Mortgage Matters

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Roland Daniels 0:43
Good morning, Las Vegas. Welcome to mortgage matters. I'm your host, Roland Daniels, a certified mortgage advisor with Geneva financial. My NMLS number is 355859, our company, NMLS number is 42056, and I'm here with my fantastic co host, as usual. Heidi Griffith, good morning. Heidi, Well, hey there. How are you this morning? I am doing wonderful. You're always wonderful. I try my best. Happy Sunday. Happy Sunday.

Heidi Griffith 1:15
Good morning, everyone. I'm Heidi Griffith, I am also a mortgage advisor and your Director of Client Services. My NMLS number is 2247754, mortgage matters is about helping you better understand your options around housing, home ownership and long term stability, whether you're thinking about buying your first home, buying again, or you're already a homeowner, our goal is to give you clear, honest information so you can make confident decisions moving forward. So we're in the studio again today. Hopefully you had a chance to catch last week's show. It was amazing. It was amazing. If you did not, I'm going to send you right now to our Facebook page. That's mortgage matters radio, because you'll be able to catch the replay there, because it was a great conversation. We are joined again today with two amazing housing champions. Thank you both for being here. We've got we've got Kate Zook with the Silver State Fair Housing Council. Kathy Thomas is here again with the Southern Nevada regional housing authority. Thank you, ladies, so much. Yeah, glad to be here. Always. What a great conversation we had. I'm excited to continue on. I know that, yes, we all kind of sat down and talked about some things we wanted to highlight, so I think we just jump right in. How about that? Okay, let's do it. So I originally met Kathy at last month's monthly membership meeting with the National Association of real estate brokers. It was excellent. Kathy moved me. I mean, I left, I left. I was like, skipping, like, I really left here with some information. I, you know, sometimes I think that I I kind of have a really good idea of what's going on out there in the housing community. We try and keep our finger on the pulse. We do. We try and stay informed. And we knew a lot about what Kathy was talking about. It was about how she said it along with what she said. But I walked away some really good nuggets, one of them because you and I actually we drive past this weekly. You drive past it when you're leaving the radio show. We drive past it so so marble Manor, if you're not familiar, tell us about marble Manor. Tell us about the background on it and where we are today, because this

Kathi Thomas 3:27
is good. Yes, marble Manor is on the historic west side of Las Vegas, and it is a conventional public housing site, right? 235 cinder block units. It's been there since 1946

Heidi Griffith 3:42
and you knew it was public housing when we drove past drive past it.

Kathi Thomas 3:46
You know that that is public housing, right? It is. It had gotten desolate, right? Not because there weren't people there, and not because the community didn't love it, but because it probably had been too well loved, like it's a little worn. It's a little worn. And quite honestly, it was never built to be there forever. It was military barracks at 1.0 was it? I didn't know that? Yep, yep, yep. Even then post World War, when even the military was supposed to be desegregated, it was segregated housing for military families. Didn't know that. Yeah. So there we are, right, wow, and it's got lots of history. You know, so many folks raised their families there, and it was a safe place for folks to be. And honestly, it just it has outlived its useful life, and the housing authority had been patching on it, you know, fix a roof here, replace the HVAC there, it's just worn, right? We were fortunate enough to apply for a grant the Housing Authority partnered with the city of Las Vegas. Vegas to apply for a Choice Neighborhood Initiative Grant. Okay, and we were one of seven cities to get it in that cohort after us. Thank you. Wow. It's called the Lucky Seven, seven cities, and the Fed said, y'all are the Lucky Seven. Because of that was a nod to us here in Vegas, we got 55 zero, $50 million not all of the members in that cohort. Some got 3525 we were one of a handful of cities to get the maximum amount to do this work, and they selected us because we were able to not just the written application, but HUD came to Vegas and did a site visit, and we showed the level of unity that they thought was rare. Quite frankly, we had the mayor there. We had people from our congressional delegation there. We had all of our partners, not for profit partners, the University. Hello, UNLV. We had all kind of folks there to say, this community has seen so much disinvestment. We're going to come together to transform, right, not a transaction. We're not going to put another project program, you know, some or something, a month of this, a year of that, we want to work together as a community to transform this neighborhood. Now, interestingly enough, marble Manor is written into the city's 100 plan, which is an acronym for historic urban neighborhood design and redevelopment. Wow, I never get the acronym right, but I think that sounds good. Yeah, it sounds good. And the residents actually named it that the city didn't name. I didn't know that that plan was crafted by residents and graduate students here at UNLV. Oh, that's phenomenal. Thank you. City didn't have anything to do with it. Initially, residents and students put it together, brought it to the city. The city adopted it, and it is now an amendment to the downtown master plan. Wow. Marble Manor because it's important to the residents. Marble Manor is important to the residents. Marble Manor was written into the 100 plan. So it's just this natural convergence of things that happened. The grant was available. The city adopted this plan. The Housing Authority is like, we can't keep patching this with bubble gum and duct tape. We got to do something significant. So Choice Neighborhood focuses on housing people and community, and so this 235 cinder block development, which sits on about 35 acres, is going to totally be redone. It'll be 625 units, all 235 of those households get to come back if they choose. Right? No one's getting displaced. This development will have green space and child care and retail, resident run retail. So the businesses that will operate in Marlboro Manor will be businesses run by residents.

