The I Love CVille Show With Jerry Miller! - Kathryn Kieffer Joined Dave Norris & Jerry Miller On "Real Talk With Keith Smith!"

Episode Date: September 6, 2024

Kathryn Kieffer, Development Director at AHIP (Albemarle Housing Improvement Program), joined Dave Norris & Jerry Miller on “Real Talk With Keith Smith” powered by YES Realty Partners and Yonna Smith! “Real Talk” airs every Wednesday and Friday from 10:15 am – 11 am on The I Love CVille Network! “Real Talk With Keith Smith” is presented by Charlottesville Settlement Company, LLC, El Mariachi Mexican Bar & Grill, Fincham & Associates, Inc., Free Enterprise Forum, Intrastate Service Co, Pearl Certification and YES Realty Partners.

Good Friday morning, guys. My name is Jerry Miller, and thank you kindly for joining us here on the I Love Seville Network on one of our favorite talk shows, Real Talk with Keith Smith. This show is a spotlight on the real estate community in the central Virginia region. It's a 300,000-person market, roughly, and we have a lot of trials and tribulations as it applies to housing. And today's show will kind of unpack some of those solutions and some of those elements that we may need to focus a little more upon. Judah Wittkower, the man behind the camera, the director and producer, I try to highlight this gentleman at the start of every program because we cannot do this without Judah Wittkower. Today's show will not feature Keith Smith. He is at the Riz Media Convention in our nation's capital,

and he is moving and shaking with some of the leaders in real estate nationally to discuss some of the macro trends, headwinds and tailwinds that are facing the industry. But he has welcomed Dave Norris to the program. I think he is a household name in this community. And Dave Norris has welcomed Catherine Kiefer to the program. I think he is a household name in this community. And Dave Norris has welcomed Catherine Kiefer to the program. Judah Wickauer, studio camera, and then a three-shot with Dave and Catherine. Dave, it's great to see you today.

It's good to be back, Jerry. I'm honored to have been asked by Keith to fill in for him. But, you know, he has huge shoes to fill, and I don't know that I can do it justice. I don't have the accent. I don't have the fashion sensibility. I don't have the humor that Keith does. But I will do it justice. I don't have the accent, I don't have the fashion sensibility, I don't have the humor that Keith does, but I will do my best. And I'm thrilled to be joined by Catherine Kiefer, as you mentioned, she's Development Director at Albemarle Housing

Improvement Program, or AHIP, and we're going to learn a little bit more about AHIP today. Hopefully give an update on the CAR Foundation, which is my newest job since earlier this year. And as you say, talk about housing. We're going to talk about some of the trends and challenges, specifically with senior housing, because Catherine's involved with an initiative there that we'll learn more about. And let's take it away. We got Kevin Yancey watching the program, TV station down the road watching the show, the local newspaper watching us today on the program. Catherine, we will start with the

easiest question of them all. Introduce yourself to the viewing public. Sure. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for having me this morning. So I'm Catherine Kiefer. As stated, I'm with Albemarle Housing Improvement Program, or AHIB. We're a local housing repair nonprofit, so we provide homeowners who are income eligible home repair services

to maintain their homes and preserve their homes for the city of Charlottesville and Albemarle County. Fantastic group. Yeah, absolutely. Tell us a little bit more about yourself. How long have you been in town? Sure. I'm a UVA grad. I got here in 1997, class of 01, and have been here for the majority of that time.

Boomeranged around a bit, but couldn't resist coming back to Charlottesville. So love it and don't plan to leave ever again. The hook gets the hook into you. People do occasionally try to leave Charlottesville. They do. And they always come back. It doesn't last long. I think 13 months was my maximum.

What is it you love about the area? You know, there's so many things. I think the small town feel, the four seasons, we're having a beautiful fall right now, so this is certainly a reminder that September in Charlottesville is one of the best times ever. And of course, the Hoos. Yeah, so Jerry, you know, when you and Keith are on the show, a lot of the conversation is how do we help people access homes in this market, which can be challenging, and what are the trends in real estate, and how to help people access all kinds of housing,

whether it's high-end housing or first-time homebuyers or whatnot. And so with AHIP, it's a little bit of a different tack, which is how do we keep people in their homes? How do we prevent people from losing their homes? Which is just as important a piece of the puzzle. And as Waki Nguyen, who's a local notable chair of the board, or vice president of the board of AHIP, likes to say,

