was my base, that was home. Because we moved so much,
I stayed here. I can from Jefferson Woodgate, I can

(25:13):
just name. I can see these places just Chataqua, Primrose.
These are just places I can see where I lived
are stayed two three years. I can't remember living somewhere
five ten years growing.

Speaker 3 (25:32):
Up never And so in some part you're trying to.

Speaker 1 (25:42):
We had another guest, and I hope to keep evoking guests,
but we had another guest who who's a really wealthy
developer who came from somewhere out west and he's now
in Charlotte area and he's building these communities that have
schools and restaurants and medical care and living apartments and

(26:07):
all of it kind of in proximity. And the reason
he's doing it all is because their data showed them
that one of the reasons kids in the inner city
that the reading on grade level is so abysmal is
because the data shows that when a kid leaves a

(26:29):
school midyear that he is basically starting over. So if
your mom is put out or she has to move
because the rent comes up, she doesn't wait till the
end of the school year. She got to go that
week for HER's on the curve, right, And so you
leave as a second grader, and you go stay at
another apartment and you enroll in the school that's in

(26:52):
that district, Well, what the class you left, and the
teacher you left, and then the class you get input
into in the teacher and put in you're not with
that class, so you've got to spend time catching up.
And then by the time you catch up, you go
again and in the school district promotes you because.

Speaker 3 (27:10):
Of your age.

Speaker 1 (27:12):
And if you do that five times over the course
of kindergarten to third grade, you're still at a first
grade level because you never had the consistency to catch up.
So his goal was, let's create housing and schools where
people can actually remain there. So these kids quit get
moved around. And what they've modeled out and proven is

(27:35):
it by just having settled housing, kids scores double reading
reading proficiency goes through the roof just from stopping these
kids having to constantly move.

Speaker 2 (27:49):
Yes, schools, schools, neighborhoods, friends, all of them men.

Speaker 1 (27:57):
But it feels like that's exactly what you're trying to attack.

Speaker 2 (28:01):
Now, Yes, that's what I am attacking. How do we
how do we stop this cycle? And for me personally,
part of what I discovered watching my own kids was
part of technique. Or are stopping that that cycle is
housing a place to call home?

Speaker 1 (28:22):
So here we go now we're into the community development
corporation stuff, the really cool thing that actually watched like
a news clip on all that sounds good, but nobody
has cash for houses. You've got to be able to
get a loan. Well, if you've never had any financial literacy,

(28:42):
a checkbook, or taken care of any kind of any
kind of credit, you can't qualify for a loan. You've got,
I mean, you've got in these neighborhoods housing that has
been passed over and dilapidated because people didn't.

Speaker 3 (28:57):
Have to keep it up.

Speaker 1 (28:58):
So while we see that steady home ownership decreases, balance decreases,
crime increases, pride increases, reading levels for the children, decreases,
broken families, how important that home is in these neighborhoods,
especially like you're in, where your church is, in where

(29:19):
you've decided to be a community activist. The actual act
of owning a home, getting over the hurdles to be
able to do that are extraordinary, very hard.

Speaker 3 (29:29):
So how'd you fix it? Well, we're still working.

Speaker 1 (29:32):
How we fix Tell me what you're doing, because I
know you've got houses going up right now.

Speaker 2 (29:36):
So we we First of all, I am what I've
done and there's a lot of work, a lot of
lead works.

Speaker 3 (29:43):
Is over the course of five years, right, yes, and
we're still growing.

Speaker 2 (29:47):
But what we've done is we went into the neighborhoods
and we built in We bought infields, empty lots, and
we did some stick builds, and we bought a whole
lot of homes from the city, which.

Speaker 3 (30:02):
Used by homes from the city like tax sales.

Speaker 2 (30:04):
Yeah, tax and huh they had well the city, which
you say is basically getting out of the housing business
what I call it. And so all their hud homes
that they have boarded up, literally boarded up because they're
basically getting out the business. Is that our nonprofit through
a lot of generosity out here fundraising because you know,

(30:26):
community development corporation, nonprofit. You're not asking for a couple
two thousand and three thousand.

Speaker 3 (30:33):
You need some money, you need.

Speaker 2 (30:34):
Millions because you're trying to buy a block. Can we
go back just for sure, because I had to look
it up.

Speaker 1 (30:43):
Sure when I read this, and I think it's important
for our listeners to understand when you say this city
had to get out of the housing business. I don't
think most people really recognized that these cities and Memphis
is one of them. Our cities since around the sixties, yes,

(31:04):
which I think was well intentioned policy at the.

Speaker 3 (31:06):
Time, well well intended.

Speaker 1 (31:08):
Has found themselves in the housing business and have done
a horrific job of managing it and keeping the properties up,
which leads to blight.

Speaker 3 (31:21):
And always mourned up. And this is what we're talking.

Speaker 4 (31:24):
Atually where by Masakowski lived next to Kirbrina Green.

Speaker 1 (31:27):
Yeah, we're talking about the project, the projects, So can
you take us through that before you go to how
you bought them from the city.

Speaker 2 (31:36):
So, like you said, back in it was the sixties,
how do we build these affordable housing there?

Speaker 3 (31:44):
And which they did. They did it.

Speaker 2 (31:45):
They were working on this project of affordable affordability for
the urban community and in the process they created these ghettos,
these slum from New York to Chicago, named some of
your largest cities. And then when they got to the Midwest,
they didn't do them, you know, vertical, they went horizontal.

