This week on Power House, Diego has the pleasure of being joined by Jonathan Reckford, the CEO of Habitat for Humanity International. Since its founding, Habitat for Humanity has helped over 62 million people in over 1,000 U.S. communities and 71 countries.
Diego and Jonathan dive into Habitat’s complex role in both the federal and local level of the US housing market and their work to help the affordability crisis, including their involvement in local zoning campaigns and advocating for federal pro-housing programs. They also talk about their collaboration with banks, builders, and local governments, and why this cooperation is the key to solving the housing crisis.
Here’s what you’ll learn:
There is a significant supply gap in the U.S. housing market that needs to be addressed at a larger scale.
Nationwide NIMBYism is a challenge to building affordable housing in communities.
Collaboration with local governments is essential for effective, boots-on-the-groud housing policy.
The housing crisis is a national issue that affects all demographics.
Creating more starter homes is crucial for improving access to homeownership.
Habitat believes that a mixed-income community benefits everyone.
Related to this episode:
Habitat for Humanity
https://www.habitat.org/
Jonathan Reckford | Habitat for Humanity
https://www.habitat.org/about/habitat-for-humanity-leadership/ceo
Enjoy the episode!
The Power House podcast brings the biggest names in housing to answer hard-hitting questions about industry trends, operational and growth strategy, and leadership. Join HousingWire president Diego Sanchez every Thursday morning for candid conversations with industry leaders to learn how they’re differentiating themselves from the competition. Hosted and produced by the HousingWire Content Studio
Diego and Jonathan dive into Habitat’s complex role in both the federal and local level of the US housing market and their work to help the affordability crisis, including their involvement in local zoning campaigns and advocating for federal pro-housing programs. They also talk about their collaboration with banks, builders, and local governments, and why this cooperation is the key to solving the housing crisis.
Here’s what you’ll learn:
There is a significant supply gap in the U.S. housing market that needs to be addressed at a larger scale.
Nationwide NIMBYism is a challenge to building affordable housing in communities.
Collaboration with local governments is essential for effective, boots-on-the-groud housing policy.
The housing crisis is a national issue that affects all demographics.
Creating more starter homes is crucial for improving access to homeownership.
Habitat believes that a mixed-income community benefits everyone.
Related to this episode:
Habitat for Humanity
https://www.habitat.org/
Jonathan Reckford | Habitat for Humanity
https://www.habitat.org/about/habitat-for-humanity-leadership/ceo
Enjoy the episode!
The Power House podcast brings the biggest names in housing to answer hard-hitting questions about industry trends, operational and growth strategy, and leadership. Join HousingWire president Diego Sanchez every Thursday morning for candid conversations with industry leaders to learn how they’re differentiating themselves from the competition. Hosted and produced by the HousingWire Content Studio
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NewsTranscript
00:00It's not just a moral issue.
00:01It's actually very much a practical issue.
00:03If we actually can't create housing,
00:05it becomes an economic break
00:07in terms of being able to grow.
00:16Welcome to Powerhouse,
00:17where we interview the biggest names in housing
00:20and ask them about their strategy for growth.
00:23I'm Diego Sanchez, president of HousingWire,
00:26and my guest today is Jonathan Reckford,
00:29CEO of Habitat for Humanity International.
00:32Jonathan, it's so great to have you on the show.
00:34Thanks, Diego.
00:35Glad to be with you.
00:37So before we dive in,
00:38for those in my audience
00:39that maybe aren't as familiar with your organization,
00:42what is Habitat for Humanity?
00:44So Habitat for Humanity is a global nonprofit.
00:48Our vision is a world
00:49where everyone has a decent place to live.
00:51I think the two things we're best known for
00:53turn out actually not to be true.
00:55Most people, when they hear Habitat for Humanity,
00:56they think Jimmy Carter
00:58and believe that he both started and ran Habitat,
01:01which is not true,
01:02though he and Mrs. Carter
01:03were certainly our most famous volunteers,
01:05and they really put Habitat on the map.
01:07So when they got involved all the way back in 1984
01:10and rode a bus up from Plains, Georgia to New York City
01:14to rehab a tenement building
01:15on the Lower East Side of Manhattan,
01:16no one had ever seen a former president of the United States
01:19sleeping in a church basement and physically doing the work,
01:21and that really started an amazing 35-year run.
01:25The second thing is that people think we give away houses,
01:28and that is also not true, actually,
01:30and I think that, in a way,
01:31the secret sauce of the traditional Habitat model,
01:33we talk about self-help or partnership housing.
