Transcripts For CSPAN2 Brendan 20240705

Everybody for coming tonight for chris and the bookshelf for hosting. Yeah, i im really excited to be here and the book just came out a few days ago. There is just an artie in the New York Times today about investors buying up properties. So its something that kind of drew me in for the last several years, and i just kind of followed that thread from an original study about Short Term Rentals. And im excited carol smith is here tonight, so im im thinking that the event will kind of go like this for the first half. Well kind of talk about what we saw, what i saw in my research, talk about the book, and she can talk about her organization renting partnerships and her role. And then we can talk back and forth and then well open it up to questions. So yeah, do you do you want introduce yourself. Hello, my name is carol smith and i am with an Organization Called renting partnership. Its and we have a unique Property Management style that allows renters to earn equity. Yeah. Yeah. So ive been asked to talk a little bit about what made me want to write the book. I started i started writing this as a masters thesis for well, while i was in school at Northern Arizona in flagstaff. And i was studying the impact of Short Term Rentals. The first line in the book is this book was born from a sign in a strangers yard, and thats from a vacation that i took with friends to new orleans in 2017. So we traveled down there and we thought wed stay in a short term rental, an airbnb, because that be more home like we could be on a block and we wouldnt have to spend as much on groceries for food going out. But on that block there was a sign that said neighbor is not airbnb. And that kind of stuck with me. That theme of how it how airbnb is impacted neighbors. And then when i moved to flagstaff, i saw this trend. I saw a similar sign that said homes, hotels, and so with that i was taken in and i decided thats what im going to study for my thesis. But that was 2019. I was pitching that at the beginning of the winter, 2020. And id then covid shut everything down. The Housing Market exploded and i realized that this was a much bigger topic. And so i followed that thread looking at second homes, looking at the growth of investor owned properties, a lot of private equity firms really getting into the mix and. Just the general growth in that the rapid rise in homes appreciating and so i realized that a lot of government officials kind of spoke out of both sides of their mouth. They would say, see, the economy is doing great. Look at housing prices. If live in a house, youre a appreciating that value going up and up when you retire. Someday and want to move away. But you also need somewhere to live and if thats whats happening all over the people who are really benefiting, where the people who dont live in a who were just using that as a commodity, as an investment price. So thats thats a lot of what the book is focused on. And so thats why housing is on affordable and it relates to. Exclusionary zoning. It relates to a lot of government policy. And then the second half of the subtitle is and how we can change it and i think that was important to me in studying it. And thats why i wanted to talk with local housing organizers as i travel and yeah, i think carol your model that randi partnerships is really interesting. I wonder if you could kind of dig into it to explain where it came from, where it came from was my partner, who is Marjorie Spear . Me. It was her concept. She told me about it back. 1997 and look and we got together and we start working toward doing a project and trying to get a development that we could work with, a partner with to develop this type of housing for the first time. And. In 1999, we had a discussion, the franciscan friars who had property in overtherhine and they wanted they had a i had a couple of blocks of it. And they had an apartment complex on that on their property. And they said that they would allow us to■i demonstrate great use their property in order to demonstrate and prove my theory. And so we initially did the first 25 units with with the friars margies concerns basically is that you have participatory management with the residents and they can earn equity. What what we use to determine that equity was the vacancy rate that is in that you build into the budget for for turnovers when people move out. So there were four commitments that they each individual had to make. They had to make a commitment to pay their rent on time. Because when you start chasing people for their money, thats, thats more money you have to spend that they are doing the same task. And that assigned task is somewhat janitorial. So they took care of the janitor type situation and then the other was that they at a ten the monthly meetings and then the kicker is they stay five years if they stay you see with the average person moving every two and two and a half to three years, we would have their money put aside for them to be able to earn that equity. And we did prove our theory. We had a study done after we had did it for ten years and they this study said, yes, it was the process was correct. And it did what it said it was going to do, but it added Something Else. It added Community People built Community Together because they Work Together to maintain the property they met every month to learn up to discuss what they needed to do there. Twice a year we would have clean up days and everybody would take turns. And the interesting thing is, is that when we first started, because marty is the gardener and was the inside person in when we got to your tent, everybody was outside nobody was inside anymore. I mean, it just changed peoples lives so much, not only in terms of the economics, but also in the way that they looked and looked at and viewed things and did things. So it was it proved itself to be successful. We had a board who wanted to take it a different direction. So we margie and i left and we started renting partnerships and we didnt have this big 25 unit complex, but we started with a two family and that seems to be going over pretty, pretty good in terms of of having residents because then it is really like their home. We had two middle age women in one and we have two young women in another and were working on another right now that would have a single middle aged person in a lady who has five children. The program really the program really does a lot for people. Not only are there building equity in and money being put in a reserve for them, they are learning because at our monthly meetings we talk budget, we talk maintenance problems, we talk about where theyre growing and going. So there is a lot of Community Building and education along with the participatory management because most of the individuals have not had budgeting courses. They have not ever had to plan a fire or pull a weed. So its its a growth situation as well. Is an earnings situation. Then we found out that it