An Army of Normal Folks - The Preacher Developer: How to Change Your Neighborhood Without Moving Away (Pt 2)

Episode Date: March 3, 2026

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.Support the show: https://www.normalfolks.us/#joinSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Everybody is Bill Courtney with an Army of Normal folks, and we continue now with part two of our conversation with Kevis Harding right after these brief messages from our generous sponsors. I'm Nancy Glass, host of the Burden of Guilt Season 2 podcast. This is a story about a horrendous lie that destroyed two families. Late one night, Bobby Gumpright became the victim of a random crime. He pulls the gun, tells me to lie down on the ground. He identified Termaine Hudson as the perpetrator. Germain was sentenced to 99 years. I'm like, Lord, this can't be real.

I thought it was a mistaken identity. The best lie is partial truth. For 22 years, only two people knew the truth, until a confession changed everything. I was a monster. Listen to Burden of Guilt Season 2 on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. In 2023, a story gripped the UK, evoking horror and disbelief.

The nurse who should have been in charge of caring for tiny babies is now the most prolific child killer in modern British history. Everyone thought they knew how it ended. A verdict, a villain. a nurse named Lucy Lettby. Lucy Lettby has been found guilty. But what if we didn't get the whole story? The moment you look at the whole picture, the case collapses.

I'm Amanda Knox, and in the new podcast, doubt the case of Lucy Lettby, we follow the evidence and hear from the people that lived it, to ask what really happened when the world decided who Lucy Lettby was. No voicing of any skepticism or doubt. It'll cause so much harm at every single. the level of the British establishment of this is wrong. Listen to doubt the case of Lucy Letby on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

China's Ministry of State Security is one of the most mysterious and powerful spy agencies in the world. But in 2017, the FBI got inside. This is Special Agent Regal, Special Agent Bradley Hall. This MSS officer has no idea the U.S. government is on to him. But the FBI has his chats, texts, emails, even his personal diary. Hear how they got it on the Sixth Bureau podcast. I now have several terabytes of an MSS officer, no doubt, no question, of his life. And that's a unicorn.

No one had ever seen anything like that. It was unbelievable. This is a story of the inner workings of the MSS and how one man's ambition and mistakes opened its fault of secrets. Listen to the Sixth Bureau on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Segregation and the day, integration at night. When segregation was the law,

one mysterious black club owner had his own rules. We didn't worry about what went on outside. It was like stepping on another world. Inside Charlie's place, black and white people danced together, But not everyone was happy about it. You saw the KKK? Yeah, they were dressed up in their uniform. The KKK set out to raid Charlie, take him away from here.

Charlie was an example of power. They had to crush you. From Atlas Obscura, Rococo Punch, and visit Myrtle Beach, comes Charlie's place. A story that was nearly lost to time. Until now. Listen to Charlie's Place on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. So you build this church. You take this 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 lot. But you build a team, though. So, like, right now, the church is functioning right now without any of you there. I mean, when I say to church, the people who are in there from my facility manager, minister, business, my other ministers involved, my sick and shut it. So I have a great team of people. And this is not all paid people either. But because we have this love for our community, I can be here and know that there's still, that ministry is still going. But the point is, that's a lot. Yes.

You got a job. Yes. So what made you decide to take on kind of second calling as well? what you call a lifelong community activist. And what kind of sparked to that? Bill, thank you, Fred. I like that you asked that question because people are like, man, you're doing a lot. And yes, it is a lot. I got to qualify with you.

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 Schuller, West Coast. I used to go to his conferences. I never forget. I still use it.

I still tell people this. And you're doing it right now. I see you doing it. You find a need and you feel it. You find a hurt. You just do not know how ironic it is. You just said that 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 collide. Yes. Or passion and opportunity collide. You're saying the same thing. Same thing. You're passionate about your community. And you find a need. And you see needs because you're community pastoring.

And so you decide you're going to become a lifelong community activist. Now, let's just pause. Those words can be scary. Yes. It is scary. Yeah. It could 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 have... You're correct. Shades of a negative connotation. No, no. 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 for to be disruptors. Yes. So distinguish for our audience when I say, here's a pastor in an inner city area that 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. What gets really... The noise. Yeah. So while I was in ministry, like I hadn't had it. And in 2003, I ran for school board in Wichita.

I read two terms. So I remember sitting at those board meetings and having community activists come and yelling and screaming. And after you sit there and listen to that. And you're just going, this is... So when I hear... What were you thinking? This is... A bunch of bull.

Yeah, this is crazy. It's like you're not solving nothing. All you're doing is screaming. You're yelling. You're your own TV for a moment that people who can see it. But what are you going to do? And so when I say community active, I really just break it 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've got to get in there. And just getting up and point fingers and sounding crazy. No, I'm a pastor who's heavily invested in my community, who's very active. If you want, you know.

There it is. That's the best way I can describe community. That's how you did it. So you brought up, what did you say, hope something? Hope, C, D.C. which is, and hope is, so my, everything I do is, I call it a biblical foundation. You got to have a biblical. Why are you doing?

So people ask you your why. Part of my why it comes from two places. Jeremiah and Isaiah, Jeremiah 29, 11, not Jesus, God says, I didn't come to hurt you or harm you. He's talking to the people. But I came to give you hope in the future. and that hope just rose up. Everybody uses hope for this hope, hope, hope. But my hope was an acronym as an activist, community.

It's like, Lord, help me help other people excel, H-O-P-E, 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 also a mindset, spiritually, physically, mentally, emotionally, and financially. How do you take a 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 about in church all day, but you have a faith.

There's a higher power, whatever you want to. So it's healthy. So spiritually, physically killing diabetes, high blood pressure, all those. We have health. Drug addiction. Go down. You hidden it. All of those.

All those, which tie into your mental, your emotional, which ties into your financial, all that. Yeah, very rarely do you find addicts who are unhealthy, financially secure? Yeah. They all go together. Yes. So that's the whole Jeremiah piece.

So in doing so, and I never really, and then connecting Ezekiel, which is more of a personal, peace is going. Yes, these bones can live, but we'll make it happen. And then I go over to which is Isaiah 61, 1 through 4, which is connected to Luke. This is where my, I tell folks, this is where my theology. My theologian comes out of me. I know the book backwards and forwards, which is connected, which is Jesus. And if you read Isaiah 61, 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 I love what Alex is doing. Alex was doing, 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. And so my foundation was, where do you find at?