(32:06):
But they were still projects and they were communities where
they were hut you know, hud homes. The city the
federal government built these homes. And you know, if you
said I live here, we like we know where you,
we know, what did you live in the hood?

Speaker 3 (32:24):
You know?

Speaker 1 (32:25):
But the problem is that that's perpetual rent. Because when
the city and the federal government owns them and provides
you with assistant housing and low income service housing, that's great,
you got a roof over your head, but you're never
gonna get up.

Speaker 3 (32:37):
You're never going to own right.

Speaker 2 (32:38):
But they didn't have the what we call ecosystem help
them get out of poverty. It was this assist them
to have a place to stay. But how do we
get them from that place to actually buy it from?

Speaker 3 (32:48):
You? Have you seen.

Speaker 1 (32:52):
In which dall what I've seen in Memphis? And I
bet you're gonna say yes that when you're in that
kind of housing situation and you're also in the free
cheese line every two weeks in there, that you might
could get a raised or get a job, or you
might could get married. But if you do, you lose

(33:13):
your basic sustenance. And so you're actually systematically by well
intentioned but what it turns out to be really bad
policy kind of kept in this cycle of poverty because
you can't afford to take the risk to get out
because then you lose what little you do have.

Speaker 2 (33:32):
Yes, that's why my dad didn't live with us. You
have a man in a house. You didn't get No,
you didn't get subsidized. You didn't get subsidized. You had
to be a single parent. And I mean I knew
my dad loved my dad. I mean he's deceased as
he was a chain smoker. But uh, that was part
of it. You know, if you, if you and and so,

(33:53):
you had a lot of families that I grew up
with no dance in the house because are they had
to live They lived there, but didn't legally live there.

Speaker 1 (34:04):
The hypocrisy, du Yeah, a hypocrisy is we the government, culture,
society policy say, organic two parent families are what fixes everything.

Speaker 3 (34:19):
Yes, you've got to have a home.

Speaker 1 (34:20):
Two incomes can you got to pull yourself, but we're
going to incentivize you to do the very opposite of
what we're telling you to do. And over decades of that,
in generations of that, you end up with dilapidated spiral hood,
spiked food deserts where your church sits.

Speaker 2 (34:38):
Yes, and it spirals spirals in their own directions. So what,
like I said, was good intentions, bad outcomes.

Speaker 3 (34:46):
And so.

Speaker 2 (34:49):
As our nonprofit, we're like, okay, since you're trying to
get out the business, let us because we're I'm gonna
we're great landlords. I have a great management team.

Speaker 3 (34:57):
I had a young.

Speaker 2 (34:58):
Lady, we had a washroom dry She called Saturday Monday
her washing drawers fix. You know, she's telling like, man,
I would call my old landlord, you know to do
something like that.

Speaker 3 (35:08):
Oh God, forbid the city and take them on. Might
take six months. Yeah, And so I'm like, no, no,
we got to let people.

Speaker 2 (35:15):
And so because we're trying to so while we're trying
to get ahead of myself while so that same family
we're trying to, we're educating them so while they're in
our properties, because our so let me back up. So
hope we we we lease, we least uh uh for
home ownership. Are we build straight for homeowners So if

(35:36):
you can, if you have the right income, we'll build
and happily want to make homeowner because homeowners make better,
stronger neighborhoods. But we have our generation I call them millennials.

Speaker 1 (35:47):
So you you actually bought hud homes, dilapidated board of
homes from the city, and we have them.

Speaker 2 (35:53):
And we and we then we we advertise and we
work with the city because those folks this way eating
list that they have with section eight, the vouchers, we
call it voucher choice. We bring them in, but I
bring them in with an interview like, look, yes you
have your voucher, but our goal is to get you
off the voucher. So here here's what a financial llergy

(36:15):
class look like. Uh, we got bridges out of poverties
that we teach. I facilitated how to bridge them into
the future, how to home ownership, budgeting, what.

Speaker 1 (36:28):
About finance, interest rates, all all of that. My wife,
My wife's a banger.

Speaker 2 (36:32):
She does a whole class on how you even to
do a mortgage, how to buy one, how to get
your credit right.

Speaker 3 (36:38):
We have credit counseling where we say, so that's what
I'm saying.

Speaker 1 (36:41):
How can these people that you're building these homes for
end up in ownership when their credits my stuff? And
how do you do That's the part I don't understand.
How you do that's stuff That's the key to me.

Speaker 2 (36:54):
So you said, when as you're working with them, you're
connecting them with again using like a bank. Are you
connecting them to what we call the credit consumer counseling,
which we use to say, okay, here's your credit card.
That's what we got to do to get you to
get this credit score right, which was created in the
nineteen eighties. By the way, another there was no such

(37:16):
thing as a credit score until you had this upward
mobility of people like, hey.

Speaker 3 (37:20):
We got too many folks move it outside the red.

Speaker 2 (37:23):
Zone the red zone, so we need to make sure
they can live over here.

Speaker 1 (37:29):
So you gotta have this score. And that's where you
get it's that right. Oh yeah, now that's interesting.

Speaker 2 (37:35):
Yeah, credit score never existed in the sixties and fifties
and forties.

Speaker 3 (37:39):
That happened.

Speaker 1 (37:40):
It came out of nowhere in the eighties. Research it.
I want you to research it.

Speaker 3 (37:44):
You'll see this. I will.

Speaker 1 (37:46):
But I also take you to your word. But the
point is you're saying the whole credit score.