really benefits people are they do things that most people dont arent already do one mother she where her money she took and she sent her daughter off to college she was able to fix up her dorm room and everything and i had another lady had asthma. And when in the summer months she couldnt work. So she paid her rent during the summer months. Had another lady who it was the mother and her two sons. And each one of them had an apartment and one of them lost his job and he took his money and moved to california. So that he could start over in a different career. Another young lady had she was a paralegal, and her eyesight began to fail her and she used that money as copay to have eye surgery done on her half own eyes and then we have four people to actually take this when they in five years was up and bought a house. So it comes to the money that they earn and put aside has come has given them the ability to be financially stable no more so than if they were in a normal renting situation. So weve were working the in one of the things that we do is that we try to maintain the housing affordable bill and how we do that is that we dont raise the rent unless there is a major repair or something that needs to be done where we have to raise the rent. So its not a thing where were raising it each month or each year at 3 so that we can have this profit margin. We dont were not looking for a profit margin. Were looking for people to be stable and to know that they got a place to live and live comfortably. Yeah, it really struck me hearing hearing that story about its just a radical, radically different way of seeing things. Im trying to train myself to think about the word radical differently because i think thats a perfectly sane way of doing things. And i think way that we treat housing right now is a really radical view that housing is not a right, that people that is a commodity that should. Put on the market to whoever can pay the most. I think thats a really radical departure from most of human history. Honestly honestly. But yeah, have you seen that your your model have other neighbor or other property kind of look to it and been like i wouldnt think that would work or then, then taken in with it. But yeah, weve, weve had from all over the country wanting to talk about it and replicate it. We made some adjustments because what we did before we had, we didnt have a land trust. So with the other properties now were, they are part of a land which will always that Affordable Housing. So that presents the longer it did we didnt that we did not have a nationally but we have had inquiries weve been invited to other cities and stuff to talk with them. And as theyre looking for redevelopment activity to be able to provide Affordable Housing. Yeah. And maintain it right. Yeah. I think thats great. Yeah. Its kind of, its one of the things that. I really kept coming back to in the book is that sign of homes versus hotels kind of became i got an underlying way of viewing, viewing, housing our whole economy in a way where its being seen in one of two ways housing and education and health care and retirement. Its being seen as, on one hand, a way to turn a profit, a way to maximize gains and. On the other hand, something to bolster community, tole, to be r people, to build a life. And i think thats that yeah, thats kind of at the core of the book. The middle section. I really delve deep into that because it was the history of a history of housing. And so the way things are today, to understand that you have to dig back into the history where we came from. Can you talk a little bit about the history of housing here, history of attempts to build on affordable, more Affordable Housing, especially in the racial lens in cincinnati . That was something that i didnt focus on cincinnati in the book so much, but that thats just at the core of housing and how its been used to drive a wedge between races, really dating back to before the us was even founded. And the period of colonies ation. Well, yes you know you go back thank you. I can, i can go back is four is the seventies when the government came with money for what they would call modeled and doing time they in terms of African American they some of you may have heard of Community Action which is a large income and at that time we also got legal aid because at that time, landlords, people were just sitting people out without going to court and what have you. So they created legal in order for them to begin to represent people who were being abused by owners and property. So in seventies the federal government start funding these projects and thats when it was in call section eight, but it was called to, to anyone d three. That was the law that they that they did so with that in mind there was a law out of of of developed of a multifamily. And in cincinnati, the African American communities have always basically followed the , the Jewish Community of the upper west end and dayton and bank street and what have you was, a Jewish Community and then they moved from downtown to avanti l from abbeydale to bond, heel from pond hilve always followed basically their communities in their housing and we took over in then they had a lot of apartment complex is in avondale and thats where a lot the housing the rental housing was put in and deal however during another transition of when they. In 1975 that in the nineties look when they brought in the expressway interstate 75 that broke up the African American community and then west when we start moving to other neighborhoods as well so theres been a progression in now bit to 21 3d3 and to 2023 dc they are moved to the wayside so what they have now is that the feds have a program this called tax credit final c and big business is by our fund get tax breaks basically fee for investing in low developing low Income Housing and thats where we are now but affordable bility does not always reach the income that the people who really need the housing are you you can make 0. 