it's not enough to get people in homes. We have to stop people from losing their homes. And it's all part of a strategy, a holistic strategy of housing stability for our region. And our non our nonprofit, the Charlottesville Area Association Realtors Foundation, we've got quite a number of board members who are very excited to partner with AHIP, support AHIP. And so I'm thrilled to give Catherine a chance to

tell us a little bit more about what AHIP does. Tell us a little bit about your programs and how you make an impact in our community. Yeah, I'm excited too. Well, first of all, AHIP's been active in this region since 1976. We're going to come up on our 50th year of being active. We started as a volunteer organization at the university, so kind of come by it honestly. And then in 1995, we took over this CHIP program, which was the city of Charlottesville. So for the last 30 years, we've been operating in Albemarle County and the city of Charlottesville repairing homeowners. I think Dave spoke to something very important, which is there are many people in the city and the county who have generational homes that they've inherited. You know, we're looking at third and fourth generations occupying owner-occupied housing, and being able to maintain those homes and stay in those homes

is a really big piece of that housing puzzle that we're trying to solve. So preservation is really what I would say AHIP is about at the very core. And also making things more livable, making them safer. There are a lot of challenges facing a home. Everybody recognizes, you know, when your HVAC goes out and we're having a Charlottesville July, that's a big deal. It is a big deal. Same thing about, you know, crossing a threshold that used to be fine, but as you age, it's more challenging to navigate.

So it becomes a health and safety issue. And so that's one of our, you know, keystone priorities that we like to work with. So questions are coming in already for Catherine. Oh, wow. This one right here is, can she highlight the income requirements or thresholds to get help from AHIP, please? That's a great question. That is a great question. So we serve income-eligible homeowners, and homeowners is something to call out.

It's not available for rentals. However, we serve anyone who's under 80% of AMI, which is area median income, which currently sits at around $123,000. And it depends on the number of members of your household. So I can't quite say exactly what you have to make depending on your dependents or how many people occupy. It's standard, but it's at 80% of AMI's eligibility. So the HUD family household income in the 2023 calendar year was $124,200, which is a pretty astronomical number. The second most expensive metropolitan area in the Commonwealth, the one we're in right now. Have you seen more requests for help as the cost of living has become more difficult to manage?

Absolutely. And I would say we've always seen a demand. You know, a lot of our homeowners are at significantly less than that 80%. You know, average income of households that we served in the last fiscal year was hovering around $32,000. So if you consider that an HVAC replacement is $8,000, that's a quarter of your annual income and almost insurmountable. So there has always been a demand. But yes, Jerry, I's a quarter of your annual income and almost insurmountable. So there has always been a demand, but yes, Jerry, I mean, of course, as finances get tighter, it's infinitely

more challenging. You have to make a decision whether you want to purchase food, whether you want to pay your utility bills, or whether you want to make sure that the ramps that's getting you in and out of your home is sturdy. You know, you have to make decisions. And so certainly we've seen an increase in demand. Our wait list still has clients on it. And, of course, we try to prioritize those health and safety issues first and so making those a priority. Can you give us some sense? I see you have some numbers here.

Some sense of, like, your impact, how many people you're serving, that sort of thing. I'd be delighted to. So I'm going to use last fiscal year, which is, and our fiscal is July to end of June. So in last fiscal year, we served 108 households in the city and county. And those repairs ranged from anything from a small electrical panel replacement to a full-scale rehabilitation, roofing, structural repair, things of that nature. So in those 108 households, we had more than 180 repairs, rehabilitations, and energy-efficient upgrades. So serving, you know, I think that's an incredible number.

That's an incredible number. And if you consider, you know, over the last five years, we're looking at almost 1,000 repairs that otherwise homeowners would have had to forego for financial reasons. More questions for Catherine. How about this? How does the community get involved with AHIP from a fundraising, volunteering, or other standpoints? That's a fantastic question. And of course, as Director of Development, fundraising is right in my alley. We can't do this important work without the support of the city, the county, a number of private fundraisers, grant makers. And so, obviously, the work that we do in any home repair is expensive. There are costs associated with it.

So we always welcome donations. I'm happy to engage anybody personally, or you can learn more on our website at ahipva.org. Similarly, you know, the gift of time is so important. And right now we're really looking for advocacy and raising awareness. I think one of the reasons you're probably seeing so many questions is AHIP's a great organization that's been operating in our community for more than 50, almost 50 years. But we still, a lot of people don't quite understand what we do or how we do it. So with that, we're looking for people to learn more about us and share more about us.