Speaker 2 (37:52):
Another to me, another set of roadblock because they're the
gi bill. You know, you come back from the middle terry.
We'll just give them money, await and then wait, wait
a minute, we know you serve, but is your score right?
Because we don't want you to able to move out
here too. So really here escore is to those so
you need to buy in this area. Wow credit score. Yeah,

(38:16):
that's another story. It's just interesting, but it's really interesting.

Speaker 1 (38:20):
But Alex will get mad at me if I take
us too far down that road.

Speaker 3 (38:27):
We'll be right back.

Speaker 1 (38:39):
You decide, home ownership's the key that will revitalize the
neighborhood through home ownership, and we're going to teaching people
to it. And you start buying property, bacant property and
old hold homes and fixing them up and leasing them
to people who could. But then trying to teach your
goal is to not least forever.

Speaker 2 (38:58):
No, especially as a non I don't want to have
a thousand homes on the books where I'm like, we're
making money now, nonprofit, you're in this tomate, you know,
but you need some capital for your staffing. So you're gonna,
you know, if I do apartment complex, but it's gonna
be a beautiful like for seniors who are on fixed income.
But my goal is to take younger people and they

(39:19):
help them stay in the neighborhood, own their properties, and
make the neighborhood good that people want to move back
into it, meaning businesses because they see these younger people
who own their homes in that neighborhood. Well, you can
put a grocery store here now on your own without
me doing what I'm doing. But if you if you
can't just get it to the homeowner, you can still

(39:40):
do leasing.

Speaker 3 (39:42):
But what happened for us with Hope was.

Speaker 2 (39:47):
After COVID and all that we went came out of
is the price.

Speaker 1 (39:53):
You know, stick bill construction londer. Housing costs have gone
through the roof.

Speaker 2 (39:58):
I mean to build a three bedroom, two bathroom home
or you can say two bedroom, one bathroom, whatever, whatever you know,
we're looking at, you know, starting ground two hundred thousand
host costs you just think of lumber, you know. And
so we had to like, okay, what what other models
are out there that works where we can we as builder,

(40:20):
as a developer, can do what we're doing, but keep
our cost low so we can keep it affordable for
those we we rent to uh and our least too.

Speaker 3 (40:30):
I like to say released, because my goal is to
move them out of this place. Yeah, you know we.

Speaker 1 (40:36):
Want to, but you're trying to release them from that
and and and get them to the place of being
homeowners are are if not able to be don't because
we discover something just don't want to be home owners.

Speaker 2 (40:46):
Some folks don't want to fix one of the dis
far as your breaks, you know. You know, we got
that generation and folks like I just want to lease
and uh so we cut grass and pull the trash.
But anyway, sorry, I'm going down my own.

Speaker 3 (40:58):
That's good.

Speaker 2 (40:59):
So we buy these properties and we're trying to get
them to the place of where they can afford them
to buy. And so what we discovered was for our
model that we's modular homes.

Speaker 3 (41:12):
People. It's not mobile home.

Speaker 2 (41:13):
Please, we're not making mobile parks and from all my
mobile home for people who live out there. Nothing against
mobile homes either, but people are looking for I was
looking for what is affordable product that can still be
a home, I mean.

Speaker 3 (41:31):
Not a place, but a home.

Speaker 2 (41:34):
And so modular homes is where we I went down
to Tulsa, Oklahoma. We're out really outskirts of Tulsa. Prime
Craftsmen family owned, husband and wife went down and visited,
and I had some empty lots and we bought four

(41:54):
of their mosular homes and brought them up. It's just
like it's a home. It's not mobile, it's permanent. So
we build you you build the stem wall and the foundation,
the crawl space, everything, and then they bring it in
same as a stick build, but it's already built inside
the manufacturing and they just place it on the path

(42:15):
and then they and it's hurricane resistant. It's tied down,
it's bolted down, just like a framing, but it's all
all of it's done inside. It cut our costs in half.
I can do Yeah, I can do well. I was saying,
like two hundred two and fifty, I can do. I
can do a two bedroom, two bath for one fifty
the buy not knowing you got to it still add

(42:36):
in your your your concrete for the driveway, but just
to build it's it's affordable. Now I can make the
numbers work where I can if I can keep my
note because you know we have the note on it
at you know, say one fifty, that's my number one fifty.

Speaker 3 (42:52):
Well, now I can.

Speaker 2 (42:53):
I can rent this two bedroom, two bath mos or
home and that because you based it on your zip
code in six seven two on four for nine hundred
and twenty dollars compared to that same house if I
put it out there in a different zip code.

Speaker 1 (43:05):
My daughter before she moved, got married and moved to Montana.
Rented a one bedroom, one bath apartment in a nineteen
thirties built place that was rehabbed in midtown Memphis, which
is nice enough but not great. She was paying twenty
one this is four years ago. She was paying twenty

(43:26):
one hundred month. No, thank you. That's what we're eliminating
with the man. Literally is half what she was paying.
We underhaf over more than half more than because it's
so how do they transition to be able to own
that home?

Speaker 2 (43:40):
Then I was so, well, this is a beautiful his name.
I wish Steve was there, Steve phil Meyer's partner minds.
He's which is all affordable housing, part of Coke. He's
retired CFO from Coke. Love is, I mean the heart
of God. I just love him.

Speaker 3 (43:54):
He's like a brother to me. I'm younger, I'm the
younger one, but love is. I'm sure he's listening. Who
says how much? He not that much?

Speaker 1 (44:07):
You're not even five year old?

Speaker 3 (44:10):
But no, no, But he retired CFO from Coke.