50 more an hour and wont be able to you know didnt bring a whole lot but it takes you out of the market for being able to have subsidized rent so are a lot of issues have built on this and now were with tax credits and our government which has funding for housing as well through the Block Grant Program that the feds have and they do not they not they do not have the process this is in the policies set where the nonprofit who were being successful 20 years ago can not can be successful because theyre getting that number of units as opposed to the qual ity and what really needs to happen in terms of having Affordable Housing for people. Articular group of yeah, yeah. Okay, go ahead. So i just yeah, i mean, one of the thing is, is that we need to we need to look at our policies because we get there. Is there are theres a need for other type of housing. And when we went in the non were really being active because it was before tax and the Actual Community each community or neighborhood just about had a what they call a Community Development corporation and that Community Development corporation took care of the economics and housing it in bit in their own neighborhood and that funding is no longer available as it used to be. So got that middle person whos not looking for a profit per say but to provide service in housing for different individuals and that theyre not the concern when the money is being spread because theyre not they dont have the numbers they may have a small. Ten units whereas the the the bigger corporations though that need the tax credit they can 50 units at a time and it makes a big difference. Yeah that one of the things that really struck me in studying it is that housing is so local and the politics are local, and people are care about it and it hits home on a very personal level. But then the themes are so interconnected and national in scope and so that what whats going on in cincinnati not the same as kansas city and its not the same as northwest montana. Its not the same as new york. But theyre all interconnected and you see a lot of that both at the when it comes to the problems and when it comes to the solutions. I think we need to see them as interconnected. You yeah. Have you have you noticed. Good efforts for. Tenants uniting around issues or people really sparking change by coming together on housing issues . Not really. Not a whole lot because of the the financing of of how you do housing and how you develop. I havent seen a lot of that. And thats why i started to begin to look at where where we need shoring up on which is like. Money that that is not just tax credits that there should be some other additional funding for housing theres that little bit more not as profitable and in most of the cdc Development Corporations are are more Service Oriented in their development of housing opposed to profit. Mm. And now that theyre not involved like they used to be, then you dont have as much growth in housing that is more affordable. And then you have right now, i mean, you have the Port Authority is taking up two housing developer hours by default. They had a one incident was real and i think the other one was in west western here somewhere in that area. And they had. 127 one owner and he went into default and. These are rental houses, not apartment complex. These are actually housing in another 147 with a with another developer that went foreclosed on. So when you have situation like that where one individual owns a hundred and some odd houses, look how many people hes affected and what happens to these people when he defaults and the Port Authority stepped in a step is trying to step in and be the savior for those houses okay. Yeah its a its a a very rickety yeah. Rickety boat. Were all absolutely absolutely yeah and very tricky. Um, i wanted to give you a chance to say anything more broadly that you might want to and then kind of open it up to questions from people i, i dont have anything. Okay, thats fine. Yeah. But i mean, you know, it come out in the wash. Yeah. Oh yeah. I that anybody has questions on renting partnerships or, or specific aspects of what weve talked about or in the book. Uh, i just dont open it up to you on. Id like to ask a question about what were just talking about those two owners that had those many homes. Were they just out of curiosity, do you know if they were local or were out . I think they were out of town. Do you find that thats a become a bigger problem here, not just in cincinnati, but across the country with these out of may have they really dont have any agency in terms of the city or the community. So but theyre coming in and theyre buying up all of these homes to rent. And then they just seem to disappear. Thats and its not just. National is international, right . Its not just national. Its international is what youre who owns the properties i mean, we are i know that in certain communities there are not people that are even this country that are owning housing in businesses and what have you. Ah, i know in my neighborhood i live in roselawn and we have to Chinese People who have applied rent, both rental homes as well as. Business. Buildings, built buildings that businesses in there and theyre not even from this country. And its so related to what you were talking about with the tax credit situation, why theyre buying across the country. I dont think that theyre buying theyre going for the tax credits. I dont think theyre going for its the is the corporations that need the the the hiding money are the the the transfer being protected from taxes and so that they have to pay taxes because. They got this tax credit based upon them putting money into this. Leilani farha from the tuesday un special rapporteur on Affordable Housing or adequate. She identifies this as a global trend and has for before covid. In 2017 1819 she was speaking to it a lot where you have. Real estate becoming where people are parking their money increasingly and its commercial real estate, but especially Residential Real Estate and you saw that leading up to the Great Recession, 27 2008. But then its really fascinating, a morbid way we turned around the Great Recession and kind of doubled on some of those same interests. So theres a researcher for the Federal Reserve who identified second home buying or investor was linked to 10 of the run up in housing costs and 30 of the run up in Construction Costs leading up to the recession. And then after the recession or while it was happening, you had people being forced out of their homes, foreclosing and being evicted and there were hundreds of thousands of properties that, didnt have an owner, but they were very cheap. It was just that there was former owners couldnt pay for the price that the property was worth before, but nobody was buying other than places like blackrock and private equity firms. And so at hud and different Government Agencies that auctioned off tens of thousands of properties to private equity firms leading directly after that and so that was just those are that was just one event or it happened an isolated incident instances after that but it just kind of shows the priority priority is stabilizing the Housing Market and making sure that prices keep going up no matter who is buying them. And that of the problems that we had before we turn to those same causes of the problem to try to solve it and then is it any wonder that we get more entrenched in those issues. Yeah i ask your. The way you have tenants develop equity. And so theyre getting what wo profit. I think is are you running a Charitable Institution or just less profit or. Well basically is is not a Charitable Institution because its theyre paying their rent and were paying the bills and. What were saying is that because we are a profit. Were not looking for profit. So the profit goes back to the to the resident basically. And there are other nonprofits that are are looking to do that in their communities because they they see the