Stephanie Wells-Rhodes watching the program. We do a lot of work with AHIP here at American Pest, and we are honored to partner with them. Love working with Lee, George, and is it Lori? Uh-huh. Stephanie, we appreciate that comment. Formerly of the Interstate Pest Control family, now of the Interstate Service Company family,

and, of course, of American Pest. Stephanie, we love when you watch the show. Neil Williamson giving you both some props right now. Questions are coming in for Dave, and we can table these for now on the Cavalier Crossing recent purchase that made the news, to get your take on that. I got a question for Catherine. 50 years is a milestone. It is. Anything cooking for the 50 years? We are absolutely cooking. Thank goodness we have another two and a half years

before that is there, but we will be celebrating in a big way. I think that the impact that we'll see over those 50 years and what we're doing, planning to do moving forward for the next 50 is very exciting another question's in the feed here does a hip focus on a one or two jurisdictions or is it in the region across the board it is not regional so it's a great service and i regret that it isn't available to multiple counties and other municipalities but we only serve the city of charlottesville and albemarle county at this time richard fox giving dave norris some props right now we love me some Richard Fox. Richard Fox, same.

We love when you watch the show. I think these are the type of groups, Dave, that make the community so fantastic to live with it. I agree. I agree. We have a vibrant nonprofit sector here. We've talked on the show before about some of the other nonprofits that our foundation is looking to partner with and support,

but that the community needs to stand up and support. So organizations like Habitat for Humanity and Piedmont Housing Alliance, obviously AHIP is a big one. There's so many people out here who are doing good work to try to help the people. I say this all the time on the show. It's the people that do the hard work of making this city function, making this community, this region function, help them be able to stay here and live here. And I saw a great t-shirt recently which said, it's not paradise if the

locals can't afford it, you know, and if locals can't afford to live here. So we're trying to help the locals afford to live here and stay here and keep their homes. One of the aspects of your work that I've always been touched by, and I actually had the opportunity when I was mayor to volunteer with a service product that has to do with installing ramps, emergency access ramps or wheelchair ramps. Can you talk a little bit more about that? Because I know that's huge for older residents and people with disabilities. It is. It's life-changing. If you consider the barrier of getting in and out of your own home

and making that four stairs almost insurmountable, literally, that's a real big deal. And so you're right, the ramp installation is huge. And I've actually volunteered since I've joined AHIP. It's one of my favorite volunteer projects that I sort of pop in on and, you know, developed a little bit of an aptitude for. So not just fundraising and development directing, you're swinging hammers, Catherine. I am, yeah. Nice. The ratchet driver, for sure. Very nice.

So the ramps are incredible. And what it affords people who otherwise would not be able to. You know, a ramp installation, again, to talk a little bit of numbers, depending on the complexity, can be $4,000 to $5,000. Going back to what our annual income is for many of our homeowners, that's a big, big piece. So we're happy to do that. We do them temporarily.

So for somebody who has surgery or somebody who can't access their home for a temporary, we can install it briefly and then come take it away and install it somewhere else. We also give seniors the accessibility to be able to get their groceries in and out of their home, navigate, take their dogs out for a walk. I recently was at a project where we built a deck and a ramp for someone who was homebound, but who really enjoyed being able to be in her garden.

To be able to leave her home and sit on a flat deck and safe surface and be able to get there was really, really pretty powerful things when you consider what you and I take for granted. How's the support been from, say, Albemarle County and the city of Charlottesville for AHIP? We're very grateful for both municipalities to support us. The county's been tremendous. We actually have a new program with them this past fiscal year where we're connecting septic to sewer lines in the county. So that's been a really impressive... I have numbers, but I can't remember off the top of my head. But, you know, making sure that's an environmental piece as well, which is something we've really been proud to partner with.

So, again, that's in the county. And then the city, you know, funds us through project support. Is there an opportunity to potentially partner with other nonprofits in the area? We do. You know, Dave spoke to it. There's an amazing continuum of housing nonprofits with other nonprofits in the area? We do. Dave spoke to it. There's an amazing continuum of housing nonprofits and other nonprofits as well who serve the income eligible in the city of Charlottesville and Albemarle County. So we do.

We have wonderful partners. We work with LEAP on energy efficiency upgrades primarily. And then when Habitat or Building Goodness or PHA, all of us are important in maintaining homes, building new homes, affordable rentals, et cetera. So we do. We have a really nice collaboration where we try to recognize what each is doing and lift all of us up. I think a perfect segue to the Carr Foundation. Sure.