And mine was, from being as a police officer, was housing. because we discover 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. That's part of it. It is so simple of a calculation the way you just put it, but it's so difficult to pull off. Before we get into that, that. I found it really interesting that near your church or cross from your church was an abandoned strip mall. Yes. And this also speaks to building a community of hope and one worth

investing and staying in. But tell us about what you did there. So and... And this is right at the genesis of the whole hope thing, right? Yes. So 2000, this old abandoned strip mall was still had some tenants in it, but it was on the backside, you had... Was it near your church? Across the street. I could throw a lot at it. We had these places in Memphis all over the place where I'm going to just be real wrong, candid here.

Memphis. Do you remember what Travis Moody said? What? Memphis is the payday loan capital, the country. Wow. And so he's like, you come outside of a church and there's three payday loan stores. And he said, you go... And his line that's amazing is you go inside to pray.

and you come outside and get prayed upon. Yes, the PR you watch. How about that line? Yeah. But Memphis is full of these neighborhoods that, I mean, full of neighborhoods, that you can see homes that were built in the 50s and 60s and 70s that were very nice. And around them are the typical infrastructure of these strip malls. And what used to be a pigly-wiggly or a Kroger.

Oh, man. And then really nice churches. In restaurants. And restaurants. but over the course of the white flight 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 are at big parking lots and maybe 15 storefronts.

And there's a cricket cellular service 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. Yes. That's all only by my Asian brothers and sisters. Cashes. Cassius is laughing. I really could get caches.

Is that not all over Memphis? Yeah. And they're not even owned by the folks who live there. And then in March 1st through May 15th. I'm Nancy Glass, host of the Burden of Guilt Season 2 podcast. This is a story about a horrendous lie that destroyed two families. Late one night, Bobby Gumpright became the victim of a random crime. He pulls the gun.

Tells me to lie down on the ground. He identified Tremaine Hudson as the perpetrator. Termaine was sentenced to 99 years. I'm like, Lord, this can't be real. I thought it was a mistaken identity. The best lie is partial truth. For 22 years, only two people knew the truth, until a confession changed everything.

I was a monster. Listen to Burden of Guilt Season 2 on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. In 2023, a story gripped the UK, evoking horror and disbelief. The nurse who should have been in charge of caring for tiny babies is now the most prolific child killer in modern British history. Everyone thought they knew how it ended. A verdict? A villain. A nurse named Lucy Letby. Lucy Letby has been found guilty.

But what if we didn't get the whole story? The moment you look at the whole picture, the case collapses. I'm Amanda Knox, and in the new podcast, Doubt the case of Lucy Lettby, we follow the evidence and hear from the whole story. people that lived it. To ask what really happened when the world decided who Lucy Lettby was. No voicing of any skepticism or doubt. It'll cause so much harm at every single level of the British establishment of this is wrong. Listen to Doubt, the case of Lucy Letby on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. China's Ministry of State Security is one of the most mysterious and powerful spy agencies in the world.

But in 2017, the FBI got inside. This is Special Agent Regal, Special Agent Bradley Hall. This MSS officer has no idea the U.S. government is on to him. But the FBI has his chats, texts, emails, even his personal diary. Hear how they got it on the Sixth Bureau podcast. I now have several terabytes of an MSS officer, no doubt, no question, of his life. And that's the unicorn. No one had ever seen anything like that.

It was unbelievable. This is a story of the inner workings of the MSS and how one man's ambition and mistakes opened its fault of secrets. Listen to the Sixth Bureau on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Segregation and a day, integration at night. When segregation was the law,

One mysterious black club owner had his own rules. We didn't worry about what went on outside. It was like stepping on another world. Inside Charlie's place, black and white people danced together. But not everyone was happy about it. You saw the KKK? Yeah, they were dressed up in their uniform. The KKK set out to raid Charlie, take him away from here.

Charlie was an example of power. They had to crush you. From Atlas Obscura, Rococo Punch, and visit Myrtle Beach, comes Charlie's Place. A story that was nearly lost to time. Until now, listen to Charlie's Place on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. The, I'll do your tax people show up and get one of them for about two months. Ah, man, you're right. Right.

That's it. So we're in the same neighborhood. And maybe there might be a barber college in one of them. Yes, man. Wichita, Memphis, all over the United States. But that's what I'm picturing. Is that in the asphalt parking lot hasn't been repaired and it's cracked and got a little grass in. Holes, you got to go drive around them.

And the street 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. All right. And you. That's across street from the church that you're working to build. and now you start Hope, and you're like, we got to do something with that. And we did.

My first major commercial development was I bought that whole strip mall, $2.5 million with a tip. Oh, you bought it. Where did you get the money for all that? Again, entrepreneur's spirit. It wasn't my own money. I built a great team. I went out and found a couple developers. So I got my, I have my real estate agent.

who became part of the team, Landmark Commercial. I had my architect, construction company, and the developer, and I had Adam Jones Law Firm, and then myself as a pastor, we built and we created this team, and we called, it was, we created an LLC. It was called, I call it H&H, which was, I asked him, I hey, this is a Harding and Harding project. I was doing it and remember some of my, my dad and his brother, who were entrepreneurs, I didn't, they had a little shop, but they're deceased now. But so it's H&H LLC and we created this and put all of our business.

I was TK Investments, which was my LLC, was inside this LLC. We all have our LLCs and we went, I shared my vision and my mission. What was your vision? You're buying an empty strip ball in the hood for $2.5 million. Some might call you crazy. Oh, I got everything. It was, you know, when you do a TIF, you know, now that's for people's taxes and tax, a TIF is a tax increment finance district. Right.

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, I mean, 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. It's where people in the hood say they're going to the corner store. Thank you. And then we got those.

And then. And the corner store ain't nothing but a bunch of processed chips and stuff and all that. And so AOC-1'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 it. And physically, physically, mentally, emotionally, all of them. So you want to turn this thing into a grocery store? Is that what you're doing?

So we did. We contact Walmart, who was at the time, was doing a new concept called a neighborhood there. It was the Walmart neighborhood grocery store. Yeah, we got a bunch of them around here. I, they had a, so here's, it's the beauty and also a pain to it. So we, we bought it, refurbished it, tore down half the strip ball. And we, after six months, every Monday, I'm off on Mondays, every Monday I would call the realtor and say, hey, still got this land.

Great place for a grocery store. They kept saying no. June of, was it 2000? because it's on sale in 07. And yeah, every Monday. And by April 1st, 2008, we bought it. And then by that summer, this is back in 07, 8, Walmart finally said, yes, we'll come.

And we built it. Tell them how many times you had to call this guy? Oh, I called them every week, every Monday for six months. And they showed up. And now you have a store, but the neighborhood has a grocery store in it. Well, we got the grocery store. We had a ribbon cutting and everything. And it was going well.