advantage of of people being stable, keeping the Community Together and being able to take care of their needs based upon that they dont have to borrow money because of the things that we did do. It was a couple of our residents had gotten on this payday lending merry go round and we had to buy them off because they got they needed money and it had nowhere to get it from. But because they had it in a in a couple of instances were because they had been they were residents of ours and they had proven themselves instead by their commitment to do what they could to earn equity. We allowed them to borrow money before it was due because before it was due to give them because they were in a financial situation that they couldnt get off. They i mean, it was just like like said a merry go round and you pay so much and the next time you have to pay, you pay twice as much. So was really horrendous is it is it this mismatch of could you walk us through a practical example . Im trying get the same question answered that this fellow has, which lets say you buy a property family for 200,000. Does your nonprofit finance at generally, yes. What we do is that we we buy the property with the and with the anticipation of doing whatever it is necessary to update the property and then be to rent it at particular rate. Say, for instance, like right now, if we have a house or a unit or building where we could get the units for and have a rehab for 125,000, then that way that that can be at an affordable rent where as if they it is not at market so so you cover your mortgage and the expenses and the rent has to cover that right the rent has to cover that. So lets say the rent is 1,000 a month. Now, what, what, how how much equity do they get . How much equity do they build after five years, its like. 4170 something dollars. Would be for that amount of rent. Okay. That thats across the board regardless to who because what weve done is that we said that were going to were going to lose out per unit were going to lose. 2500 or 2000 plus if they leave in two and a half years. But okay, now i get the okay. So you take that normal vacancy rate and you say you get that equity. So if somebody leaves before five years, they walk away from their equity and then you guys just pull that pull that back into the profit. If fixing up the property, which we would have, you know, getting ready for the next person. Okay, carol, do you have security deposit. Ids . Do you just read the credits . Yes, we do here. Yeah, we do. The normal thing. And then the other part of that that you have to go through three orientations with us before can even rent. You got to know what the deals are what what youre being asked to commit you got to see the financial benefit of it as well. Is the stabilization of it. So they have to go through an orientation of at least three sessions before before will even rent to them. You just dont walk up and ask for an application. You got know what youre getting into and you got to make a commitment to do that. So its getting the games right . Absolutely. We had it with our initial project. We we had one every action in ten years. So much better rate than. One eviction in ten years. So, so this is in a when the sheriff came to make sure that they left, they were surprised because the complex had the apartments, buildings were on the outside and there was a in a courtyard. And the resident had flowers and trees and everything was nice and orderly. And he was like, wow oh, they were impressed because the residents took care the place and they had never been in, like i said, ten years. That was one eviction. Do you work with traditional lenders this or with like Hamilton County Development Corporation . Where do you access the financing . Well, the city has the last two projects that we had, the worked with us. We had well, the first one that we after we departed from the organization that we belong to. The first when we worked with our local to 65 Construction Union and they we identified the house, they bought the house and we had an agreement that after five years that we would purchase the house and we did. And we had when we got this oh, we got, we got another house that was right next door to it that the port. Oh so our financing the purchase and rehab of one building and update certain things in the other building that we already had and that we got money from the city and we also got some money from Greater Cincinnati foundation to to help to be able to help us find the the building and we did it based upon. 125 per unit for the building. Can i ask a question so the tenants basically do not own the they just pay and they get equity back that they can then use. So its a little bit different than habitat for humanity where they actually go and they own the house. The end of the process, correct . I mean so these people are not on this property. So brendan, could you speak a little bit to how do we get people to become their own landowners . I mean, i think what youre doing is great, but im get everyday people into owning properties you yeah. I mean i know habitat really and i used to i used to work with them. Yeah. So i understand little bit about it and they had a lot of sweat equity which is very similar to to your program, but im just curious to know what you see terms of programs in the future or how we can as individuals, you know, try to benefit everybody into owning a property versus being a tenant. I think. One one thing id point out is just. Its important to have all different models. And so the model that we have that. Models that we have rightwhole d that moneys gone and it goes toward the landlord whoou probably see eye to eye with or say that or you can own your property and the goal is to. Build equity within that. And i think that thats not the focus on homeownership isnt the same throughout the world. Its very much its very centered in the us, especially because. There are so few other ways that you can be stable your retirement is Privatized Health care privatized child care is privatized. All these things are kind of up to you to take care of. And so its very individualized the focus and so when it comes to homeownership, thats kind of become a way that people can protect against it. Financial shortfalls are issues in any of those other areas. So i think the model that theyre kind of pioneer in is a really really great because it offers another view, but one model i bring up is Community Land trusts as a potential solution. And that residents dont own house on the land itself, but they a 99 year lease or thats typically the model. So in this instance government at Different Levels city state, federal usually not the federal so much but city and or nonprofits or neighborhood organizations. They own the land and they keep it at a steady rate. And then. The residents will buy the house or they have a 99 year lease and they can do anything they want with it during that time. They can make repairs, they can renovate, they