Yeah. Yeah, I'm really excited. I've been on the show a couple times kind of talking a little bit about the foundation and kind of laying the groundwork for the foundation. I started as their first executive director in February, March, just a few months ago. And actually, Catherine is one of the first people I got connected with talking about the foundation. We're very excited. This is basically an effort by the real estate community writ large and their partners to get involved in this affordable housing challenge. Realtors see it every day.

They live it. They see it every day. And so they wanted to be part of the solution. And so they've created this foundation. And, you know, it started actually a number of years ago with a workforce housing fund to help teachers, police officers, you know, kind of working class people, again, who are serving our community every day but can't afford to live here, increasingly can't afford to live here, increasingly can't afford to live here. So they started a workforce housing fund to help folks become first-time homebuyers here in the community that they serve,

public servants. And that sort of rolled over into this new initiative called the CAR Foundation. We're focusing on four sort of programmatic areas. One is grant writing and investing in innovative and effective, not grant writing, grant making, innovative and effective affordable housing solutions. And so we'll actually, in the very near future, we'll be issuing our very first grant from the Carr Foundation. We'll be excited to announce that here very soon. Secondly, education, like raising awareness of affordable housing needs and challenges and resources and opportunities.

So we've got a really cool collaboration going on right now with Charlottesville Tomorrow. Not only are we a sponsor of Charlottesville Tomorrow, we love their work. I know you talked about Cavender Crossing. That's one of the kinds of stories that they've been just zeroing in on like nobody else. They've been doing great yeoman's work. But we've got a great partnership with them to develop a really comprehensive, user-friendly, accessible online housing resource guide. So anybody that wants information on how to access housing resources, how to refer people to housing resources, can go to this one page. We've been spending months now, you know, surveying all the

housing providers and doing lots of work. We've got a great research fellow named Mike Parisi, who has been just wonderful in working with Aaron and the team over at Charleston Tomorrow. So that will be unveiled early this fall. We also work on volunteerism, so engaging the volunteer talents of the realtor community and its partners to get involved in affordable housing issues so our first initiative there will be basically recruiting volunteers from the car membership to serve as mentors as advocates for first-time homebuyers to provide that support encouragement yeah I'm really

excited about that that will be partnering initially with Habitat for Humanity on that so we'll have that. We'll be partnering initially with Habitat for Humanity on that. So we'll have more information, and we'll be rolling out about that soon. And last but certainly not least, so it's funding, education, volunteerism, and then advocacy. Because we know the realtor community, and again, its partners, whether they're home builders, lenders, you name it, have a powerful voice. And if they get behind certain initiatives, public policy initiatives, working alongside the Neil Williamson's of the world and others that are really focusing on public policy

and how it impacts affordable housing. Neil is consistently asking the hard questions about are we actually living up to our commitments? He had a great piece just recently about Albemarle County and how they should pivot commercial to residential. Exactly. Allow residential cut the red tape. Just get government out of the way. And that's not the entire solution, but it can be a big part of the solution. And that to me is low-hanging fruit. And so I always give Neil props because he's always asking the right

questions, the right questions, the hard questions. So we're kind of coming alongside folks like Neil or Livable Charlottesville or Charlottesville Low Income Housing Coalition, others that are advocating for good public policy. We have our first advocacy campaign we'll be launching here very shortly. So we're trying to do a lot to move the needle on affordable housing. And again, we can't do any work that we do without the leadership and collaboration with organizations like AHIP. And CAR and CAR's members and the CAR Foundation are all amazing supporters of AHIP. I mean, we are so grateful to have such an active realtor community in Charlottesville. And so they're tremendous support for us. Comments are coming in. Of course, the Cavalier Crossing storyline is something we want your take

on. First, this one's an interesting comment from Marlene Jones, who's watching the program. She said, it would be nice if some organizations can help provide us homeowners with information on the record-keeping needed to claim federal tax credits for energy improvements done in a DIY fashion. So we appreciate the comment. I mentioned it on air. You can always put comments in the feed, and we'll relay them live on air. This, the Cavalier Crossing storyline, at about $560 per room on average, the apartments rented for right over the city limits in almero county in the fry springs

neighborhood it's a northern virginia real estate behemoth that has made the purchase and is now going to what upscale housing and displacing quite a few people a 20.5 million dollar deal done in may just go open-ended for you yeah i mean again this goes back to the conversation we had earlier it's not enough to build new housing or to get people into housing it's how do we prevent people from losing the housing they're already in you know and that's a huge part of the problem a huge part of the challenge uh it's not just cavalier crossing we're seeing it across the board where largely outtown, big corporate interests are buying up what used to be kind of workforce rental housing and gradually transitioning them to a different kind of product.