And then we got close to the, it didn't say COVID, but right around 2019, they saw forecast or what, but Walmart didn't like the concept of a neighborhood grocery store. So they went across to cut this is the country not just word that store They went across the country and they found they closed a hundred and fifty those stores And the one we worked so hard to build and get and it was phenomenally it was never empty They closed it And so the only we got was they were the number one this this location was the number one And I want to thank Walmart because they first of all they said yes and

And we were great partners. But business is business. And so they had to, they closed 150 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. But what hurt us, we were also the number one shoplifting. I was wondering.

I have a friend 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 sat down here, you'd talk from 10 minutes, and you'd love them. He is, and he specifically has a brand of store that he plops down 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, in the food desert areas, and 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 and tough neighborhoods than that get rich and not surf. And he really does do this. He puts his money where his mouth is. That he's all. Tell him, thank you.

But I'm going to tell you something. He gets robbed, aligned, shoplifting, and everything else. And then he calls the police for help. And what are the police going to do? to a shoplifter when the jails are overcrowded anyway. And they end up arresting the same people over and over and over and over again. And it's this concentric mess. And I was actually wondering if that.

We were like, look, don't shoplift. We're telling people, I'm preaching. Hey, we got a story here to quit shoplifting. You're going to lose it. We're literally saying it. And was the beauty of that was this same Walmart grocery store was hiring people from our church? I can't count how many people who. Your employees.

Who were in church work there. So we created jobs, too. They closed it. But the beauty that I, and this is with standing together with Joe Woodward is we 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 I've been trying to do is educate people on their phones, your apps. can have all your groceries delivered to your house now. So we can give them cards, those subscription. We're going to give them prepaid subscriptions to a Walmart for a year.

Now you can go, you can still 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. If we can't bring the store to you, we'll at least have the store come to you. But the point is, all of that is that's, that's, that's, that's, That's the picture of the neighborhood. Yes. Now, because I made the strip mall look so great, it's completely full.

We have restaurants are in there. Good. We have the plumbing age facts and bought that area. But the point is, it's developed. It's providing jobs. And you can picture, I hope people can picture in their mind, Cassius Sherpin, because he was giggling. So that's what your idea is with hope. It's to redevelop the neighborhood, serve the neighborhood as a pastor.

We'll be right back. I'm Nancy Glass, host of the Burden of Guilt Season 2 podcast. This is a story about a horrendous lie that destroyed two families. Late one night, Bobby Gumpbright became the victim of a random crime. He pulls the gun. Tells me to lie down on the ground. He identified Tremaine Hudson as the perpetrator. Germain was sentenced to 99 years.

I'm like, Lord, this can't be real. I thought it was a mistaken identity. The best lie is partial truth. For 22 years, only two people knew the truth, until a confession changed everything. I was a monster. Listen to Burden of Guilt Season 2 on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

In 2023, a story gripped the UK, evoking horror and disbelief. The nurse who should have been in charge of caring for tiny babies is now the most prolific child killer in modern British history. Everyone thought they knew how it ended. A verdict? A villain. A nurse named Lucy Leppie. Lucy Leapie has been found guilty. But what if we didn't get the whole story?

The moment you look at the whole picture, the case collapses. I'm Amanda Knox, and in the new podcast, Doubt, the case of Lucy Letby, we follow the evidence and hear from the people that lived it, to ask what really happened when the world decided who Lucy Lettby was. No voicing of any skepticism or doubt. It'll cause so much harm at every single level of the British establishment of this is wrong. Listen to Doubt, the case of Lucy Letby, on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

China's Ministry of State Security is one of the most mysterious and powerful spy agencies in the world. But in 2017, the FBI got inside. This is Special Agent Regal, Special Agent Bradley Hall. This MSS officer has no idea the U.S. government is on to him. But the FBI has his chats, texts, emails, even his personal diary. Hear how they got it on the Sixth Bureau. podcast. I now have several terabytes of an MSS officer, no doubt, no question of his life. And that's a unicorn.

No one had ever seen anything like that. It was unbelievable. This is a story of the inner workings of the MSS and how one man's ambition and mistakes opened its fault of secrets. Listen to the Sixth Bureau on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your Podcasts. Segregation and the day, integration at night. When segregation was the law, one mysterious black club owner had his own rules. We didn't worry about what went on outside.

It was like stepping on another world. Inside Charlie's place, black and white people danced together. But not everyone was happy about it. You saw the KKK? Yeah, they were dressed up in their uniform. The KKK set out to raid Charlie, take him away from here. Charlie was an example of power. They had to crush you.

From Atlas Obscura, Rococo Punch, and Visit Myrtle Beach, comes Charlie's Place. A story that was nearly lost to time. Until now. Listen to Charlie's Place on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. 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 earlier you said your mom worked three jobs, took care of you guys, but was never able to own her own home.

And home base was your grandparents' home, but your parents' home. Mom was never an own home. And I can't help but think that that experience as a kid was a huge part of while you're doing what you are doing now, that all of this is kind of leading up to the what you're doing now. Yes. Well, it's a major part because growing up, I can count, let me put it back up, I can't count how many elementaries I went to.

because, you know, we come home and we have to move. And I remember, I still talk about this vividly. I even said in sermon, you know, if God allows me, and this is not before pasturing. I just because I grew up in my faith, like if God allows me to be successful, I want to be a homeowner where when I have kids, they're going to go to one school.

Like when I say one school, they're going to go to one elementary. They're going to go to one. They're not going to be moved. They're not all the time. They can, both my kids can say I went to Buckner Elementary, in what you're taught, Buckner Elementary, Brooks Middle School, to Northeast Magnet High School.

They, they grew up in the house I live in now. My kids who are in their 30s now, this is where they grew up. They only know this. That's home. That's home. When we say we're having Christmas, are it's time to come home, they know where they're coming to. That's, it's base for them.

Can I ask you a quick question? And honestly, this is, who boy, this is a dumb white guy question. But I'm going to ask a dumb white guy question. There's some dumb questions. When I first started working in the inner city, which is 30 years ago. So there's a lot in my vernacular now that didn't exist prior to them, if you can imagine. Yeah. There's so much of my life that has been enriched by the blessing of having been accepted into and invited into and loved into a culture that in this country of ours, oftentimes many people don't get to experience that kind of exposure.

And that goes both sides. Right. We're now all three when you really think about the Hispanic community. But one of the things that irritates me a lot is when kids I coach say they stay somewhere. They stay here. I stay here. I'd be like, where do you live? Well, I stay here.

Cow surfing. And it irritates me because one of my degrees is, English. And so I always say, dude, would you quit using stay? You live somewhere. You live somewhere. And that was my approach for a few years. Until I started to wonder, are they actually correct? Because when you are on Section 8 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 every eight to nine to 14 months,

you're moving from one apartment to another apartment. One, your living room never looks the same. Your bedroom never looks the same. There's no point putting anything 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 pipes break or the government assistance changes or whatever.

and as a kid, you're constantly going to the next place that you're just going to stay, not live. And I just wonder if the inner city vernacular of I stay here rather than saying I live here is actually just accurate. I would say so because if you go back in our earlier conversation, I told you, I grew up and lived. live at 1533 North Pott. Your grandparents. That was my base. That was home because we moved so much. I stayed here.