can sell it, they can pass it on to kids. But the price is held in check so that when they sell it, theyre going to make it might go up in line with inflation or enough to. Meet basic those basic needs. But its not going to go up dramatically in value. Its also not going to go down dramatically value. And so theyre more stable against the whims of, the market and the idea is that they can afford it Home Ownership more easily to start with. And so if you instead of buying a property for 300,000, they might buy a house for 200 or 220,000. And so their monthly rates are going to be much lower. Theyre it kind of their Creative Solutions where they might pay a lower property tax its owned by a Government Entity or its owned by a nonprofit. And the goal is to keep it affordable and. Then when they go to sell it, they might not sell a 300 property, 300,000 property for 400,000. They might sell. A 220,000 one for 240,000, but they could afford the house initially and that is a radical different. Entry point in rather than renting for decades to be able to get to that point. And so yeah, theres theres a lot of different models. I think the part of the problem is the focus on Home Ownership no matter what. And the view of homeownership as a means of building, building up wealth because. One of the themes that i kept coming back to is that everything stacks. And so if your parents did well and your grandparents did well, youre more to do well. If youre if you inherited de y, if youre inherited violence, youre more likely to end up in neighborhoods where you are paying high rental rates. Your surrounded violence. You dont have access to good jobs. And so those things just stack on top of each other and for future generations become more entrenched. And thats partly a result. Treating housing as an individual pursuit instead seeing it as something we all have a stake in. When someone leaves your neighborhood. Its not just a sigh of relief that. It wasnt you. Instead, its it. Thats thats my baby sitter that just left. Thats my ride to work. Thats my friend. That i rely on to cope things going on on a daily basis. And so its it really to. Start seeing things differently in that respect. In your studies, did you did you find something that really struck you that would be a good answer or response to maintaining Affordable Housing to maintain it . I think having it there for people in the future. Mm mm. I think its. One of the biggest things is kind of going back to that is the things that have to stop doing and when housing is treated as a commodity. So so on the surface, things like investor owned properties or second homes or. An influx of Remote Workers might not seem to have too much to do with each other, but essentially theyre all putting local, theyre globalizing the local market. And so suddenly someone making 60,000, working a job that very directly people in the area teacher, a construction worker, a nurse, suddenly theyre having to compete with someone who makes money makes their income from a Silicon Valley job or a wall street job. And when you put when you force people to compete on that level, its untenable. And they really have to that the locals are going to lose every time. And so i think when it comes to housing one of the things that i think we saw with the the Great Recession is that there was a lot of. A lot of internal shame that felt when they lost their home, when they couldnt afford to rent, when they lost their job, they in turn analyzed it. There were protests, there was organizing, but it didnt turn into a mass movement. And i think thats one of the things that i saw again and again in in the us, theres a big focus on individualism and, individual gains and thats when we design housing that where you want your property to keep going up in value and cities want the Property Values to keep going up because they can have more property taxes. Developers want Property Values to keep going up and they can building out along the way. Its, its just very shortsighted. And i think one of the best things that we can do is to stop, to cut off, to treat locals differently. We treat all these other entities. I think that, yeah, ill hand it right. Yeah. Zoning, building codes and land use generate the biggest in housing. Now karen was talking about how the buildings existed, the land use existed. So thats sort of out of the equation. But if you really want for far the growth of population to have housing, you have to deal with zoning land use and building and zoning is done totally by the locals, except maybe in california where they now passed a law that any Single Family house have a salary dwelling which is working, but prices are so high anyway. Its ridiculous, you know, the requirement of a two car garage that most cities have for a house is the size of an accessory dwelling. Dwelling that if you had buy it, its going to be hundreds of thousands of dollars, a 50 foot lot house here might sell for 300,000 over there. I know people in paid two and a quarter million the same thing and so there is a huge disparity. But as our population grows, the idea of affordable and the article thats out front and in the New York Times talks about starter homes and the front page says affordable and it says starter homes. The idea of Affordable House for somebody thats one of the house their whole life. And it has a Silicon Valley job. They cant afford 1,000,000, two bedroom, little bitty kitchen, little bitty house and on a little bitty lot, they still need an Affordable House. Theres this huge huge disparity. It starts with locals and zoning. Those people are elected officials locally and. You dont have to have all this stuff and a lot of people do it to protect the Property Values theyre killing. The possibility for their own children to grow up and stay in the community. One of the best worker houses community in the nation that studied worldwide is right next door. Thats mary, my, which is now hugely because it was worker housing that was wellplanned good common space, good commercial support. So we have one of the best examples in the world, let alone the united states. The planners come to look at all the time today doesnt look like it because of the way the prices are, but thats because it was a nice design. And you can the the the the article in the New York Times today has a plan on the front page. The 77 houses in one year and planned development with lots open space lots community. So that were purchased cash by investors. All right 76 homes one less and that same year were purchased through mortgages and regular people. Now thats a Plan Development if youve got open space and as soon as that and those investors on one third those the eight cant do anything because takes it to third vote to do stuff. So then investors are going to all of a sudden be running right smack dab up against a lot of local people especially zimbabwe of what we in cincinnati call the suburbs, which are also called cities, you know. Yeah. So