Speaker 2 (44:15):
Connects with standing together and he has a passion been
in which it all thirty five plus years.

Speaker 3 (44:22):
And we drove.

Speaker 2 (44:24):
He and I are ones who drove the Tulson We've
seen it, his son Derek and who's part of his team,
and we said, you know what, we got to bring
this here. And so with his backing financial support and
connected me with other folks, uh that have that kind
of financial resources to help. But you got to show
them what you're doing. We started to process.

Speaker 1 (44:47):
So, so how does that person that rents that home
end up being able to own it?

Speaker 2 (44:51):
Well, again, I'm sorry, thank you for saying that, because
I was talking about giving Steve's kudos.

Speaker 3 (44:56):
No, I know, I get it, and I appreciate it.
But I.

Speaker 1 (45:01):
In my mind, everything you say and everything I've heard
from other guests with similar stories makes so much sense.
Fix these neighborhoods with some consistency, some permanence, some pride,
some ownership, keep these kids in schools. It really is

(45:21):
the answer. It's interesting that a community police officer became
a community pastor who cares so much about his community
that he's gotten into all this, which is why your
story's so unique. But from a pragmatic perspective, if all
you're doing is leasing these cool new homes, then you're

(45:41):
really not fixing the problem. And how do you get
these folks who can't really qualify for traditional loans to
go buy a home. To convert from leasing these cool
places you're making to ownership. That's the key to me.

Speaker 2 (45:55):
So what we do, what we do are is like
once we lease and they're in and my goal is
to get them in the house and they they love,
they like where they live, it's home to them. Then
we sit down, are you ready to be a homeowner?
And then they go through the program, give them wrap
round services. But when the wrap round services are all

(46:16):
that financial financial literacy bridges out to poverty, save match
and Grow where we actually help them say having the
same account, we match it really yeah, says God. It's
called save match and Grow. So if you if you're
getting this class, go through the whole class. It's part
of the D free program out East Coast. We just
call it the same match and growth would stand together

(46:38):
and so we have facilitators, they teach it and when
they go in we open them the same as account
with them. If they put in four hundred, they have
matched a fore under and then up to one thousand
dollars within a year. And then we were just training
them to keep setting up auto.

Speaker 1 (46:56):
So if for four years, they save one thousand dollars
of their own they're going to have bake grain at
inter fewers and then they can use that at grand
for the down.

Speaker 2 (47:03):
Payment well not even they can use it for that
or whatever they need to get themselves out of debt with.
But are but now with the housing, when you lead
from us and you and we say okay, eventually we
want you to know you want to be a homeowner,
when they say, yes, I want to, I want to
buy this house. So when they give me rent, I'm
taking say they give me nine, I'm going to take

(47:24):
ten percent of that or twenty percent of that. I'll
put it in ass grow. So I'm helping them build
up their down payments. So when they're so when they're
RADI about it.

Speaker 1 (47:33):
So you're s growing a portion they help them with,
they're down the necessary and collects and so then when
they get a big enough down payment to qualify for
a loan, then their house now to own is probably
no more monthly than the rent.

Speaker 3 (47:51):
That's the goal.

Speaker 2 (47:52):
The goal is to make sure that if if when
they become homeowners, they're they're their mortgage should either be
lower or at the same not higher, when they buy it.

Speaker 1 (48:04):
That's life changing. That's how people actually build wealth. That's
the whole guilt.

Speaker 2 (48:09):
That's you're building wealth, and now you're making a community wealthy.
A community that was underserved, underprivileged, now you're building them
out of this from basically out of the Azars Phoenix
into this great vibrant neighborhood.

Speaker 3 (48:22):
I know you said you're still doing it. How many?
How many of these places you got out there? So
I've man, you made me think about that.

Speaker 2 (48:30):
I just I just closed on four properties marked the
four modular homes yesterday literally yesterday.

Speaker 3 (48:38):
We're remodeling thirteen.

Speaker 2 (48:40):
Now I just bought twelve good Grief that's in the pipeline.
After the thirteen get remodeled, the next twelve just so's,
and I have seven that's coming on the block next week.

Speaker 3 (48:54):
I both of from the city with people.

Speaker 2 (48:56):
Who are already living in the city, just wanted them off
their books, and they were going to they're going to
moose people out the house. I said, no, we'll just
buy it as is and continue their rent. But then
they have to come into our program. And I say, look,
you've been living here long enough under the city's program.
How do we get you to become homeowners because it's
a nice neighborhood. So that's seven. So I'm saying by

(49:19):
the end of this year, I'll be at fifty homes.
I presently am renting right now one, two, three, four
or five, six eight right now. And we started three
years ago out of when did COVID officially come over?

Speaker 3 (49:36):
When was that? Yeah? Three three years So you're.

Speaker 2 (49:39):
And it will really tim because I sold, I built
two and those are homeowners I love sand I got.

Speaker 3 (49:46):
And there you got new transitioned ownership. They are a.

Speaker 1 (49:49):
Home eight rented, and by the end of twenty six
you'll have fifteen.

Speaker 2 (49:53):
The ready and then that will be leasing, but not
just the least their least.

Speaker 1 (49:58):
Thing to get them through the literacy classes to be
homeowners as cross some of the money and transition the
ownership and then how I know it's not infinite, but
there has to be thousands of these types of properties.

Speaker 3 (50:15):
Oh my god, we could change every city.

Speaker 2 (50:18):
If every city did this, we would we would eliminate crime,
what we would limit it because when again you you
said it earlier, and which I could. My research tells
me it's biblical. You know, homeownership are a property owner.
When you have something that's yours, you have pride in it.