Heidi Griffith 8:20
So this is going to be kind of like a live in workspace,

Kathi Thomas 8:24
absolutely, wow. It is a master planned community, and normally you only hear that when people are talking about, you know, Summerland or Green Valley. That is true occasionally Aliante area. Right now, this is a master planned community, and the residents are central and core to that planning

Heidi Griffith 8:42
and the work's already started. I mean, we're watching, we watch that first phase come down. We drive through. I mean, it really is impressive. So when will we start to see maybe people moving in,

Kathi Thomas 8:55
moving in, probably 28 you'll see buildings coming up. 27 so right now, the families who are currently there are being relocated. They have an option, because it's Choice Neighborhood, right, right? They can choose if they want to move to another public housing site or if they want to take a tenant protection voucher. It's like a section eight voucher, okay, right? So those tenants are being relocated, and we don't want to rush them, right? We need to sit down and plan school and doctor's appointments and all the things so that they, you know, moving is disruptive anyway, terribly. It should not, you know, be disorienting, right? So we have case managers that we assign to each of those families, the relocation doesn't cost them anything. So if they need movers, the grant pays for movers. If they need to get utilities cut on at the new place, the grant pays for the utility connection fees, so the residents will not experience a. Out of pocket costs, because this transition is happening, and they get first crack. They get to come back when the new units are available. They get to come back first.

Heidi Griffith 10:11
That's wonderful. And I you would you had mentioned the whole moving thing, which really impressed me, that you'll pay to move, and you said that you know that you pay to pack them up, if that's you, because it's, I know how stressful moving is. I mean, it's stressful when you've got it all mapped out and you plan for the future. It's stressful

Kathi Thomas 10:27
and you never know how much stuff you have

Heidi Griffith 10:30
until you have to pack Yeah, that's why I don't want to leave work, but, but you talked about that, and you made a great point, you know, maybe somebody doesn't want other people touching your stuff, right? So in that event, how does that work?

Kathi Thomas 10:44
They can pack it themselves. There is a formula. We will cut them the check, and they can pay their cousins to come to them. I wrote

Kathi Thomas 10:54
up the truck and go exactly, so

Kathi Thomas 10:58
they get that relocation amount to themselves directly, right? And so they can pocket that money, or they can pay their own movers, or they can buy their own boxes. I don't know. They just, you know, they have to use it for that purpose, to relocate themselves.

Heidi Griffith 11:18
That's wonderful. It sounds like, I mean, it was really thought out. I mean, every step of this has been so well.

Kathi Thomas 11:25
We spent two years, and we don't tell people, is before we got the $50 million implementation grant, we actually had a $500,000

Heidi Griffith 11:34
planning grant just to do the planning, just to do

Kathi Thomas 11:36
the planning. And we paid residents. 12 residents became ambassadors. They helped us collect data. The logo, I don't know if you've seen the it's the residents named this a the process, a new beginning. And there's a logo with shirts and stuff. Oh, I would love to see that a resident, a 17 year old resident, designed that logo, for which she was paid, right? So we use the planning grant to make sure the residents got to buddy up with the so called professionals and influence what ends up so everything they identified as being essential to a thriving community ended up in the plans, the final plans for Robert Manor, wow.