Northern Kentucky has 32 small cities and, you know, cincinnati is not cincinnati areas. Mason and norwood and, batavia and is, you know, its a metroplex. Yeah, its one Housing Market is driven by housing. And what carol was talking about following Jewish Community. Theres no community to follow anymore. Right . Theres not. And most of the Affordable Housing is going way out east cape has really exploded. Harrison just im aware of the risk having, just got a 500 Unit Development going against the National Park on a state park. I guess. Those will hold value, but as developers can mix value and we have we have right communities around here that have an 18 foot wide single townhome with no garage built in the mid seventies. Yeah. As well as. The same community has riverview with probably double triple in price. People need to do that. They need they need to. But its done by locals. I want to bring an end to make sure everybody can hear a little bit but a question or comment was about the local control that kind of entrenches entrenches certain zoning codes that are exclusionary to lot of Building Models and drives up the cost of that kind of end at the front end for you do money out of there right. And thats yeah. The. Stunning Short Term Rentals that re k of i saw two sides of it where the Short Term Rentals have have entry points into these places and it people say, oh, its just the market at work and. Locals were losing control in that sense. But its theres a deference to the no matter what happens that locals arent acting. Theyre acting theres theres real concern from a lot of locals that their Housing Markets or their housing values will go down if you build these in. But thats kind of the way weve. Designed it, where people are protecting their housing values there . A researcher, i believe his name was william fishel, who wrote a lot and kind of pioneered this idea of home equity insurance, where if you were really concerned, your home price dropping, you could pay into this this structured account, then if it did drop, if they built Multiunit Properties in the if they kept building out, you were assured that your housing your house wouldnt drop in value. I think thats one possible block against that but i think. Its also it speaks a larger issue of people feeling the right maintain in their space, their neighborhood their city, the way its always been. And i think it speaks to when youre talking about local control, a question is how local and because if you allow the city of cincinnati to vote on Affordable Housing measures, that would be in neighborhoods, the city would probably go for it. But very, very local control where people feel that their housing value is going to be affected when you only allow them to vote, its pretty its pretty obvious the end result tg ways from having this tension between. Single family homes, multiunit homes. Its kind of built into the way that we designed the the federal housing from the beginning, going back to the twenties and thirties. It didnt have to be that model and back in the thirties, 40, 5060s,here were many many more thousands many more starter homes being built, which oftentimes get defined as 1400 square feet or less, which might be a garage. Many people now. And so there is kind of a theres. A cyclical nature where people have more space and then they need more space and they want more space. And developers build toward that. And then people want that and. So is who is driving it . Is a big question, but at the heart of it, its policy and policy comes from people and the lobbying that are advocate for those things. And so i think exclusionary zoning, it it at its heart, its about preserving things in a particular way and i think it always deserves a question of who is benefiting from it. Keeping it this way that doesnt get it an answer to it, but it does. I think it it deserves that interrogation. Cincinnati is what in the last. Loughner oh, cincinnati in the last, i guess you would say 20 years. Hey, is that a complete change because. Being gay is probably to say had a little bit to do with it. But a lot of influx has come from this suburbs that they are still building up like mason lebanon up in that area. But a lot of a transition came from that in cincinnati now because 20 years ago you could not find a house that was worth 1,000,000 in over the rhine. And now that whole population just about has changed based upon the development and rezoning certain areas of over rhine that you have districts and what have you in there that do certain things in the housing that thats been there since cincinnati was born here, changed hands to and have been redeveloped to cost millions of dollars. Yep. Gentrification and in its real but they are taking those old homes and they look good parking and no parking. So i mean you so you have those kind of situations that change the Housing Market basically because and then you have two different cultures down there that one main street started devise the culture. Okay but eventually i can see them coming on up the heel to you see, you know, that kind of thing. So because of what you see brings to ci so have a lot of other factors that that have to do with actual housing that puts a change on housing and how is it redeveloped in the in and how it goes from here. Thats the point i was trying to make. Our population is growing. We just tore down a hospital. That was built in the seventies. I worked on it. Im an architect. It was one of the first things i worked on out of college. Jewish has got no deaconess. Oh gosh. Yeah. I thought you said its going to be Student Housing and. And grinders, ice and. Yeah, but i still know they got the money from someplace thats not a hospital. Oh yeah. One of the things thats happening in suburbia right now here is pairing houses so that you pairing like to. We have a one and two Family Building code so you dont have to do all the commercial stuff. You dont need an architect you can build two families. And so marketing wise, since theres a lot of retirees, the baby bonus and everything, some of the builders are doing paired patio homes, which is our paired this they dont say duplexes because that means else to be able to do the same thing but its the same that different it gets into that. Yeah and a lot of it young couples, people are buying a lot of the patio homes. They were so amazed they changed a lot of land plans and some of the pads had to go back to that process. And then they started. Now theyre doing developing and great and we have a lot of top here. So like Northern Kentucky, theyre grading this can be either one right down the street. Yeah because People Developers are responding to the need for starter homes and Affordable Housing in that the median has just gone through the roof. So the bringing it down for a young that has decent jobs and not too big car. I went to one of these places and asked the office homes now. Why, why, why . Why arent you even selling more . Is it . Well, some of these young couples have a car payment higher than their house payment about. Yeah. So the cars are more important to you and the gets to you and go on concerts gets to you used to be the people to them about stuff to the money to buy a house they cant do without anything. Now it seems seems that gets into some other issues. Setting those two it affects everything but yeah ripple uh huh yeah. Those 7 starbucks coffees. Oh yeah. I think the. One. Yeah, one of the things that you see happening is that. That when talk about individual solutions, it it needs to be individual because cities are so different and the factors that they face from the topography to the age of population to the industries there. But everything kind of ripples out. And so when you have one city setting policy is in isolation, this is something that a planner in bozeman i spoke to talked about a lot is that you can have these islands of restraint when it comes to development or prioritizing affordable city. But when its done isolation, other cities are just waiting to capitalize on that and draw on more residents because you of have a situation happening throughout the country and saw this during covid. You see it right now. Remote workers cities are in competition with each other for these high end, high end residents or perceivable high end residents, whether you call them the class or Remote Workers or the young professionals, its its the competition for these same residents. So most cities would say that they want to grow. But if you dig into it, they dont want to grow with everyone. And a lot of times they thats a wonderful they emphasize they emphasize certain types of growth. And i think when people realize that on a very gut level and so when that lot of times you get people shutting down against growth because they realize that the growth doesnt include them or its. At the expense their existing community and the people who really live there. Theres a really bright guy in the planning papers. One time and they are pogo. Yeah, pogo said, weve met the enemy and he has us. Yeah. Mm. Yeah. So its, its. Yeah. When, when you dig into the issues, its just. The short term around was kind of became a good starting point for diving in because its the theres a quote from Langston Hughes he draws from in 1936 he wrote a poem called let america be america again. And hes talking about the country how its being seen the narrator is seeing the country for its freedom, its democracy, its opportunity. And theres someone kind of speaking in the background, their words are in parentheses, and they say, thats not what i see. Thats not what it is for me. And eventually, the narrator turns and confronts that person, he says, whos that whispering in the dark . Who is that drawing their veil across the stars and that speaker responds and says, im the poor, white fool, then pushed apart, im the bearing slaverys scars. Im the red man driven from the land. Im the immigrant clutching the hope i, seek and finding only the old stupid plan of dog eat dog of mighty crushed the weak. And its just this. Its a really profound quote and really kind of digs into this issue. We continually put existing community, uh, on the market for whoever has the the money to come in and turn a profit and the market is always open for someone who has the money to put forward. And so. Its when it comes to housing, there are a lot of there a lot of things wrong. There are a lot of potential solutions. But its thats one of the main things that i kept coming back to, is seeing things more in a community sense, rather than this in individual competitive sense of yeah, really getting people into the canvas ation, valuing housing as the cornerstone of community rather than simply a way to get yours and get out, so to speak. Yeah, well, give us your view. I mean, im. Airbnbs here to stay. I mean, whats whats your status right now . I guess the other question is, well, what else is on the horizon . And like that, i mean, its from a really short period that thats developed right. And i guess one thing that i keep wondering as well, apparently they dont compete with the hotel. I mean, whats happened that i mean, youd think that that would have had impact on the hotel industry, but apparently not. Did you look at any of that . Yeah, too much. They they are so surrounding Short Term Rentals are they here to stay and do they with hotels kind of those questions■ whats. The next thing i mean are are the if theyre here to stay okay then theyre here to stay is there Something Else coming . I mean. Yeah. So it went ill get to the question of whether they compete with hotels because i think this gets into the nature growth and who are we growing for . How do we grow as communities . So a lot of times they they make compete with hotels and hotels havent been happy about Short Term Rentals because many times Short Term Rentals dont pay the same taxes. They dont have the same regulations at play. Many communities have started regulating them more closely to hotels and. Youre seeing that kind of even out a little bit more hotels have gotten more into theho maro theres kind of been a fusion the two where Short Term Rentals rentals one of the founders of originally said one of our only rules is cant be a commodity you can go to a marriott anywhere in the world and it looks pretty much the same. And so he wanted it to look different. And if you stayed in a term rental any time more, they look pretty much the same or the ikea furniture, its a its that a lot of times to the cheapest ways that that place can be furnished and its pretty obvious the difference between. A place that is lived in and somebody leaves for the weekend and, they rent it out when theyre gone versus a place thats on the market year round and they goal is to just bring as many people back to back. So as far as whether theyre here to stay, i think been in some ways. Its up to individual communities. So their communities where theyve passed almost complete bans of Short Term Rentals. And when i say Short Term Rentals, there are different models. So the way it was originally conceived of is, oh, you have a spare room in your house you can rent that out, make a little money you can cook breakfast for the person in the morning, you can give them a tour. But across the board what the way it usually happens, its the entire home thats being out and its not just someone leaving for the weekend and renting their house out or, going on vacation and trying to make ends meet better. Its increasingly owned by either a second homeowner who might be there a few weekends out of the year, or an investor who has no interest in the property. Other bringing in as many people. And i think a lot of communities are regulating it. But. Its taken a lot of pushback from residents and. Oftentimes its coming directly from residents on ballot initiatives, using colorado as an example, couple of years ago, residents really dug in to the issue and. There were