(50:39):
You're keeping that family in that one place. I mean,
now they have one school they go to from elementary
through high school. They graduate, they stay in school, they read, write,
not they're not getting put into special and they shouldn't
be there. I have so many kids that I grew
up with in specially it wasn't even supposed to be there.
They just assumed they were not learning right because they

(51:01):
were moving so much. Need is coming, So okay, you're
not at reading levels, so you know what you're especially
at needs kids.

Speaker 3 (51:06):
No, he's not.

Speaker 1 (51:08):
So you're saying in these neighborhoods, if you own it
and it's yours, you take care of it. And problem
goes to what. Education goes up, job opportunity.

Speaker 2 (51:17):
All of that relationship, healthier homes, healthier families, all those
go because now you have your own, you're gonna take
out of your house. You know, you're gonna have a
drink here and there, but not but you're not an alcoholic
and you know you're not part of part of the
alcoholism in my neighborhood growing up, what because they didn't
have a homeless because depression and go all anxiety and

(51:40):
all the other things that come with it.

Speaker 5 (51:43):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (51:43):
I can go on and on, but maybe talk about
Steve for a minute. I know we kind of blew
past it. But like his vision, he like retires you
always got time, Like how he helps you with the
interest rate of male versus traditional banks. Like he's really
put a lot of fuel deer fires.

Speaker 3 (52:00):
Steve.

Speaker 2 (52:00):
I want to say his name again, slow Steve Fillmeyer
retired Coke CFO thirty plus years retires and he hasn't.

Speaker 1 (52:10):
And everybody we're not talking Coca Cola, no coc and
Coke Broke Industry industries founded in Wichita by the Coke family.

Speaker 3 (52:19):
Uh. And then Steve himself has been a blessing. UH.

Speaker 2 (52:24):
So he's set up so I have whope CDC. We're
in partnership with Steve's LLC, which is called Whichital Affordable
Housing LLC. Or he went out and got the c
r A money, which is a Community Reinvestment Act funds
from different banks and uh, wealthy individuals where he basically

(52:46):
pulled private funding. He's my private banker where he can
pull all these funds in and so now he can
keep the interest rate at five percent.

Speaker 3 (52:57):
Oh wow. So now I'm he's he's my he's your lender.

Speaker 2 (53:02):
But at the same time we feed off each other
because now he's pumped. And literally we we're bringing the
very modular company that we went down to visit, We're
bringing that to Wichita. So now we're gonna be hiring people.
So because what we discovered is part of the costs

(53:22):
of driving now even though Tulsa is two and a
half hour drive in Wichita, to.

Speaker 3 (53:27):
Bring a.

Speaker 2 (53:29):
Modular home up as expensive five thousand minimum just to
bring it from Tulsa to transportation costs, Well, we can
bring it here, I say, here to Wichita. Well, it's
literally the transportation costs just got killed because it was
from five thousand to whatever that.

Speaker 3 (53:48):
To where they going to start building bodo of homes
in which.

Speaker 2 (53:50):
We we're bringing prime craftman homes that was in Tulsa
through Steve. I want of the people that know through
Steve Eve and I'm a small minority owner of it
and some other investors, we're bringing that same model to
what you're tall. We have the space, we've leased it,

(54:12):
we got a lease and by spring we have our
own company right across the street. Which Tall Tech, which
is which Tall Technical College. So therefore we're in partnership
with those kids who are in carpentry. So if you're
in construction, you can come work for us, we can
teach you work for us, and then we can even

(54:34):
help you move into any other construction company in that
area or become your own.

Speaker 4 (54:40):
And what's so cool about what seeing them have done
too is so many of these things are just set
up as pure nonprofits, like, hey, let's give a bunch
of philanthropic dollars for affordable housing. Yeah, but in this
case he set it up or these investors actually get
a return. It's just a lower return from what they
would get elsewhere. But because of that, you can actually
tap into much greater capital.

Speaker 1 (55:00):
That's what I was going Yeah, that's what I was
going to to go to next, which Alex segued. But
it's what I find interesting about it is is that
this is a sustaining model because investors in it are
not just giving away their money.

Speaker 3 (55:18):
Yeah, they're getting some return, but.

Speaker 1 (55:22):
Because it does good for the community and it's philanthropic,
they're happy to take a lower return than they could elsewhere.

Speaker 2 (55:28):
Which is which is I love it it's it's uh,
it's impact investing.

Speaker 3 (55:33):
Impact investing. Yeah, you're making an impact.

Speaker 2 (55:35):
You're you're not getting a tempescent of return, but you're
getting you're getting half of that. But you're making an
impact on your own community.

Speaker 3 (55:43):
You're making an impact. Immediately, we'll be right back.

Speaker 1 (56:00):
So to ball it up, you've got a finance company
really who the investor of the finance company are higher
net worth individuals from the community in banks who are
getting a return on their money, but they're foregoing a
greater return of their money because it's good for their
community and.

Speaker 3 (56:19):
Their philanthropic thoughts.

Speaker 1 (56:21):
And then, because they're getting a lower return of the money,
that investment company can now loan the development company at
lower than prime rate money to go buy properties or
buy empty laws. Yes, you got it. And then to

(56:41):
keep the cost down. Instead of doing stick and brick build,
you're now bringing the modular home idea to set on
it to keep the cost down, so the interest is low,
the cost of the housing is low.

Speaker 3 (56:53):
And then you're getting people from a traditionally.