I can, from Jefferson Woodgate. I can just name. I can see these places. Just Chautauqua, Primrose. These are just places I can see where I lived or stayed. Two, three years. I can't remember living somewhere five, ten years. Growing up, never.

And so in some part, you're trying to, we had another guest, and I hate to keep invoking guests, but we had another guest 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 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 school mid-year,

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 until the end of the school year. She got to go that week for her cross on the curb. Yeah. 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 that district.

Well, the class you left and the teacher you left and then the class you get input into and the teacher input 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 then the school district promotes you because of your age. 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 in schools where people can actually remain there

so these kids quit get moved around. And what they've modeled out and proven is that by just having settled housing, kids scores double reading, reading proficiency goes through the roof just from stopping these kids having to constantly move. Yes. Schools, neighborhoods, friends, fit men. But it feels like that's exactly. what you're trying to attack now. Yes, that's what I am attacking.

How do we stop this cycle? And for me, personally, what I discovered, watching my own kids was part of attacking or stopping that cycle is housing, a place to call home. 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, a checkbook, or taking care 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 have to keep it up.

So while we see that steady home ownership decreases valence, 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 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. So how'd you fix it? Well, we're still working. Well, how we fix it in here? Well, tell me what you're doing. Because I know you got houses going up right now. Yeah. So we, we, first of all, I am, what I've done, and there's a lot of work, a lot of lead work.

This is over the course of five years, right? Yes. And we're still growing. 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. How do you buy homes from the city? Like tax sales? Yeah, tax and HUD.

Well, the city, which you saw, was basically getting out of a 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. It's at our nonprofit through a lot of generosity out here, fundraising, because, you know, community development corporation nonprofit,

you're not asking for a couple, 2000, 3,000. You need some money. You need millions because you're trying to buy a block. Can we go back just for a quick? Sure. Because I had to look it up. Sure.

When I read this, and I think it's important for our listeners to understand, when you say the city had to get out of the housing business, I don't think most people really recognize, that these cities, and Memphis is one of them, our cities, since around the 60s, which I think was well-intentioned policy at the time. Well-intended. 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. Yes.

Cabrini-Gone. And all these boarded up. And this is what we're talking about. where Obama Ozikowski lived next to Krabrieney Green. Yeah, like a Kroberi Green. But this is what we're talking about the project. Mm-hmm, the projects. So can you take us through that before you go to how you bought them from the city?

Yeah. So like you said back in the 60s, how do we build these affordable housing? And which they did. They did it. They were working on this project of affordable, affordability for the urban community. And in the process, they created these ghettos, these. Lund from New York to Chicago, named some of the larger cities. And then when they got to the Midwest, they didn't do them, you know, vertical.

They went horizontal, but they were still projects. And there were communities where they were HUD, 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 you live in the hood. You, you know, are... But the problem is that that's perpetual rent. Mm-hmm.

Because when the city and the federal government owns them and provides you with assisted housing and low-income service housing, that's great. You've got a roof over your head, but you're never going to get up. You're never going to own it. Right.

But they didn't have what we call an ecosystem to help them get out of poverty. It was just assisting them to have a place to stay, but how do we get them from that place to actually buy it from you? Have you seen in Wichita, what I've seen, all what I've seen in Memphis, and I bet you're going to say yes, that when you're in that

kind of housing situation and you're also in the free cheese line every two weeks, that you might could get a raise or get a job, or you might could get married, but if you do, you lose your basic sustenance. And so you're actually systematically, by well-intentioned, but what 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. Yes, that's why my dad didn't live with us.

You have a man in the house. You didn't get no, you didn't get subsidies. You didn't get subsidized. You had to be a single parent. And I mean, I knew my dad, I love my dad. I mean, he's deceased also. He was a chain smoker, but that was part of it. You know, if you, and so you had a lot of families that I grew up with no dance in the house.

Because, or they had to live, they live there, but didn't legally live there. The hypocrisy drives me insane. It was paying, yeah. What the hypocrisy is, we, the government, culture, society, policy say, organic two parent families are what fixes everything. Yes. You've got to have a home, two incomes. You've 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 and generations of that, you end up with dilapidated HUD- spiked food deserts, where your church says. Yes. And it spirals in their own direction. So what, like you said, was good intentions, bad outcomes. And so as our nonprofit, we're like, okay, since you're trying to get out to business, let us, because we're a great landlord. I have a great management team. I had a young lady.

We had a washing and dryer. She called Saturday, Monday her washing dryer is fixed. You know, she can tell her like, man, I would call my old landlord, you know, to do something like that. Oh, God forbid the city. It takes a month. That might take six months. You call the city somebody. And so I'm like, no, no, we got to let people.

And so because we're trying to, so while we're trying to get ahead of myself, why, so that same family, we're trying to, we're educating them. So while they're in our, our properties. Because our, so let me back up. So, hold, we, we, we lease for homeownership or we build straight for homeowners. So if you can, if you have the right income, we'll build and have, we want to make homeowners. Because homeowners make better, stronger neighborhoods. But we have a generation I call the millennials. So you actually bought HUD homes, dilapidated board of homes from the city, rehabbed them.

And we then we advertise and we work with the city because those folks, this waiting list that they have with Section 8, the voucher, 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's what a financial literacy class look like. We got bridges out of poverty that we teach. I facilitate it how to bridge them into the future. How to home ownership, budgeting. What about finance, interest rates?

All of that. My wife's a banger. She does a whole class on how even to do a mortgage, how to buy one. How to get your credit right? We have credit counseling where we sit down. So that's what I'm saying. How can these people that you're building these homes for end up in ownership when their credits must up and all that? How do you do?

That's the part I don't understand how you do. That's the key to me. So as you're working with them, you're connecting them with, again, I'm using like a bank. Or you connecting them to what we call the credit consumer counseling, which we use to say, okay, here's your credit score. This is what we got to do to get this credit score right. which was created in 1980s, by the way, another, there was no such thing as a credit score until you had this upward mobility of people like, hey, we got too many folks moving outside the red zone.

The red zone. So we need to make sure they can live over here. So you got to have this score. And that's where you get this. Is that right? Oh, yeah. Now, that's interesting. Yeah.

Credit score never existed in the 60s and 50s and 40. That happened. It came out nowhere in the 80s. Research it. I want you to research it. You'll see it. I will, but I also take it your word. But the point is you're saying the whole credit score.