01:36So we lend to families who don't have high enough incomes
01:40typically to qualify for a bank mortgage,
01:43and instead of a cash-down payment,
01:45they put in sweat equity
01:47and then help build their homes and their neighbors' homes
01:50and then repay an affordable mortgage
01:52that then recycles in their same community
01:54and helps other families have that opportunity,
01:57and that's really led to remarkable growth.
02:01Also, people don't realize how diverse our network is,
02:04but we serve 1,000 communities in the U.S.
02:07with our local affiliates,
02:09and then we serve in 71 countries around the world.
02:11So through millions of volunteers
02:14and a lot of creativity and innovation I can talk about,
02:17we've now been able to help over 62 million people
02:19have new or improved homes.
02:21Such an amazing organization.
02:23What do you view your role as in the U.S. housing market?
02:29So in the U.S. housing market,
02:32our goal is actually to be a partner and a catalyst.
02:35So on the build side,
02:36our focus is particularly the creation
02:39of new affordable home ownership units
02:41that I would say are accretive to the market.
02:43We're actually building with families
02:44who otherwise wouldn't be in the market,
02:46so we're adding to the housing supply
02:49and adding to the market.
02:50The other side is preservation.
02:51We're helping particularly low-income families
02:53who own their homes stay in their homes,
02:55and we view that as an important part
02:57of the mission as well, and that's grown.
02:59And then I think one of the big changes for us
03:03is moving much more heavily into the policy side as well.
03:07A long time ago, we recognized
03:09that we couldn't build our way out of the problem,
03:12and today, certainly in the U.S. market,
03:13we have a massive supply gap.
03:15We've been under-building all the way since the 08 crisis,
03:18and so we are focused not only can we build more,
03:21but how do we actually help the market create more housing?
03:25Because if we don't supply more housing,
03:27what happens is everyone's bidding up
03:29the existing housing stock, and that has grown this gap
03:33between what it costs to create a unit of housing
03:35and what a significant percent of our population
03:37can actually afford.
03:39Yeah, and I wanna circle back on that supply issue.
03:41It's the key one in the U.S. housing market.
03:44How does your organization work with housing professionals
03:48like real estate agents and loan originators?
03:52So not as much,
03:54but we're starting to move more in that direction.
03:56So historically, we actually were our own loan originators
04:00and did all our own financing
04:02because nobody would finance our families.
04:04Now, part of our work is actually helping families
04:06get ready for home ownership,
04:08and if we can get a local bank to lend to a family
04:10that we have prepared for home ownership, that's a victory.
04:13And then, and we've got situations
04:15where now we've got some friendly banks,
04:17they're doing the lending and we're preparing the families,
04:20and obviously we can build much faster
04:22if we don't have to raise all the capital for the mortgage.
04:25So if we can bring in a little bit of subsidy
04:28and get a bank to do the loan, that's fantastic,
04:31and that grows the market faster.
04:33In terms of agents, I think mostly that's been referrals
04:37because typically we don't have, our resales are tiny.
04:41So to the extent of Habitat family moves,
04:44they could certainly hire an agent and sell their home.
04:46They are their full owners.
04:48We've been actually moving as a compromise
04:50of our traditional model,
04:51more towards some lasting affordability
04:54or shared equity models,
04:56particularly for the super expensive markets.
04:58So what's happened, and if we want to build
05:00on the West Coast or the Northeast or Hawaii,
05:04the land is so expensive,
05:06there's no way the families can afford to purchase that.
05:09So in those cases, whether through a land trust
05:11or a shared equity model, the family can still buy the home,
05:14they can still earn appreciation,
05:15but they effectively can only sell back into Habitat
05:18or to another income qualified family.
05:21And that allows us to lower their property taxes,
05:23but also find a way to actually make that home affordable.
05:26We have a lot of mortgage lending executives
05:29in this audience.
05:31If they're interested in partnering with Habitat,
05:34what's the best way for them
05:36to reach out to your organization?
05:38We would love that.
05:39So they can reach out directly to me
05:41at jreckford at habitat.org,
05:43and we can connect our corporate partnership team
05:46to them.
05:47We work with a number of the big banks
05:48who work with us with CRA or with other assists,
05:50both volunteer and we actually,
05:54we're known for our construction volunteers.
05:56We actually love the skilled volunteers
05:57who bring their professional skills
05:59to come in and help solve the problem
06:01because really philosophically,
06:03we believe the best answer for society
06:05is to create mixed income, mixed use communities,
06:07but increasingly that's not the way
06:09we're developing our cities.
06:11And so we love partnering with builders.
06:13We're building mixed income neighborhoods.
06:16We would actually love the builders
06:17to bring Habitat into their projects
06:19and create mixed income that way.