Speaker 1 (56:58):
Mobile community because of rents and everything, and you're putting
them in new homes or rehabed homes. And then teaching
them all to be in home ownership. You can transition them.
That's it, that's it.

Speaker 3 (57:13):
You get it. But that's phenomenal because you're a pastor. Yeah, dude,
that's what that's what industry is. Yeah, but which goes
beyond just a pool pit. That's fantastic.

Speaker 1 (57:27):
That's and you really think by the end this year
you'll have fifty of these properties?

Speaker 2 (57:30):
Oh no, no, I will, all right, I will. They're
on paper three years, three years, five hundred, Holy moly.

Speaker 1 (57:38):
And of that five hundred, have you guys talked about
what percentage annually you want to transition from least to release.

Speaker 2 (57:46):
It's it's gonna be a mix. You're gonna, you know,
like thirty, thirty, twenty. Some of those are going to
always be least because we're sure.

Speaker 3 (57:55):
I get it.

Speaker 1 (57:55):
But you're saying, let's say it is thirty percent that
goes from I love your turn. We're gonna, we're gonna,
they're gonna be they're gonna, we're gonna go from lease
to release. In other words, least to release them from
the least. But if you're talking thirty percent and you're
talking five hundred homes, you're talking you're creating somewhere around
one hundred, one hundred and fifty new homeowners.

Speaker 3 (58:16):
In that neighborhood neighborhood every year.

Speaker 2 (58:18):
That's that's the goal. That's the that's the goal, vision
and mission.

Speaker 1 (58:23):
That is community as life changing and development. That is
life changing on the micro micro level for the family.
But on the macro level, yes, that is revitalizing an
entire area.

Speaker 2 (58:34):
Yeah, and well here's there. All that's correct. But here's
the other piece that is that's gonna bless this project
is Steve and I, along with our consultants and lawyers,
is going to our own state and go look, as
a nonprofit, why are you Why am I not uh
sales tact exempt like Habitat or Mennonite Because we're so new,

(58:58):
they like am I Like, no, we can't do. But
if I can get tax exempt and we're in legislation
or the cost even more. It lowers the costs even
more because now I don't have to pay the sales tax,
own the homes and even the property tax. As long
as we own them as a nonprofit, we don't have
to worry about property tax. But once they become home owners,

(59:20):
we put this house back on the tax roll. So
now we have for the city.

Speaker 1 (59:24):
It's good for the because right now they ain't get
nothing things. In fact, it's it's worse than nothing because
they got to pay to keep the deck things, they
got to pay to cut the grass, they got to
pay to put.

Speaker 3 (59:35):
Or go to home ownership.

Speaker 1 (59:36):
They get put back on the tax rolls, which helps
the tax.

Speaker 3 (59:39):
Base for the in that community.

Speaker 1 (59:42):
They can fix the community, the roads, the city, the
whole thing.

Speaker 3 (59:48):
You you got it, You're you're there.

Speaker 4 (59:50):
One other thing on the housing, uh front. You could
probably talk about this Kevis is. I saw ste you
say in an article that we need many more kevisist
like a big limiting factor right now as so many
developers want to and obviously I see this in Oxford too,
right like try to buy you know, just build these
luxury homes. Yeah, that's the greatest profit margin for my
personal life. And he's like, I even get it, like

(01:00:11):
it's in their self interest for trying to take care
of our family. But there's nobody really looking out for
this type of person.

Speaker 3 (01:00:19):
We so so let me stay. We thank you, Alex.

Speaker 2 (01:00:23):
So as Steve builds his witch to affordable house in LLC,
it's not he's not building or raising this fund just
for me.

Speaker 3 (01:00:32):
Oh, it's not just for Hole. He's working with Habitat.

Speaker 2 (01:00:37):
I'm now bringing other UH even if they're LLC because
he was working just with nonprofits.

Speaker 3 (01:00:42):
But if we can even work with some small UH.

Speaker 2 (01:00:47):
Landlords who are just trying to take some property as
long as they're doing it to be affordable, well he'll
work with him. But he has a little UH system
that he works and to make sure they're not in
this thing trying to you know, just make money, make money.
But if they can so he So Steve's team is yes,

(01:01:07):
I'm I'm one of their I'm probably one of their
largest UH consumers as a nonprofit. But Habitat has borrowed
from them Rock the Block. They didn't with Neighborhood that
that's also a six steven, two and four. Part of
that Rock the Block was funded by Steve's fun minne

(01:01:30):
Nite hasn't done anything with Steve, but that's the goal.
And then so you know, we have this on Wichita
State University. It's called Sparrow. Is how do I even
mentor more people create more of me?

Speaker 3 (01:01:46):
I don't. I don't want to be the only game
in time. I want to I want to be.

Speaker 2 (01:01:49):
Where I'm I'm done such a good job that I
work myself out of the out of you know, a
nonprofit that we we solve the problem. Uh, but I
believe we're going to always have this issue, so we
can how.

Speaker 3 (01:02:04):
Will do you know there's some of these families.

Speaker 1 (01:02:06):
Oh, man, tell me a story of a family who
you know that just through this their life is right
now improving and being enriched.

Speaker 2 (01:02:18):
I don't know we can say name because I didn't ask,
but one of my favorite stories is he's a as
a single parent father, African American brother raising his two kids.
He and his he and his she was got in
some trouble. Both of them were in drugs bad. I

(01:02:39):
mean bad bad. They were homeless bad. But through one
another nonprofit that I collaborate with, any nonprofit from a
family promise to these are different that they do more
wrap around services with people who are transitional housing. Uh

(01:03:01):
and uh the so family probably had this for the
young man two kids, they work with him looking for
a housing. I'm trying to not get emotional. That's why
I'm looking away right now. Look at people.