To me, another set of roadblock. Because the GI bill, you come back from the military, we give them money away. And then we're like, wait a minute. We know you serve, but is your score right? Because we don't want you able to move out here, too. So really? Your score is too low so you need to buy in this area. Wow.

Credit score. Yeah, that's another story. It's just interesting. It's really interesting. But Alex will get mad at me if I take us too far down that road. We'll be right back. I'm Nancy Glass, host of the Burden of Guilt Season 2 podcast. This is a story about a horrendous lie that destroyed two families.

Late one night, Bobby Gumpright, became the victim of a random crime. He pulls the gun, tells me to lie down on the ground. He identified Termaine Hudson as the perpetrator. Germain was sentenced to 99 years. I'm like, Lord, this can't be real. I thought it was a mistaken identity. The best lie is partial truth.

For 22 years, only two people knew the truth. until a confession changed everything. I was a monster. Listen to Burden of Guilt Season 2 on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. In 2023, a story gripped the UK, evoking horror and disbelief. The nurse who should have been in charge of caring for tiny babies is now the most prolific child killer in modern British history.

Everyone thought they knew how it ended. A verdict, a villain, a nurse named Lucy Letby. Lucy Letby has been found guilty. But what if we didn't get the whole story? The moment you look at the whole picture, the case collapses. I'm Amanda Knox, and in the new podcast, doubt the case of Lucy Lettby, we follow the evidence and hear from the people that lived it, to ask what really happened when the world decided who Lucy Lettby was.

No voicing. of any skepticism or doubt. It'll cause so much harm at every single level of the British establishment of this is wrong. Listen to Doubt, the case of Lucy Letby on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. China's Ministry of State Security is one of the most mysterious and powerful spy agencies in the world. But in 2017, the FBI got inside. This is Special Agent Regal, Special Agent Bradley Hall. This MSS officer has no idea the U.S. government is on to him.

But the FBI has his chats, texts, emails, even his personal diary. Hear how they got it on the Sixth Bureau podcast. I now have several terabytes of an MSS officer, no doubt, no question, of his life. And that's a unicorn. No one had ever seen anything like that. It was unbelievable. This is a story of the inner workings of the MSSF. and how one man's ambition and mistakes opened its fault of secrets.

Listen to the Sixth Bureau on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Segregation and the day integration at night. When segregation was the law, one mysterious black club owner had his own rules. We didn't worry about what went on outside. It was like stepping on another world. Inside Charlie's place, black and white people danced together. But not everyone was happy about it. You saw the KKK?

Yeah, they were dressed up in their uniform. The KKK set out to raid Charlie, take him away from here. Charlie was an example of power. They had to crush you. From Atlas Obscura, Rococo Punch, and visit Myrtle Beach, comes Charlie's Place, a story that was nearly lost to time. Until now, listen to Charlie's Place on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. You decide homeownership's the key.

We're going to revitalize the neighborhood through homeownership, and we're going to teach them people to it, and you start buying vacant property and old home homes and fixing them up and leasing them to people who could own. but then trying to teach your goal is to not lease forever. No, especially as a nonprofit. I don't want to have a thousand homes on the books where I'm, like we're making money now. Non-profit, you're in this to, you know. But you need some capital for your staffing.

So you're going to, you know, if I do apartment complex, but it's going to be a beautiful, like for seniors who are on fixed income. But my goal is to take younger people and to help them stay in the neighborhood, on their properties, and make the neighborhood good, that people want to move back into. to 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 can't just get it to the homeowner, you can still do leasing. But what

happened for us with Hope was after COVID and all that we went came out of is the price, you know, stick bill, construction, lumber. Housing costs have gone through the roof. I mean, to build a three-bedroom, two-bathroom home, or you can say two-bedroom, one bath, whatever, whatever. You know, we're looking at, you know, starting ground, $200,000. Cost, cost. Just think of lumber, you know.

And so we had this like, okay, what other models are out there that works? Well, we as builder, as a developer, can do what we're doing. but keep our cost low so we can keep it affordable for those we rent to. And our lease, do I like to say release because my goal is to move them out of this place. Release them to. Yeah, you know, we lease them to, but you're trying to release them from now. And get them to the place of being homeowners are, if not able to be, don't, because we discover some just don't want to be homeowners.

Some folks don't want to fix when the dishwasher breaks. You know, we got that generation. And folks like, I just want to lease. And so we cut grass and pull the trash. But anyway, I'm sorry, I'm going down my own rabbit. No, it's good. So we buy these properties and we try 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, it's modular homes.

It's not mobile home. Please, we're not making mobile parks. And from all my mobile home, 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, not a place, but a home. And so modular homes is where we, I went down to Tulsa, Oklahoma, or hourly outskirts of a Tulsa prime craftsman, family owned, husband and wife, went down and visited, and I had some empty lots, and we bought four of their modular homes and brought them up. It's just like it's a home.

It's not mobile. It's permanent. So 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 pad. And it's hurricane resistant. tied down, it's bolted down, just like a framing, but it's all, all of it's done inside. It cut our costing hat.

I can do, yeah, I can do, well, I was saying, like 200, 250, I can do one of the, I can do a two-bedroom, two-bath for 150. The buy, not, you got to, and still add in your, your, your concrete for the driveway, but just to build, it's, it's affordable now. I can make the numbers work, or I can, if I can keep my note, because, you know, we, you know, we, have the note on it at, you know, say 150. That's my number, 150. Well, now I can rent this two-bedroom, two-bath, modular home. And that, because you base it on your zip code in 67214 for $920. Compared to that same house, if I put it out there in a different zip code.

My daughter, before she got married and moved to Montana, rented a one-bedroom, one-bath apartment in a 1930-year-old. built place that was rehabbed in Midtown Memphis, which is nice enough, but not great. She was paying 21. That's four years ago. She was paying 2100 a month rent. Thank you. That's what we're eliminating with the money. Literally is half what she was paying.

We under half, over, more than half. So how do they transition to be able to own that home? Then I was, so this is a beautiful name. I wish Steve was here. Steve Phil Meyer's partner mine. He's with Wichita. affordable housing. Part of Coke, he's retired CFO from Coke. Love this. I mean, I the heart of God, I just love him. He's like a brother to me. I'm young, I'm the younger one,

but love this guy. I'm sure he's listening. You're a dude who says how much he loves you and your brother just calls you old. Not that much. He's not even five-year-old. Whatever. I'm kidding. But no, no, but he retired CFO from CCOG connects with stand together. And he, he's not, He has a passion, been in Wichita, 35 plus years. And we drove, he and I are ones who drove to 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 connecting me with other folks that have that

kind of financial resources to help, but you've got to show them what you're doing, we started the process. So how does that person that rents that home end up being able to own it? Well, again, I'm sorry. Thank you for saying that because I was talking about giving Steve's kudos. No, I get it and I appreciate it. But I, 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 the answer. It's interesting that a community police officer became a community pastor who cares so much about this community that he's gotten into all this,

which is why your story is so unique. But from a pragmatic perspective, if all you're doing is leasing these cool new homes, then you're 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. 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, they, 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 a wraparound services.