06:20And we're finding in some cases
06:22that cities will create extra incentives
06:24that can make the total math work
06:26if we can create those partnerships.
06:29And who is a typical client for Habitat?
06:32So the typical client for Habitat
06:34is a family that is typically between 50 and 80%
06:38of the area median income in their area.
06:40Now that's gonna look a little different
06:41in an expensive market versus a place
06:44like Atlanta where I live.
06:45But in Atlanta, that might be a single mom
06:50with a couple of kids who has a solid job,
06:53has an income, but making 40 or $50,000
06:57can't possibly afford a lot of the houses in the market.
07:01And we give them that opportunity
07:03to come in and become a homeowner.
07:05And what we find is a higher percentage
07:07of home ownership in a community
07:09is good for the whole community, not just for the family.
07:12And we've become, in a way, a country of people
07:14with assets and without assets.
07:16And the conundrum is if you don't have an asset,
07:19it's really hard to get one.
07:20So in many ways, that long-term savings
07:22from home ownership has been the best way
07:25for low-income families,
07:26and especially low-income families of color,
07:28to create an intergenerational asset over time.
07:31So we don't think everyone should be homeowners,
07:33but we do think it's a big step
07:35into the middle class for an awful lot of families.
07:37So what are the major obstacles to home ownership
07:41that are being experienced by your clientele?
07:45You know, they are hitting the same thing
07:46that I think a huge swath of the market
07:49is hitting right now, which is the last five years,
07:52and you know this so well, Diego,
07:53but we really had the perfect storm
07:55in terms of everything that could go wrong
07:57for affordable housing.
07:58So, you know, suddenly with COVID,
08:01the supply chains got disrupted.
08:03The demand actually went up.
08:04All those, you know, young families
08:07who people said were never gonna want to own a home,
08:09they actually all wanted to own a home.
08:10They just had delayed family formation.
08:12Now they really wanted a home because of COVID.
08:15Then suddenly interest rates started rising.
08:17Building material inflation hit hard.
08:20We saw skilled labor inflation hit hard.
08:22Land inflation hit hard.
08:24You could argue, certainly,
08:25we had interest rates too low for too long,
08:27but, and that turned into inflationary pressure
08:30in the real estate market.
08:31But when you put all that together,
08:33it really was a disaster.
08:34And then with rising rates, as you know,
08:37the people who own the home
08:39don't want to give up their 3% mortgage.
08:40So we actually froze the traditional move-up market.
08:44And so, and then on top,
08:46and you could debate how much of an issue,
08:48but in a place like Atlanta or Charlotte,
08:50the private equity investors buying up the starter homes,
08:53you know, it was kind of the,
08:54yeah, on top of all those other forces
08:57meant we have a massive undersupply
08:59of starter homes, particularly.
09:01And then if you looked at the long-term data,
09:05we probably under-built by a few hundred thousand units.
09:10You've got four or five different groups
09:11with different studies and different assumptions,
09:13but somewhere between three and six million units
09:16short as a country right now.
09:18And obviously if we've got that,
09:20you can do demand side help,
09:23but unless we create more supply,
09:24that's not going to solve the problem.
09:26So that's why we're so consumed on the supply side.
09:29We are too.
09:30When we think about and research the housing market
09:33in the U.S., supply is the major challenge.
09:37And it has been a challenge that we've been building
09:40and kind of digging the hole for, like you said,
09:44you know, 16, 17 years now.
09:47So how does Habitat for Humanity
09:50help with this supply challenge?
09:52So we try to, on multiple fronts.
09:55So, you know, the challenge for us like everyone else is,
09:59you know, and this, I tell them,
10:01I was just meeting with a mayor of a big city and,
10:04you know, they're like, well, why aren't you building more?
10:06It's like, hey, you know, we're a good-hearted builder.
10:09We're the warmest hearted builder you'll ever find.
10:11The math is really tough.
10:13If you just look, here's what it takes.
10:15Here's a, you know, here's the cost of a finished lot.
10:17Here's the cost of materials.
10:18Here's the cost of labor.
10:19Here's what it costs to create that unit.
10:21Now here's what a family can afford to pay.
10:23And the disconnect, that gap is the widest
10:26it's really been in modern history.
10:28And so ultimately I just see it as a big math problem.
10:30And what we're trying to do is do advocacy work
10:34at the local level, the state level, and the federal level.
10:37So last week we just had our big federal conference,
10:40but a lot of the action is at the local level.
10:42So I think there are things cities can do
10:45and they're really good examples.
10:46We have a housing forward mayor in Atlanta now.
10:49Now he's got to get the whole administration
10:51to play together, but one of his commitments was
10:53if you bring a mixed income or affordable project,
10:56we're going to streamline your entitlements and permits.