You know, Cavalier Crossing is pretty glaring because it's a large number. 520. Yeah, it's a huge property. So obviously everybody's very concerned. The same kind of conversation we had with the trailer park that was about to get lost on the east side of town. Carlton. Carlton. 61 units.

61 units. But thank God we had leaders like Dan Rosen swag and Sunshine Mathan who stepped up. And the residents themselves. And the city. And the city. Yeah. Just jumped into it. And within a matter of 30 days, really, saved those homes.

I mean, it's going to take a while to actually implement that effort, but they got a commitment from the city of a significant amount of cash, from the city's housing trust fund, and to be able to purchase the property and avoid having to evict 60 families. You know, that's, again, we want to be able to keep people in their homes. And it's not easy. It's not always easy work. There's no easy solution to something like Cavalier Crossing.

The city's not going to come up with $20 million to buy Cavalier. It's not even in the city, but, you know, the local authorities. So, but it just brings to mind that we can't rest on our laurels. We have to constantly make a priority of building housing, keeping people in housing, getting people access to information and resources about housing. It's a comprehensive strategy. I have no answer to Cavalier.

I mean, other than, I don't know if you have. You have a take here. No, no. Do you have something to say on this? No, I am. I'm happy to just ignore, but you know, I do. I think it's important to maintain all the housing stock that we have and make sure that it's a diverse housing stock, whether it's rentals, whether it's affordable home owner occupied, you know, all of those things. So I do have a sort of a take on it sure which is um clay county what's the county in um north carolina that's cary county okay uh the current county manager of cary county is david ellis he used to be assistant uh city manager here in

charlottesville okay um and we went down a couple years ago, folks from the Housing Authority here and others, to learn some of the initiatives they have in Cary County for making housing affordable or keeping housing affordable. One of the most exciting ones was the Strike Fund they set up, which I think is a brilliant idea. is have a very flexible, very nimble pot of money so that when properties come up that are in danger of being lost from the affordable housing inventory or properties that could be developed as affordable housing that are currently vacant, they have the ability through this strike fund to just jump on that and to buy it and hold it, and then they work with their local nonprofit housing providers

to either develop it as affordable housing or mixed-income housing or to save it as affordable housing. That's a powerful tool that I wish we had here. I'm not saying that that necessarily could help with Cavalier Crossing, but it certainly could be part of the puzzle. But ultimately, it comes down to having the dollars. And so I've said this for 20 years now, that none of this happens without funding.

None of this happens without funding. None of this happens without money. And whether that's local funding, state funding, philanthropic funding, federal funding. Sunshine Mathon recently spoke at an event that Neil Williamson organized where he said, in today's housing market, nothing's going to happen without subsidy, right, to make it affordable. And oftentimes it's multiple layers of subsidy, right so i love what cary county has done we've actually invited david ellis to come to speak at i'm thanks to keith smith i'm now part of the regional housing partnership through the planning district commission and they're having their or we are having our annual housing summit in march um and we've invited David Ellis, and he's agreed to come.

I'm really excited to learn more about the strike fund, but also other initiatives they're undertaking to try and solve this problem. It's a huge problem. Huge problem. The comments continue to come in on this one. This is an interesting one. The city and the county could have potentially purchased

Cavalier Crossing and saved 500 beds at a 20 million dollar clip. Instead they're trying to make a 90 bed 25 million project work at Premier Circle. So that's being put out into the ether, if you may, of conversation. It's challenging because I want to see as diverse a community as possible certainly for our boys as they're raised in this community we don't want a homogenous community we want one that's

diverse of thought and look and feel I think I've been here 24 years you guys have been here longer than me it seems the community is getting more homogenous and less diverse which is unfortunate and housing is a big piece of that. But how do we stay ahead of this invisible hand that we call capitalism, where there's so much money coming into the market? Maybe it's obviously the influence of UVA in large part.