But when the wraparound services are all that financial literacy, bridges out of poverty, save, match, and grow, where we actually help them save, having the same account. We match it. Really? Yeah. It's called save matching growth. So if you get in this class, go to the whole class as part of D-free program out of East Coast,

we is called the save match and growth would stand together. And so we have facilitators. they teach it. And when they go in, we open them a savings account with them. If they put in 400, they am matched to 400. And then up to $1,000 within the year. And then we were just training them to keep setting up auto pay. So if for four years they save $1,000 of their own,

they're going to have $8,000 at then they're four years. And then they can use that at grand for the down payment. Well, not even they can use it for that or whatever they need to get themselves out of debt. But now with the housing, When you leave from us and we say, okay, eventually we want you to be a homeowner. When they say, yes, I want to buy this house. So when they give me rent, I'm taking, say they give me 920, I'm going to take 10% of that or 20% of that. I'm putting it at escrow.

So I'm helping them build up their down payment. So when they're ready to buy. So you're escrowing a portion? They help them with their down payments. This is there and collects. And so then when they get a big enough down payment to qualify for a loan, then their house note to own is probably no more monthly than the rent. That's the goal.

The goal is to make sure that if when they become homeowners, their mortgage should either be lower or at the same, not higher when they buy it. That's life-changing. That's how people actually build wealth. That's the whole deal. You're building wealth, and now you're making a community wealthy. That was underserved, underprivileged. Now you're building them out of this, basically out of the Azars, Phoenix into this great, vibrant neighborhood.

I know you said you're still doing it. How many of these places you got out there? So I've, man, you made me think about that. I just closed on four properties, four modular homes literally yesterday. we're remodeling 13 now. I just bought 12. Good grief. That's in the pipeline after the 13 get remodeled the next 12.

Just so I'm that's, and I have seven that's coming on the block next week. I bought them from the city with people who already live in there. The city just wanted them off their books. And they're going to move those 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 we, that's seven. So I'm saying about the end of this year, I'll be at 50 homes. I presently am renting right now. One, two, three, four, five, six, eight right now. And we started three years ago out of when the COVID officially come over. When was that? Yeah.

Three. Three. So you're at eight. Well, really, ten, because I sold. I built two and those are homeowners. I love sand. I got. And they're in there.

So you've got two transitioned ownership. They are homeowner. You've got eight rented. And by the end of 26, you'll have 50 of these things. Ready. And then that will be leasing, but not just to leave. They're leasing to get them through the literacy classes. To be homeowners.

Escrow some of the money. And, and starship. position than the ownership. And then how, how, I know it's not infinite, but there has to be thousands of these types of properties. Oh my God.

We could change every city. If every city did this, we would, we would eliminate crime. What? We would eliminate, because when, again,

you said it earlier and I, and I, which I could, my research tells me, it's biblical. We know, home ownership, our property,

owner, when you have something that's yours, you have pride in it, 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're reading, right? They're not getting put into special ed and they shouldn't be there.

I have so many kids that I grew up with in special ed, but they're supposed to be there. They just assumed they were not learning, right, because they were moving so much and they just come in and say, okay, you're not at reading level. So you know what? Your special ed needs kids. No, he's not. So you're saying in these neighborhoods, if you own it and it's yours, you take care of it. And the problem goes away.

Education goes up. Job opportunity. All of that. Relationship. Healthier homes, healthier families, all those go up. Because now you have your own. You're going to take care of your house. Yeah, you're going to have a drink here and there, but you're not an alcoholic.

You know, you're not part of the alcoholism in my neighborhood growing up wasn't because they didn't have a home. It's because depression and go on anxiety and all the other things that come with it. I can go on and on. Kevin. Maybe talk about Steve for a minute. I know we kind of blew past it, but like his vision, he like retires. He's got time, like how he helps you with the interest rate amount versus traditional banks.

Like he's really put a lot of fuel to your fire. Steve, I'm going to say his name, a slow. Steve film. Meyer retired Coke, CFO, 30 plus years, retires, and he has... And everybody, we're not talking Coca-Cola. No, Coke. Coke Industries. Founded in Wichitao by the Koch family.

And then Steve himself has been a blessing. So he's set up, so I have Hope CDC. We're in partnership with Steve's LLC, which is called Wichita, Affordable Housing, LC, where he went out and got the CRA money, which is Community Reinvestment Act funds from different banks and wealthy individuals where he basically 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 5%. Oh, wow.

So now I'm, he's my lender. He's your lender. But at the same time, we feed all. off each other because now he's pumped and literally we're bringing a, the very modular company that we went down to visit. We're bringing that to Wichita. So now we're going to be hiring people. So because what we discovered is part of the cost of driving now, even though Tulsa's two

and a half hour drive in Wichita, to bring a modular home up as expensive, 5,000 minimum, just to bring it from. Tulsa. Transportation costs? Well, if we can bring it here, when I say here to Wichita, well, literally the transportation costs just got killed because it was from 5,000 to whatever that. So are they going to start build modular homes in Wichita? We're bringing prime craftsmen homes that was in Tulsa through Steve. I want to want people that know this through Steve. And I'm a small minority owner of it. And some other investors, we're bringing that same model to Wichita.

We have the space. We've leased it. We got a lease. And by spring, we have our own company right across the street for Wichita Tech, which is Wichita 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 help you move into any other construction company in that area or become your own.

And what's so cool about what Steve and 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 where these investors actually get a return. Yeah. That's just a lower return from what they would get elsewhere. But because of that, you can actually tap into a much greater capital. That's what I was going to.

You can be an investor. Yeah. That's what I was going to go to next, which Alex segued, but it's great. What I find interesting about it is, is that this is a sustaining model because investors at it are not just giving away their money. No, yes. They're getting some return, but because it does good for the community and it's philanthropic, they're happy to take a lower return than they could elsewhere. Which is, I love it. It's impact investing.

impact investing. Yeah, you're making an impact. You're not getting a 10% return, but you're getting half of that, but you're making an impact on your own community. You're making an impact immediately. We'll be right back. I'm Nancy Glass, host of the Burden of Guilt Season 2 podcast.

This is a story about a horrendous lie that destroyed two families. Late one night, Bobby Gumpright became the victim of a random crime. He pulls the gun, tells me to lie down on the ground. He identified Termaine Hudson as the perpetrator. Germain was sentenced to 99 years. I'm like, Lord, this can't be real.