ballot initiatives, initiative across the state because they were fed up with trying to get their representatives to do something because this is their home and they representatives. And were like, well, we need the tourism, but this is some that when i was working for public lands agencies, i saw these competing trends. So there was increased tourism, which should be good for residents and Industries Tourism industries. But at the same time that there is more tourism, the housing prices were going up because increasingly they were not housing residents, they were housing tourists. ■■rso i dont know if i got to every question, but. Okay. Yeah. Sure. One of the most important things about your book is the fact that you did start it, you researched it factual and its a its a part the housing industry that the typical residentan relate to, especially a suburban town like madeira, like where you are and like mazan, like all the cities around here, the urban core, what but i think you started out with thats thats a special thing unto itself but where housing is growing, the urban core can only grow up. It cant go out. The out has got to got to do a better job of getting up and using using the land better as you create amenity, which is what america did. The planets health was so good that people wanted to live there. It didnt need Hardwood Floors and marble countertops and the kitchen because they saw it on tv. They didnt even have tv. It was workers housing, albeit it was sundown towns, you know. But they used to haul the workers out before the sunset. And no black person combined and still on probably some of the deeds, its not enforced anymore. They legally got rid of it, but it was a sundown town. Right. And so youre. Housing sort of an uphill battle to be equitable for a long time, but its still an uphill you you know, one of the people that oftentimes ask me and ill ill answer this and ill kind of give you the last word unless theres another burning question. But i, i think people often at and ask me if im hopeful about the state of housing in the future of housing and depressing. Oh, yeah, it, i try not to end that way so i dont know how far in new york but its where we where weve been. Oh yeah. Mm. Yeah. So its as a phrase oftentimes said, if not angry, youre not paying attention. And i think thats true. As i was writing it, its the pandemic was in full swing. It was a winter in flagstaff. Everyone around may seem to have covid. I was pressing to try to work on my thesis and i was digging into these statistics and it me angry because this is this was my this is whats happening in flagstaff. I saw people unhoused on the street. I saw friends who were being forced to leave town, who had masters degrees. I saw it, talked to people who raised their kids in town. And they knew that their were never going to be able to own a house unless it was the house that they lived in. And those things bothered me a lot. And thats those things are happening throughout the country but i tweak that phrase, if not angry, youre not paying attention to be if youre not hopeful, youre not paying attention because. There are so many people working on this issue, carol, being one of them. And. People are paying attention. I think one of the great moments right now is that a great things about this moment in time is that covid kind of collapsed everything into a short time span. And so where we saw a lot of outside investment in housing, Remote Workers spreading far and wide, a need to build more but build more with the idea that everyone be able to live here. It collapsed it into a short window. And so we can see the problems more are tied together. And i think with that it gives us a lot of. A lot of power and being able connect our efforts together and connect the solution. Its so yeah, kind of my larger view on that general question of being hopeful in this moment. I want to give you a chance to add on and if anything that we missed or that you just want to connect leave people with ill leave it open and it wont guide you. What would theres a need for all kinds of housing. So, you know, we all got to realize its its i mean, you know, you got an scale in this country that goes here to here and got people who have to live in housing, some sort of housing. And weve got many People Living under bridges and in parks and what have you. So, you know, we got to look at it all. Is is it its a situation that has to be addressed in this company country. I thought about as you were talking, i used to i remember you i used to get all these notices about this Real Investment course and, you know, you can make money and its a in a sort of like whats happening now because a lot of empty people are investing in real estate. Its really become a commodity and lay there trying to make money. And so you have youre youre novices, if you will, that are doing this and not with any forethought. Other making money and that it has this i mean i think a lot of what is happening is based on that. Well private equity is a huge player and theyre not novices. Theyre not, you know, but i guess theyre not the big developers. So to speak, that have you major corporations. And they have all lawyers and they have developers and people employed is, you know, the person who is trying to live a better life. You know im not condemning im just saying that that we have people who are involved that werent involved previously and now they are involved because they they have their agenda. Thats very true. And one of the easiest ways to lose money, the Building Business is to start developing and not know what youre doing right. And around here, theres a lot of people that have lost a lot of money right right. But its also a great profession to do something a little bit better than the other guy, but with less cost and theres a lot people do that these days. Well, i just want to say thank you, carol. Thank you. Thanks to everybody for showing up and chris and the bookshelf hosting the conversation. Um yeah its been its been really great. Thank you. Oh, yeah. You want totim schwab, a freelae journalist based in washington, dc. His 2019 investigation into the Gates Foundation won multiple awards, including an easy from the park center for independent and a Deadline Club award from the society of professional journalists. His reporting on gates has appeared in the nation, the columbia journalism review, the british medical journal, and represents some of the only Investigative Journalism ever published on mr. Gates. Earlier in his career, tim worked as a journalist for two daily newspaper and as a researcher for the Watchdog Group food and water watch. These gentlemen, please welcome to peoples book. Genetics on. All right. Thank you, everyone, for coming out supporting your local bookstore, the peoples book. Thank you for having me. I was going to start by doing a short reading from the book, then take some questions. Thats all with everyone. The First Edition of a new newsle f