You've got new schools like data science, the Paul Manning Biotech School, Amazon's doing $11 billion in Louisa County, Northrop Grumman $11 billion in Louisa County. Northrop Grumman, $300 million in Waynesboro. The HUD family household income continues to climb. How do we stay ahead of that? I'll throw it to you in a second. That's not an easy question right now. It's not an easy question, but

again, it goes back to we have to be intentional. We have to get out in front of it to the best we can. I've been preaching this for 20 years. You have. This is not something the market of it to the best we can. I've been preaching this for 20 years. You have. This is not something the market's going to do on its own. And you have to bring together the nonprofit sector, the public sector, and the for-profit sector, and others, philanthropy, churches, you name it. This has to be a comprehensive solution because it's not going to happen on its own.

The cities where they have naturally occurring affordable housing are the ones that are not seeing investment, right? And so you see old industrial cities where there's been capital flight, and there's a lot of affordable homes there. But it's not for a good reason. Well, the cities that have natural occurring affordable housing, as you pointed out, are the cities that are often facing economic hardship. That's my point, yeah. And so it's a good problem to have. We like the fact that there are people investing and creating jobs here and creating

economic opportunity here, but people are being left behind. People are being left out. People are making incredibly difficult choices. Catherine mentioned earlier about, do you put a new roof on your house or do you feed your kids? That's literally the kind of everyday life choices that working people and people

with disabilities and elderly people and others are having to face every day in this community. And local officials need to make housing a higher priority, whether that's sometimes, as Neil says, just getting out of the way. Whether it's building new housing to increase supply, which helps with pricing. Whether that's investing in organizations like AHIP. It's a holistic strategy that's needed to get ahead of this problem which actually might be a good segue we're talking about people who are really facing serious challenges is the work that Catherine's doing with the Charlottesville area Alliance do you want to talk a little bit more about I know you're kind of new to that I am

relatively new to that no I'd be happy to mention it. So the Charlottesville Area Alliance focuses on seniors, and one of their priorities is senior housing in our region, making sure that it's livable, making sure that it's walkable, accessible, making sure that all of those pieces exist, and also allowing people to age in place, just to circle back to what a neighborhood is, what a community is. You want to make sure it's a lot more than just a house. It's also the sidewalk. It's also the person who can watch your kid for 10 minutes while you need to run to the store. You know, that preservation and maintaining,

you know, a neighbor who's older and who may be at home and is able to, you know, become a child care provider. Those sorts of pieces are a lot more than a house is. So again, the alliance is really recognizing the importance of aging in place and making aging in place a safety priority. So I'm really proud to be participating in that. And a lot more to come. We've got some initiatives that I think are great, exploring affordable senior housing, including accessory dwelling units, things like that. A lot more to come in that space. You said you've been in the community since 1997?

I got here in 1997. So 27 years for you. Oh, my gosh. August just happened. You came as a first year, right? I did. Okay, so I got here in 2000 as a first year at UVA. What have you seen in 27 years with this community

that you want to champion or that you may be concerned about? You know, that's great. I was actually talking to someone yesterday and I realized that the entirety of my 27 years here, I have been a city resident. I have never stepped into Albemarle County. And so I was thinking-

To live, to live. To live, yeah. No, I've never, you know, I thought about it and I recognized, you know, what my rent was 25 years ago and, you know, thinking what it costs to own a home now. And I will be honest, if I had the ability to go back, I would have invested heavily. Yeah, you would have bought like five houses. Exactly.

Absolutely. Right. No, I mean, I think it's a tremendous community. And I love the fact that I can walk and wave to neighbors and see. And, you know, I think it's important to me as a member of this community that I walk past and I see, you know, a direct primary care physician who I can chat with and, you know, and then I see a chicken in the next yard. And so for me, it's really about that diversity and, you know, neighborhood feel that I love about the city. I would also say it is changed and it is growing.

And, you know, there's a lot, it takes a lot longer to get anywhere I wanted to be. And, you know, keeping sort of, I go to a small local grocery store. I love going to a small local grocery store. I want that to stay. I don't want that to be, you know, at risk. And so those sorts of pieces give me a bit of pause, but I still would never, you know,

dream of being anywhere else. What do you think, this is a question for both of you guys here, what do you think like the next 10 or 15 years are going to look like for this community? I have this conversation a lot with my wife, have this conversation a lot with friends around the fire pit. Clearly UVA is having a big-time influence on what's happening around these parts. Maybe for you, Dave.