Heidi Griffith 12:27
And you know, that's one of those things that, as you know, just as a person in the community, a lot of times we look at those kind of developments, maybe we're just driving by. Maybe we had a conversation over lunch about them, and we always make these assumptions that, you know, what about the people that have been there for a long time? And that's why I say I think it's just so beautiful how well thought out this was, and how involved these these folks that live. I mean, there's, I'm sure that there's been people that have lived there a long time, and this is a big deal.

Kathi Thomas 12:58
It's a big deal. There's some families who have only lived in public housing, right? So not only you doing with the the disruption of moving, it is the it's jarring to be dislocated, yes, because it feels like you're being disconnected from community. And connection to community as a protective factor for people living in poverty, right? We don't want to sever that connection. So we have to make sure that we approach this the way the residents want us to approach it, as opposed to, you know, like I'd go in and be really efficient,

Heidi Griffith 13:40
and that would look really ugly coming out

Kathi Thomas 13:43
of that. And that's not what the residents wanted. So we have, we've had events where we had a time capsule, there's a there's a time capsule that's gonna when's it opening? How long? About 810, years from now, when the whole thing is done. So fun and the residents collected their mementos, pictures. We had postcards, so they could write notes to themselves in the future selves. That's great future selves, and put it in a time capsule. And because, you know, most people do a big thing when they cut the ribbon, or when it's the grand opening or even a groundbreaking. We we did it when we started demolition. We couldn't tear that down without addressing people's emotional connection to that place, and so we had a big event before no cranes were there, but before the crane hit the side of the writing, we did the time capsule ceremony.

Heidi Griffith 14:40
I love that. That is awesome. Thank you for doing what you do.

Kate Zook 14:43
Thank you. Wow. But here's where we overlap. They're building new housing, okay? And so we're telling people, new housing has to be accessible, and, you know, okay, we have retail downstairs, then we got to have an elevator to get to the first level. I. You know? I mean, we always, we always have these overlaps.

Heidi Griffith 15:04
So we asked this question last week when we spoke, and I really, again, I'm gonna say, if you didn't tune into that episode, I really, you know, it's worth the listen. You can find the replay to that episode, either anywhere that you get your podcast, by searching Marriage Matters, radio, yep, apple. I mean all the podcast platforms. Or you can check out our Facebook page at mortgage matters radio, and you'll find the direct link there, because it really was a great conversation, as is today and last week, we talked about, you're both in different spaces, both obviously housing champions. How did those worlds collide? And especially when we're talking about marble manner. How do we take a look at that and how do they tie in together?

Kate Zook 15:44
Well, I would say, as the Fair Housing advocate, I'm always struck by the fact that we're talking about this new project and more housing for the community. And you know, one of the things we run up against with discrimination is when you don't have enough housing units, it's easier to lie about what's available and keep people out based on illegal, illegal pretenses. Wow. But the other thing is, they have this new project going on, and I'm immediately struck by the fact that the Fair Housing Act has certain requirements in multi family housing for accessibility. So not only are we getting more units, we're getting units that are going to be more accessible, more usable for people. And it's just, it's so exciting, the things that we can work on together and advance together and support each other. And I think that's a very it's a very Nevada thing. It's a very Nevada thing. We've worked hard at it. I think the housing authorities work hard at it. We're not adversaries. We're here to work together for the good of the community. And we, we always come back to that. So I'm excited.

Kathi Thomas 16:54
I think it's important to Thank you, Kate, because we're not adversaries there. You know, even when folks look at the compliance arm of things, they think someone's beating you over your head against you, yeah, and what we're really saying is, help us be better. Help us exceed standards. So for marble Manor, where I think the requirement that someone said we had to have like 5% ADA American Disability Act compliant units, right? And so we're going to exceed that, so we will have double what they say we must have, because we want to be committed to inclusion. We want to be committed to housing accessibility like and we've got affordability, you know? We know how to do affordability over here, we partner with silver state, so Kate's team can be sure that we are remembering that accessibility is as important as affordability.

Heidi Griffith 17:53
That's wonderful. That's a great Kathy word.