Speaker 3 (01:03:16):
I starting crying.

Speaker 1 (01:03:16):
I'm a cry or Someth'm trying not to because I
get an emotion, you should cry.

Speaker 3 (01:03:21):
No, I did. I did enough of that my last
on videos trying to cry.

Speaker 2 (01:03:25):
Then, But to to see this person who's trying to
change his life, he will, I mean, he wanted to change.
He's like, I'm through with drugs. I'm sick of him
and for him the we need a cut from one minute.
I don't feel like tears coming.

Speaker 3 (01:03:47):
I just.

Speaker 5 (01:03:49):
I see it, it's his face. But to give him
keys and that was that was a That was a great,
great great And can we cut?

Speaker 3 (01:04:09):
I need people.

Speaker 4 (01:04:11):
I can get your issues if you want. If you
will cry all the time on the podcast, you're not.

Speaker 3 (01:04:15):
The first guest mid thirties, I want to say. And
so he's a single.

Speaker 1 (01:04:22):
Father, So we get drugs, gone through transitions, homeless, to
give him a key to a whome?

Speaker 3 (01:04:28):
Huh?

Speaker 2 (01:04:29):
Two bedroom you know? No, three bedroom, one bath's the house?
Did I remodel?

Speaker 3 (01:04:35):
Now?

Speaker 2 (01:04:35):
This was I told Steve. I said, Steve, I'm gonna
take a hit on this. He said, we're talking about
I said, Steve, we bought, we bought, so we buy
houses off. Thank you for asking. Also buy a house
it's off auction. So I'll go to if I see
a house I like. I've done two of those where
I buy a house to for sixty thousand and I
put forty thousand in it, so it's it's one hundred thousand,

(01:04:56):
but it praises that one.

Speaker 3 (01:04:59):
So is it good? You're just good. But now I
got this one.

Speaker 2 (01:05:03):
You know there's no and I know how this is
how much rent we need to be able to, you know,
take care of your property manager, you're insurance, all the
stuff that comes with it. And so when I had
it up, I had it up for as a three bedroom.

Speaker 3 (01:05:18):
I was least.

Speaker 2 (01:05:19):
I had it on the on the on the listing,
I'm following that zip codes. The zip code says for
six seven two one four for a three bedroom, you
can do twelve hundred. Well they had been this. It
was an to me. It was like this man comes, okay,
I can do that. Well he was using his voucher.
They said, well, you're you don't make enough and although

(01:05:42):
you it's a three bedroom, you can't have it unless
he unless he are not profit me.

Speaker 3 (01:05:48):
Says it's a two bedroom and you have to rent it.
So I took I took a hit.

Speaker 2 (01:05:52):
What's that from twelve hundred nine twenty Because I could
not see this man back in the streets. So you
know what, we're going to subsidize that. I mean, that's
me putting an extra two hundred dollars myself, kind of
like my tithe. I put a tithe in the church.
Now I'm tithing the hope just to cover his subsidy

(01:06:13):
so I can so the board can feel comfortable with that.
We're still getting enough. If I was wealthyre I do more,
but I would need to.

Speaker 3 (01:06:22):
Do You think he uh do you think will eventually
own that home? Yes?

Speaker 2 (01:06:25):
Ah, yeah, that's the beauty. He's I got pictures. I'll
show it to you. He will own that house one day.
And he was homeless. He was homeless, and forget him.
But he was homeless with his kids. Well that's why
I was about to say, forget him for a second.

Speaker 3 (01:06:41):
His kids.

Speaker 1 (01:06:41):
What hasn't done for all to break the proverbial cyclical problem.
Now these two kids.

Speaker 2 (01:06:49):
Have a home, and these are like eleven twelve year old.
They're running around there. You know, they're running around the house.
This is our house. It was to you hear them say,
is this our house? This is our like, yeah, this
is your house. And I gave the kid's dead and uh,
go back in there and see it. I mean he
has the bedroom looks like that, this is this is

(01:07:11):
my bedroom. This is my bedroom. And then he has
his bedrooms because this is three bedrooms. They all have
their own room. They need to sleep in the same car.
Now they got their own bedroom. Oh god, that's the
change from from car hould it up together to your

(01:07:33):
own bedroom.

Speaker 3 (01:07:35):
Now.

Speaker 2 (01:07:35):
Now we had to do some we had to do
some home ownership training because of the young girl no names,
but she was She didn't.

Speaker 3 (01:07:44):
Want to eat her piece. This is there.

Speaker 2 (01:07:45):
They wasn't even the house. It wasn't even the house.
A week, No, don't say two weeks. I get him
two weeks. But she didn't want to eat her piece,
so she put him in a Dylan's or Kroger bag
and she called herself getting rid of it.

Speaker 3 (01:07:56):
So she flushed it. She told him herself. Because so he.

Speaker 2 (01:08:01):
Calls and goes, man, we got a backup. I'm on
a backup. That's a brand new sore. I mean literally,
it's a brand new swre. So we had to tell.

Speaker 1 (01:08:08):
Her you don't but that's really part of it. And
I know that seems so stupid. Nothing in the first either,
But if you've never lived in a home and owned
a home, you don't know how to take care of
them home.

Speaker 3 (01:08:18):
Right, So we are all part of it. So we
sat that part of it.