Yeah, and to their credit, they're trying to be part of the solution. They're certainly part of the problem, their credit they're trying to be part of the solution they certainly part of the the problem but they're certainly trying to be part of the solution they're they're putting up land to be able to build at least 1,000 new affordable rental units in the community which again is it's welcome and we're grateful for that contribution and so those projects are now moving forward but But yeah, it's an economic engine that brings a lot of blessing to the community and also, you know, makes life challenging for the people who aren't making six figures, you know. And so we have to always be mindful. I'm a broken record at this point, but we just have to always be mindful of that. But

also in terms of the next 10 or 15 years I think some of us just trying to figure out how creative we can be and how kind of how hard and how dedicated we can be to utilizing some of the new tools that are coming up so for instance the city just went through the big rezoning effort again if we do nothing that's not necessarily on its own gonna provide more affordable housing or at least dedicated affordable housing, but there are some tools in there that could potentially result in new affordable housing. So Catherine and I have talked recently about, you know, are there opportunities, you mentioned accessory dwelling units,

are there opportunities with this new zoning regime to allow long-time homeowners who are struggling to stay in this city in this this community to be able to build an accessory dwelling unit to generate some more income for them and in the process create a an affordable housing unit it's not easy those kinds of opportunities there's a lot of challenges sometimes especially if you're talking about a detached structure on your own property but I think there are some creative ways to go about utilizing some of those tools to make an impact. So part of our foundation, we see part of our focus is going to be educating

homeowners, property owners, real estate people, others about some of these new tools and how do we make sure they are being utilized for good? And I talked to a former mayor recently who said, wouldn't it be great if in the process of helping a long-time homeowner be able to build an accessory unit, we also help them fix up their own house? And how do we come up with the financing to make that happen? And so are there ways to help curb gentrification and curb displacement through some of those new tools? So I'm excited about that.

We do have projects that are coming online. Like you mentioned, the Premier Circle, that's going to be huge. Do you want to offer a little details on that? Yeah, so, you know, 12 years ago, we built the crossings at 4th and Preston, which has been incredibly successful at getting people off the streets

and into permanent housing and keeping them. You know, it has a very high success rate of keeping people in stable housing who otherwise had been chronically homeless. We need more of those units. It's been 12 years. We should have kept up the pace in building more of those, and we're finally coming around to building a second Crossings,

which will be up on Premier Circles, currently an old hotel on the property that's going to be knocked down and rebuilt as permanent supportive housing for the chronically homeless. It's going to make a huge impact on our community, and I commend Piedmont Housing Alliance and the Community Foundation and the city and the county and others for stepping up to make that project happen. We've got other, you know, Habitat, obviously, down southward.

Southward, yeah. The Housing Authority is undergoing a $200,000300-plus million redevelopment initiative right now. Now it has headquarters at the downtown mall. Well, let's not get into that. I never thought I would see that. But in terms of housing people, their first two projects have now come online. Crescent Hall's major renovation,

that building was in terrible shape, and the residents said, we want better housing, we deserve better housing, and they took the lead on redesigning their own neighborhood, their own community. Same at South First Street. Now they're working with residents at Sixth Street, West Haven, and envisioning a better future for themselves and their kids and their families. So that's exciting stuff.

So there are a few communities in this country, you can honestly say, there's as much, you know, innovative, like, cutting-edge affordable housing work happening. And I include AHIP in that. But as we've been saying, is it enough? Like, the market is so hot, is it enough? And I know Keith had given us some numbers. I think we're running out of time. But just in terms of what's happening with the market. It's insane what's happening here.

Yeah. And so we've got to just keep lifting up these partners like AHIP, PHA, Virginia Supporter Housing, Habitat, all the groups that are trying to get out ahead of this. Any thoughts on any of this, Catherine? I mean, I will say just listening to Dave speak and being part of the conversation sort of day in, day out, I am optimistic. I think the next 10 to 15 years we do have some tools in our tool belt that we can utilize. And so I'm very hopeful. The questions come on. I get this question. We do a lot of content here at our studio.

And it's come on for you guys. And clearly Dave is a stakeholder and Catherine is a stakeholder. Folks asking, multiple people asking about the houseless population. Why don't I just open-ended on this topic for either of you guys. We're seeing the houseless population and this storyline become a greater aspect of the conversation locally. Anywhere you guys want to go with this? I mean, I'll just take my AHIP perspective for a moment. I mean, keeping people in their homes is really important.