I thought it was a mistaken identity. The best lie is partial truth. For 22 years, only two people knew the truth, until a confession changed everything. I was a monster. Listen to Burden of Guilt Season 2 on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. In 2023, a story gripped the UK, evoking horror and disbelief. The nurse who should have been in charge of caring for tiny babies is now the most prolific child killer in modern British history.

Everyone thought they knew how it ended. A verdict. a villain, a nurse named Lucy Letby. Lucy Letby has been found guilty. But what if we didn't get the whole story? The moment you look at the whole picture, the case collapses. I'm Amanda Knox, and in the new podcast, Doubt the case of Lucy Letby, we follow the evidence and hear from the people that lived in,

to ask what really happened when the world decided who Lucy Lettby was. No voicing of any skepticism or doubt. It'll cause so much harm at every single level of the British establishment of this is wrong. Listen to Doubt, the case of Lucy Lettby on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. China's Ministry of State Security is one of the most mysterious and powerful spy agencies in the world. But in 2017, the FBI got inside. This is Special Agent Regal, Special Agent Bradley Hall. This MSS officer has no idea the U.S.S. officer has no idea the U.S.

government is on to him. But the FBI has his chats, texts, emails, even his personal diary. Hear how they got it on the Sixth Bureau podcast. I now have several terabytes of an MSS officer, no doubt, no question, of his life. And that's a unicorn. No one had ever seen anything like that. It was unbelievable. This is a story of the inner workings of the MSS and how one man's ambition and mistakes opened its fault of secrets. Listen to the Sixth Bureau on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Segregation and the day integration at night. When segregation was the law, one mysterious black club owner had his own rules.

We didn't worry about what went on outside. It was like stepping on another world. Inside Charlie's place, black and white people did. danced together. But not everyone was happy about it. You saw the KKK? Yeah, they were dressed up in their uniform. The KKK set out to raid Charlie, take him away from here.

Charlie was an example of power. They had to crush him. From Atlas Obscura, Rococo Punch, and visit Myrtle Beach, comes Charlie's place. A story that was nearly lost to time. Until now, listen to Charlie's Place on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. So to ball it up, you've got a finance company, really, who the investors of the finance company are higher net worth individuals from the community. In banks. Yep, 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, their philanthropic thoughts. 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 rates money to go buy properties or by empty lots. Yes, you got it. And then to 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. And then you're getting people from a traditionally mobile community because of rents and everything. And you're putting them in new homes or rehabbed homes and then teaching them how to be in homeownership and transitioning them to homes. But that's it. That's it. You hit it. But that's phenomenal because you're a pastor. Yeah.

Dude. That's what that's what. Dude, you're a pastor. Which is goes beyond just the pool pit. That's fantastic. That's... And you really think by the industry or you'll have 50 of these properties? No, no, I will.

All right, I will. They're on paper. Three years. Three years, 500. Holy moly. And of that 500, have you guys talked about what percentage annually you want to transition from lease to release? It's going to be a mix. You're going to...

you know, like 30, 30, 20, because some of those are going to always be leased because we're, sure, I get it, but what you're saying, let's say it is 30% that goes from, I love your term, we're going to, they're going to be, they're going to, we're going to go from lease to release. In other words, lease to release them from the lease. But if you're talking 30% and you're talking 500 homes, you're talking, you're creating somewhere around 100, 150 new homeowners in that neighborhood every year. That's, that's the goal. That's the goal, vision, and mission.

That is community, as life-changing. That's community development. That is life-changing on the micro-level for the family, but on the macro-level, that is revitalizing an entire area. Yeah. And well, here's a, all that's correct, but here's the other piece that's going to bless this project is Steve and I, along with our consultants and lawyers, is going to our own state and going to look, as a number.

nonprofit, why are you, why am I not sales tax exempt like Habitat or Mennonite? Because we're so new, they like, who, you know, I'm like, no, we can't do. But if I can get tax exempt and we're in legislation now, it lowers the cost even more. It lowers the cost even more because now I don't have to pay the sales tax on 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 homeowners, we put this house back on the tax roll. So now we have an area. It's good for the city.

It's good for the city. Because right now, they ain't get nothing on these places. In fact, it's worse than nothing because they got to pay to keep the dead gum things up. They got to pay to cut the grass. They got a K to put the boards up. And so once you go to a home ownership, they get put back on the tax rolls, which helps the tax base for the city. In that community. They can fix the community.

The roads, the schools, the whole thing. It's considered. You got it. You're there. One of the thing on the housing front, you could probably talk about this Kevis is I saw Steeu saying in an article that we need many more Kevises. Yes. Like a big limiting factor right now.

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 it's in their self-interest. We're trying to take care of our family. But there's nobody really looking out for this type.

person. We, so, so let me stay, what, thank you, Alex. So as Steve builds his, Wichita Affordable Housing LLC, it's not, he's not building or raising this fund just for me. Oh, it's not just for home. He's working with Habitat. I'm now bringing other,

even if they're LLC, because he was working just with nonprofits, but if we can even work with some small, uh, landlord, who are just trying to take some property, and long as they're doing it to be affordable, well, he'll work with him.

But he has a little system that he works and to make sure they're not in this thing trying to, you know, just make money. But if they can, so Steve's team is, yes, I'm probably one of their largest consumers as a nonprofit, but Habitat has borrowed from them. rocked a block they didn't

with a neighborhood that that's also a 67, 2, and 4. Part of that rocked the block was funded by Steve's fun. Minotanai 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. How do I even mentor more people, you know, create more of me? I don't want to be the only game I want to be where I'm done such a good job that I work myself out of a non-profit that we solve the problem. But I believe we're going to always have this issue so we can. How well do you know some of these families? 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. I don't know we can say names because I didn't ask for permission. One of my favorite stories is he's a single parent father, African-American brother, raising his two kids. He and his, she got in some trouble. Both of them were in drugs. Bad. I mean, bad.

Bad. They were homeless, bad. but through another nonprofit that I collaborate with any nonprofit from Family Promise to these are different that they do more wraparound services with people who are transitional housing and so family problems had this young man two kids they work with him looking for housing I'm trying to not get to get emotional. That's why I'm looking away right now. I look at people. I start crying. I'm a cry or something. I'm trying to, because I get emotional. You should cry, Kevin. No, I did enough for that in my last video. I was trying to cry then.

But to see this person who was trying to change his life, I mean, he wanted to change. He's like, I'm through with drugs. I'm sick of him. And for him to, we need to cut. for one minute. I feel like a tears coming. I just, I see his, his face. But to give him peace, and that was, that was a, that was a great, great, great. And can we cut? I need a. People, I can get you tissues if you want, but people cry all the time on the podcast. You're not the first guest. How old is he?