Speaker 2 (01:08:21):
So we had to sit down with family promises, like like,
here's here's what you put in the trash.

Speaker 3 (01:08:26):
We even said, this is what you can put in
the garbage disposal. That's where you put peace. Listen, if
you've never had a home, it been taught. How the
hell you're gonna know, I don't care if any man
or fifty Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:08:37):
And that's and she was so and I can say
his name, but the father is like, I'm gonna really
get her. He was trying like he was. He was
apologizing to me, I'm so sorry she did that. I
was like, no, no, no, leave her alone. She didn't know.
She just tried. She just didn't want to eat these
peas you were making her eat. She was just trying
to get rid of it. And so to see that.

Speaker 1 (01:08:59):
Now, and do you stop to give yourself a chance
to think that fifty this year and in three years,
five hundred, that the story you just told me I
was gonna be You're gonna become commonplace.

Speaker 3 (01:09:12):
Yes, well that story is gonna be common.

Speaker 2 (01:09:16):
But also what's gonna be common is that they become homeowners.
Uh that that those kids, well well will common It's like,
this is this is my place, this is my house,
it's my home. And so it's that, you know, you
tell you a story that that's just one. I gotta think.
I'm curious. How close is that to where your grandparents'

(01:09:38):
house was?

Speaker 1 (01:09:39):
Oh?

Speaker 3 (01:09:40):
God, I could walk to it, No kidding.

Speaker 2 (01:09:42):
It is that it is like your neighbor when I
say six seventy two on four this whatever it is,
it code is, it's where you're sitting right now. Whatever,
it's right there, it's in the same neighborhood. So you literally,
I know, are doing this right where I.

Speaker 1 (01:09:59):
Grew up my first the first house that I built
in Sould.

Speaker 2 (01:10:06):
And like I said, I can tell you. So there's
these it's called Minnesota, Minneapolis. These are streets Piet and
then Ash I lived and I grew up on my
base with my grandparents.

Speaker 3 (01:10:17):
Fifteenth third three, No, Piet.

Speaker 2 (01:10:18):
You go down to that corner and one block over
it's the first house I build and sold and it's beautiful.

Speaker 3 (01:10:25):
Uh, your grandparents should be so.

Speaker 2 (01:10:28):
Probab oh he My granddad would be just losing it.
If I say, granddad, look at this vote, he would
oh granded. I call him granddaddy, not my Yeah, he
would be losing it.

Speaker 3 (01:10:38):
If people want to, uh, is there a website somebody
go to?

Speaker 2 (01:10:42):
Oh Man, please if anyone wants, it's www dot hope.

Speaker 3 (01:10:48):
You like this? I love it. It's kind of long,
but I love it. Hope Builds Community love it dot
org dot org.

Speaker 1 (01:10:56):
And if somebody wants to talk to you about your
experience because they think they wanted to, how do they
get in touch with you?

Speaker 2 (01:11:01):
May ca an email me Kevis at Hope Buildscommunity dot org.

Speaker 3 (01:11:06):
K e v A s s at k e v.

Speaker 2 (01:11:11):
A s s Kevis at Hope Builds Community builds with
a s so h O p e b U I
l d s community dot org. Brother, Yeah, thanks for
having me. I know as a reverend you're you're but
we're brothers in Christ.

Speaker 1 (01:11:29):
All of us that has shared the same faith are
called to be christ Like. And if Christ came back today,
I don't think he'd show up at a fifteen thousand
square foot mansion, sipping my ties by the pool.

Speaker 3 (01:11:46):
I think.

Speaker 1 (01:11:47):
I think when Christ surrounded himself with fishermen and prostitutes,
he he he, And then we're called to be Christ
like I think we have a responsibility and start our
faith to immerse our ourselves with the neediest among us
and making you, as the leader of a church, showing

(01:12:07):
your congregation this work.

Speaker 3 (01:12:09):
That's the key. You hit it. It's showing.

Speaker 2 (01:12:11):
So I don't want to be just the preacher, and
I love preaching. But Christ, when beyond preaching, he heals
what you're doing in your community.

Speaker 3 (01:12:24):
He healed on.

Speaker 1 (01:12:25):
This happen literally two blocks when you grew up. What
an amazing story. Reverend Kevis Harding, pastor and executive director
of Hope Community Developed Corporation in Wichita, Kansas, has figured
out a way. TOTE team has figured out a way
to revitalize neighborhoods, rebuild families, and rebuild culture and community.

(01:12:51):
And this is something that could be modeled in any
city in the United States, any city.

Speaker 3 (01:12:55):
I will I'll come show you how to do it.
You've got his email, you know it. Kevis, thanks so
much for.

Speaker 1 (01:13:03):
This is good awesome, joined you man, coach, I call you,
you call me coach anytime, brother coach.

Speaker 3 (01:13:09):
Thanks yeah, thank.

Speaker 1 (01:13:10):
You, and thank you for joining us this week. If
Kevis Harding has inspired you in general, or better yet,
to take action by getting involved in the neighborhood where
you grew up, bringing affordable housing to your community, becoming
a police officer, becoming a dynamic reverend like he is,

(01:13:33):
or something else entirely, please let me know. I really
genuinely do want to hear about it. You can write
me anytime at Bill at normal folks dot us and
I will respond. If you enjoyed this episode, share with
friends and on social subscribe to the podcast, rate it,
review it, join the army at normal folks dot us.

(01:13:54):
All these things that will help us grow and army
and normal folks.

Speaker 3 (01:13:58):
I'm Bill Courtney. Until next time, do what you can