If somebody can't afford to repair their home and it falls into such disrepair that they can no longer live there or occupy that home, you know, that contributes. So making sure that people are safe, can live in their houses as long as they possibly can is really important. And I do think that that contributes. You know, if you see a house that's falling into disrepair and somebody offers you cash for it and you think that that's a great amount of money, and then you realize that that money won't purchase a new home or even go to rent, you know, that's one of those things.

So I think preserving and keeping people in is important. That's my filter, of course. Dave? Yeah, I totally agree. I mean, you have to look at it from a prevention standpoint. Like how do we keep people from becoming homeless in the first place, whether that's by losing their homes that way or just getting evicted from rental housing or just falling through the cracks of the mental health system, substance abuse, et cetera. There's a lot of reasons, and it's not enough to talk about sort of like once they're on the streets, but how do we stop them from, you know, falling through the cracks in the first place?

But, yeah, and a big part of that is just having that robust enough base of deeply affordable housing so that people have a better option and can afford something else rather than having to sleep outside. But it's also just supporting those nonprofits like Pacham and Salvation Army and Virginia Supportive Housing and others that are trying to be part of the solution, trying to build new housing, trying to make sure enough people, enough resources are available for people to get off the streets. The city's trying to step up its efforts. It needs, again, it needs a comprehensive strategy. I don't think we're doing enough. It's heartbreaking to me. I was really proud when we started Potchum in 19, or sorry, 2004. We got to the point after a fairly short

time period where we had 100% of the people off the streets of Charlottesville. Like we couldn't find anybody outdoors, which was remarkable. Not to say there might have been somebody hiding, but we could honestly say everybody who needed a pillow for their head had a place to sleep indoors. And now we see the downtown mall encampments and it's heartbreaking to me to know that people don't have those alternatives now. And so we've got to step up. And I don't have, again, the magic solution, but, you know, you've got to bring those partners together. The mental health issue is huge. Our mental health system in this state is decrepit.

It's wretched. It destroys families. I'm one of them, and mine is one of them. And so many people are being ill-served by our mental health. I'm taking off my car foundation hat for a second. So many people are ill-served by our mental health system in this state, and we don't have the resources for people struggling with addiction that we need to have. There are organizations that are, again, doing yeoman's work, but we need more state support. We need more community support.

So, yeah, it's really tough to see, and I hope we can get our arms around it. It's not a... I mean, it's a small enough problem that we can get our arms around it if we really make it a priority. Yeah, well said. Very well said. 45 minutes, guys, flies when we're

having a good conversation. Catherine, close with a message for the viewers and listeners on anything AHIP related. Sure. I just wanted to thank you both for letting me speak about AHIP and, you know, sharing the word about what we do. We do have a Lunch and Learn coming up, so if anybody was listening to this and wants to learn more, next Thursday, the 12th at 1 p.m. Northside Library, I will be there sharing slide decks and sandwiches from the markets by Tiger Fuel, a good partner of us. So again, if you have any questions, please reach out to me. I'm happy to answer anything. And I really do appreciate raising the awareness about our nonprofit and home repair in this area.

Thank you. Same one for you, Dave. Yeah, well, thank you for coming on and sharing more about AHIP and the great work that you all do. And the Carr Foundation, we're about to unveil, launch, unveil our first website. So be on the lookout here in the next few weeks, carfoundation.org. I'm very excited. C-A-A-R foundation.org. here in the next few weeks car foundation org very excited caar foundation org and we just filmed a promotional video so people can learn more about the car foundation that'll be on the website and we'll be out and about just talking about the work we do so that we in turn

and again leverage the resources of the realtor community and his partners to support great work that's happening with ahip and all the other partners um and just to help make an impact on affordable housing. It's a huge challenge, and we need to come together to solve it. Dave Norris, guys. He set up this interview with Catherine of AHIP. I appreciate you both. Thank you.

Thank you kindly for joining us on the show. Thank you, Dave. Absolutely. Thank you, Judy. Thank you, Judah. Yeah, Judah. Thanks. Absolutely.

For those that are asking, and I see a number of real estate agents watching the show, we appreciate you watching. For those that are asking, counselors see a number of real estate agents watching the show. We appreciate you watching. For those that are asking, counselors and supervisors watching here as well. The show is archived on realtalkwithkeysmith.com, wherever you get your podcasting content, and, of course, on iloveseville.com. We'll continue some of this discussion on our 1230 show, the I Love Seville show. We appreciate Catherine's time and Dave's time, and thank you kindly for watching Real Talk with Keith Smith. So long, everybody.

It was awesome. You're welcome. You did a great job. Thank you.