Kathi Thomas 17:59
Say that again. Yeah, so accessibility is as important as affordability, yes, when it comes to housing, because both of those are barriers for many of the folks that Kate and I want to serve

Kate Zook 18:13
exactly and as a fair housing advocate, yes, we'll have, we'll have these ADA units that are there. But even ground floor units are all have to have, like, wider doorways, better hallways, all of these great things that, again, as a senior, I'm telling you people need, right? We have so many people who are trying to age in place. And I will tell you that it's not a myth that sometimes when you age, you have age related disability challenges, true. So this is this is huge. The demand for these types of units is only going to become greater and greater. So the more we can do together and in partnership, the better off we are. I said

Heidi Griffith 19:01
it was going to be so wonderful having you both in this space, and I couldn't have been happy. All right, Roland, I agree these ladies. So let's kind of switch gears really quickly, because before we get out of here today, we cannot miss this. If you've tuned in before weekly, you hear me talk about the Fair Housing Act. You hear me talk about testing programs. And you hear me talking about Silver State Fair Housing, because I've been in the real estate world since 1996 I will tell you I purchased my first home in 1995 Roland said, go be a homeowner. Heidi. And I said, Okay, I'm gonna go be a homeowner. And I will tell you I was affected by the Fair Housing Act, although I had no clue there was any such thing. My real estate agent at the time said some really terrible things to me about specific areas, redlining. She was redlining, and I had no idea. I just know it felt really bad, and that stuck with me. So when I went through real estate training and I learned about the Fair Housing Act, a giant. Light Bulb popped up in my head because Kate has said this every single time she's on. We talk about it every week. Everyone is protected under fair housing, right. And a big role that Silver State Fair Housing plays in that space is testing programs. And like I said, I talk about it, but we're going to hear it straight from Kate, because she's obviously far more eloquent than I am. Kate, tell me about the housing program. Tell me why it's such a valuable program, and tell me why we need more testers.

Kate Zook 20:31
Okay, we need this program. Yes, because housing discrimination often happens with a smile and a handshake and the suggestion that maybe you'd be happier over there, and as you experienced in real estate, people may be steered to certain neighborhoods to buy homes based on their race or their ethnicity. It happens in housing complexes, in rentals, and people also lie about what's available, if it's a great way to discourage somebody from living there, and if they're lying to someone because of a characteristic race, national origin, whatever, it's illegal housing discrimination. What housing discrimination testers do are to play the role of someone who's looking for housing, an assigned role that we give them, they don't know why they're going out. They don't know if there's been a complaint or we're simply auditing, and they go out and play the role. Hi, I'm a single person, and I have one child, and I'm looking for a one bedroom apartment. Can I move here by February 15, or whatever it is? But an hour later, we're going to send a second tester out who also has no idea why they're going out. That person is the same race and gender as the first tester, but that tester is going to say, I'm looking for a one bedroom apartment for myself and my spouse or my partner. I don't have any kids. One one household has a child in it, the other does not. And it is stunning. Sometimes the different information that people get, you know, based on this one characteristic. Whenever we do testing, if I'm doing race testing, if I'm sending a black tester out, I have to have a white control tester to go out after them. If I send somebody, well, I don't make my testers have children and take them along, but you know, it's usually about an hour apart, and whatever that characteristic is, they have it. They have it. So we compare those answers. Our struggle is that you can never have enough people to do this. We need the beauty and the diversity of our entire community at our fingertips so that we can put these tests together. And it's complicated. Our testing coordinator has the hardest job in the in the whole agency, right? Because we have to know when people are available, then we have to start to pair them up and make sure that we can get them there at the same time. It's a lot of work, but I can't do the tests if I don't have a diverse pool of testing.

Heidi Griffith 23:11
And isn't necessarily difficult, because I actually attended a testing training did just so that I knew what it was about, right? I wanted to know what it looked like, so that when I talk to people out in the community and say, Hey, this is an important thing if you care about everyone having equal access and following the Fair Housing Act, I wanted to know what it looked like. And I will tell you, it was a great training. It was very valuable. We had a great time. It was really good time. It was three hours, three hours to take the training. But it was very interesting to see, because you can form opinions about this. It's not hard for the testers. I mean, you go out, you say, You're like an actor, right? It's like a cheap secret, if you've ever done, like secret shopping, where they paid you 10 bucks to go to a restaurant and sit down and report back, because you're not looking for for the tester to say, Uh oh, red flag, right?

