After progressing through the heavily federally-funded affordable housing industry for more than 30 years, it’s a big hairy deal when you see a program designed to support home improvements makes a huge paradigm shift. It may appear nerdy to others, but after negotiating federal regulations and local policies to substantially rehabilitate dozens of old, deteriorated houses for older homeowners, you feel invested in their outcome and appreciate any nuance that will make a difference. For the first time in my career, I’m watching this happen via a pilot government-funded home improvement program led by the City of San Antonio.
Operation Rebuild is dubbed a Demolition Diversion Program and was created through a City of San Antonio Council District 5 initiative, which includes a deep bench of City departments and the Office of Urban Redevelopment (OUR SA)—the City’s development arm. But it is so much more than another housing program designed to save the affordable homes of low-income residents that are at risk of demolition. It is hope for a better return on the tax payer’s investment.
For decades, federally-funded home rehab programs and all of their restrictive strings have solely focused on the house. Anyone who has lived through a major home improvement episode knows the messy business of negotiating with contractors, unhappy spouses, surprises behind the walls, time delays, raising costs, and dust…lots of dust. It is not for the faint of heart.
It is has been a common practice of federally-funded home rehab programs to solely focus on home improvements with a nod toward staving off homeowner demands like lion tamer with a whip. Imagine coupling that process with a human assessment of the homeowner(s) and the causes leading to deferred home maintenance. Is it any wonder that federal programming steered clear of resolving the human factor in favor of just rehabbing the homes?
So, why is the housing pilot Operation Rebuild a big hairy deal? Imagine, in the face of overwhelming mental, physical, and socio-economic challenges, that local officials deem your address—your home—as a dangerous premise which must be vacated. It is enough to bring out the fight in any individual trying to survive.
For the first time that I can recall, this housing rehab program leads with the needs of the homeowner. Enter social worker Elizabeth Cruz, who assesses the homeowners’ current status in a similar way that a rehabilitation specialists assesses a home’s systems. To no surprise, Cruz is finding that the homeowners have suffered the same neglect and deferred maintenance as their home’s systems. Before any paperwork slides across the table, she works patiently to build a relationship with the homeowner. Step by step, she collaborates with the homeowners and, in many cases, their extended families, to determine temporary housing, to screen for previously unknown property tax exemptions, and to identify any other services that will strengthen the homeowners and their chances for successful homeownership.
I’m not suggesting that this is the panacea for the affordable housing crisis. No one action will solve two decades of market conditions that have led us to this point. However, it is a turn in the right direction if tax-funded housing programs hope to provide sustainable homeownership for those in our society who have lacked either opportunity or good fortune.
Read more about the program here.