Mid-30s. I want to say, yeah. And so he's a single father who had been fighting drugs, gone through transitions homeless, and to give him a key to a home. Two-bedroom, you know, no, three-bedroom, one bath. It's a house that I remodel. Now, this was, I told Steve, I said, Steve, I'm going to take a hit on this. He said, we come on.

I said, Steve, we bought, we bought, so we buy houses off. Thank you for asking. I also buy a house that's off auction. So I go to, if I see a house I like, I've done two of those where I buy a house for 60,000, and I put 40,000 in it. So it's 100,000, but it appraises that 140. Yeah. So it's good.

It's good. But now I got this one, 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, your insurance, all the stuff that comes with it. So when I had it up, I had it up for, it's a three bedroom. I was leased. I had it on the listing. I'm following that zip code. The zip code says for 672, 14, for a three bedroom, you can do 1,200.

Well, they had been, this, it was a man, to me, it was like, this man comes, okay, I can do that. Well, he was using his voucher. They said, well, you don't make enough. and although it's a three-bedroom, you can't have it unless he unless he are not a profit. Me, says it's a two-bedroom and you have to rent it.

So I took a hit. What's that from $1,900 to $9.20? 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 $200 myself,

kind of like my tithe. I'll put a tithe in the church. now I'm tighter than the hope just to cover his subsidy so I can so the board can feel comfortable with that we're still getting enough if I was wealthy

I do more but I would need this do you think he do you think we eventually own that home yes oh yeah that's the beauty 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 for a third let me look he was homeless with his kids Well, that's why I was about to say, forget him for a second. What has it done for, to break the proverbial cyclical problem. Now these two kids have a home. And these are like 11, 12-year-old. They're running around, they're running around the house.

This is our house? It was to hear them say, is this our house? This is our, like, yeah, this is your house. And I gave a kid that's dead. And go back in there and see it. I mean, he has the bedroom looks like there. This is my bedroom. This is my bedroom.

And then he has his bedrooms because this is three bedrooms. They all have their own room. They used to sleep in the same car. And they got their own bedroom. Oh, God. That's the change from car, huddled up together to your own bedroom. Now, now we had to do some, we had to do some home ownership training because the young girl, no names, but she was, she didn't want to eat her peas. This is their, they wouldn't even the house.

It wasn't even the house a week. No, don't say two weeks. I get them two weeks. But she didn't want to eat her peas. So she put them in a Dillon's, our Kroger bag. And she called herself getting rid of it. So she flushed it. She told on herself, because, so he calls me, go, man, we got a backup.

I'm going to have backup. That's a brand new sewer. I mean, literally, it's a brand new sore. So we had to tell her, you don't. But that's really part of it. And I know that seems so stupid in the first reader. But if you've never lived in a home and owned a home, you don't know how to take care of a home. Right.

So we have all part of it. So we had to sit down with family promises. Like, here's what you put in the trash. We even say, this is what you can put in the garbage disposal. That's where you put peace. Listen, if you've never had a home had been taught, how the hell you're. you're going to know. I don't care if you're 10 or 10 or 50. Yeah. And that's and she was so and a great say his name, but the father's like, I'm going to really get her. He was trying, like, he was, 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 eating. She was just trying to get rid of it. And so to see that now. And do you stop to give yourself a chance to think that 50 this year and in three years, 500, that the story you just told me are going to become commonplace. Yes. Well, that story is going to be common, but also what's going to be common is that they become homeowners.

That those kids will common is like, this is my place, this is my house, this is my home. And so that it's, that, you know, you tell you a story, that, that's just one. I got a single parent. I'm curious. How close is that to where your grandparents house was? Oh, God, I could walk to it.

No kidding. Yeah. It is that close. It is like your neighborhood. When I say 6-7214 or just whatever this, it's difficult is, it's, and where you're sitting right now, whatever. But it's right there. It's in the same neighborhood.

So you literally are doing this. Right where I grew up. Literally. been incredibly rewarding. The first house that I built and sold, and like I can tell you, so there's these streets called Minnesota, Minneapolis, these are streets,

Piat and then Ash. I lived and I grew up with my base with my grandparents, 15, 30, you know, are Pai. You go down to that corner and one block over, it's the first house I build and sold. And it's beautiful.

Your grandparents would be so proud. Oh, my granddad would be just losing it If I say granddad, look, this is what he would, oh, granddad, I call it granddad. You know, my, well, yeah, he would be, he would be losing it. If people want to, is there a website, somebody go to? Oh, man, please, if anyone wants, it's www.w.w. Hope, you don't like this. I love it.

It's kind of long, but I love it. Hope builds community. Love it. Dot org. And if somebody wants to talk to you about your experience, because I think they wanted it, How do they get in touch with you? They can email me, Kvass at hope builds community.org.

K-E-V-A-S-S-S-E-V-A-S-C-V-A-S-E-V-A-S-E-V-E-V-E-E-V-E-U-I-L-D-S-E-S-C-U-I-L-D-S-O-R. Brother? Yeah, thanks for having me. I know as a Reverend, you're... You're... But we're brothers in Christ. All of us. Yeah.

that share 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 15,000 square foot mansion sipping my ties by the pool. I think when Christ surrounded himself with fishermen and prostitutes, and then we're called to be Christ-like, I think we have a responsibility inside our faith to immerse ourselves with the neediest among us. Yes. And you as the leader of a church showing your congregation of this work.

That's the key. You hit it. It's showing. So I don't want to be just the preacher. And I love preaching. But Christ went beyond preaching. And that's what you're doing in your community. Yeah.

He healed on the Sabbath. Literally two blocks from where you grew up. What an amazing story. Reverend Khevis Harding, pastor and executive director of Hope Community Develop Corporation in Wichita, Kansas has figured out a way to revitalize neighborhood with great team has figured out a way to revitalize neighborhoods, rebuild families, and rebuild culture and community. And this is something that could be modeled in any city in the United States. Any city.

I'll come show you how to do it. You've got his email. You know him out of it. Kevis, thanks so much for coming to Memphis, tell your story. Thank you, man. Bill, this is good. Awesome. I enjoyed you, man.

Coach, I call you coach. You call me coach anytime, brother. Coach. Thanks. Yeah, thank 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, 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 normalfolks.us, and I will respond. If you enjoyed this episode, share it with friends and on social, subscribe to the podcast, rate it, review it, join the Army at normalfolks. us, all these things that will help us grow, an Army of Normal Folks. I'm Bill Courtney. Until next time, do what you can. I'm Nancy Glass, host of the Burden of Guilt Season 2 podcast.

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