Kate Zook 24:04
We absolutely do not want the tester to do that. They are not looking for housing discrimination. They're looking for a unit, and they want to know how much it is and how many they have available, right? It is not their job. This is not entrapment, right? This is measuring what's going on.

Heidi Griffith 24:18
Because tell me, and I think I know the answer to this, but you're not out there looking for somebody to do something wrong, correct?

Kate Zook 24:25
No, no, no. And I would say probably 85 90% of the tests we do, there's no problem at all. There's nothing. Wow. But it's stunning when you have a Latina tester go out and say, oh, there's nothing available at that property. That's too bad. And an hour later, our Anglo tester comes back and was shown two empty units,

Heidi Griffith 24:49
because it still happens, right? I mean, it absolutely we'd like to sit here and say that it does not, but every one of us at this table today understands that it does, right?

Roland Daniels 24:59
And. Do have one question, what would you want listeners to take away from today's conversation?

Heidi Griffith 25:06
Let's hear it from both of them, right? Of course, Kate, why don't you start? Since we're there,

Kate Zook 25:11
I want them to know that there's advocacy out there, there is information, there are resources, and there's advocacy out there. And I am speaking to everyone in this community, not just housing consumers, housing providers, the housing authorities, the jurisdictions. We are here to help people, and we want to work with them together, absolutely.

Kathi Thomas 25:35
And I piggyback on that and say, ask more questions. I like that, yeah, don't assume that it's wrong. Go like, there's a lot of fear and concern around the marble manner redevelopment as an example. And folks were shouting gentrification like I heard it. I literally I'd walk in a room. They wouldn't say, Hi, Kathy. They would say, gentrification. I'm like, Are you telling me? Are you asking me? Right? Because if you're telling me, I'll let you hold that opinion right, but if you're asking me, I'll I'll be in conversation with you. So I want people to walk away thinking, ask more questions of us, like Kate and I know a lot of stuff, and what we don't know. We know somebody who knows it correct. We know a guy who knows a guy right.

Roland Daniels 26:25
Ask more questions, because it starts with just one conversation, absolutely.

Heidi Griffith 26:31
And Roland and I come from that place, and really, when we sat down and we said, let's do this show. Let's do mortgage matters. I mean, we had to. We really struggled with the name of our show, right? We didn't know what, but we wanted people to know we are lenders, right? And we work a lot with first time homebuyers. We just did an episode about, you know, why we do what we do, and why we talk about first time because we get a lot of people that go, you don't do anything but first time homebuyers, but we want to be a resource for the community. That's why we are so happy that you are both here today, and there's other resources. And you know, I'll call either one of you and say, Hey, and you'll go, that's not me, but, yeah, give this guy a caller that, you know, call this organization, and I think that that's how we become a better community. So if anything sparks any interest, any questions, let's find out how we get in touch with both of you again. Kathy, how do we reach out to you?

Kathi Thomas 27:26
Phone Number, 702-595-0330, or you can hit the housing authority's website, www, dot s, N, V, R, H, a.org,

Heidi Griffith 27:41
telephone number again, 702-595-0330, I can't thank you enough for being here today.

Kate Zook 27:50
Kate, area code, 702-749-3288 or relay, Nevada, if you need a relay call and it's 702-749-3288 oh, 27493288, the website is www, dot, s, s, F, H, C,

Heidi Griffith 28:09
dot, O, R, G, perfect, perfect. And so people can reach out to you, number one, if they have, if they're interested in becoming testers, right, and then if they have any questions or concerns around how they feel that they've been treated or mistreated in the housing space not always works right, because sometimes things are wrong. Like you said. You know we can have some age discrimination, but you'll let them know, and you'll guide them in the right direction. Yep, we'll look for every resource we can wonderful again. Thank you again. Kate, thank you. Kathy, thank you. You're both magical. I hope that I can have you both in this space again. Yes.

Roland Daniels 28:44
Roland, yes, yes, of course. Thank you. If you have any questions about anything we've talked about today, please feel free to reach out. You can call or text us at 702-210-2057 that's 702-210-2057 210, 2057, thank you for spending part of your Sunday morning with us. We'll be back next Sunday morning at 7:30am right here on KU nv 91.5 until then, believe in what's possible, even if you've been told that it's out of reach. And remember, stay true to yourself and your mind. Bye. You.

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