10:59That's worth money.
11:00So cities can make it faster and easier to build.
11:03California will be the painful, you know,
11:05opposite example of that.
11:06And that's why that's probably the worst place
11:08for affordable housing in the country.
11:10So on the policy side, I believe cities can make it faster
11:13and easier to build.
11:14They can allocate land.
11:15Honestly, that's going to be the fastest way
11:17to get affordable units is to bring land.
11:19And the other side is to figure out financing
11:23and attractive financing to get builders to come down
11:27just to the affordable level, or even the missing middle.
11:29Right now we're missing an awful lot of workforce housing,
11:32that 80 to 120, because the math doesn't work
11:34for builders there either.
11:37So we're, you know, trying to partner with the private market
11:42and the public markets to figure out how can we make
11:46a total, you know, a mass solution that is viable
11:50because there's not enough public subsidy.
11:53The public sector can't do it by themselves.
11:54They don't have enough money.
11:56We've got a crowd in private capital.
11:57Nonprofits bring a unique piece to it.
12:00Habitat can bring the community piece,
12:02can help the families be ready.
12:03We can qualify.
12:04There's a lot of pieces that nonprofits, I think,
12:06add to the piece, but the real scale is going to come
12:08from the private marketing building at scale.
12:10And we've been building more at the middle to high end
12:13because that's where you could make margin.
12:15And the real question is how do we get the carrots
12:17and sticks or, as a friend of mine says,
12:19it's not carrots and sticks.
12:20It's really a two by four in cake that you got to whack
12:24out a developer with a two by four to build affordable,
12:26but there has to be a big cake because if the project
12:29doesn't pencil, they're not going to build it.
12:32And we need a huge amount of rental housing
12:34and a huge number of starter homes.
12:37At the federal level, our number one advocacy objective
12:40is actually a starter home accelerator program
12:43from the federal government that would be aimed
12:45towards developers.
12:46And we are nonpartisan.
12:48We work with both sides.
12:49And one of the things that is new, unfortunately,
12:52because it's so bad now is that I think housing
12:55is now a national issue.
12:56And if you look at the last election,
12:58which was a change election, cost of living
13:01was the big driver.
13:03And if you look at cost of living and inflation,
13:05housing was the number one driver
13:08and number two is food costs.
13:09And so if you want to solve inflation
13:14and you want to solve cost of living issues,
13:16you have to come back to housing supply.
13:18And we don't think that should be a partisan issue.
13:21That is a rural problem, urban problem,
13:22red state, blue state.
13:24And actually 10 years ago, mayors were talking about housing
13:29but not members of Congress.
13:30I would argue maybe now that middle-class families' kids
13:33can't afford to buy a home in the neighborhoods
13:36they grew up in, it's now become a political issue
13:38at the national level.
13:40And that gives me the only glimmer of hope
13:43that we might be able to actually do something
13:45at the federal level.
13:47Yeah, one of the issues that we see at Housing Wire is,
13:51and this is not a partisan issue,
13:53it seems to happen everywhere in the country,
13:56the not in my backyard phenomenon, NIMBYism.
14:00You see it as much in blue states as you do in red states.
14:04Do you encounter as an organization NIMBYism
14:07when you're trying to build?
14:09Sadly, we do.
14:10And we're the friendliest, happiest face
14:13of affordable housing.
14:14Almost everybody likes Habitat.
14:17And then you still get that, but happier elsewhere.
14:21We want the units,
14:22but just not anywhere near my neighborhood.
14:24And so it is a real issue.
14:26We're starting to see some of the NIMBY,
14:27the yes in my backyard efforts.
14:30I think we're starting to see a recognition
14:33that this is becoming a greater issue.
14:36My neighborhood in Atlanta, they did a traffic study.
14:38They're like, why is traffic so bad?
14:40Well, it's because 95% of the people who work
14:43in our part of town can't afford to live there.
14:46So everybody has been driving.
14:48So from a environmental perspective,
14:50from a practical quality of life perspective,
14:53and I think one of the myths is it doesn't mean
14:55every neighborhood or street has to be mixed income,
14:58but how do we create more apartments,
15:01especially density along traffic corridors?
15:04So where we have transit,
15:06that's where we need to put density.
15:08And that would actually be better for everybody,
15:11but there's still, I think there's that human resistance
15:15to change or concern that comes with it.
15:18And so it actually is a place that our volunteer,
15:23the fact that we have a million people volunteering
15:25with Habitat isn't really a construction strategy
15:28in the U.S., it's really a social change strategy.
15:30So our hope is, and I don't know, Diego,
15:32if you've ever been out to a Habitat site or not,
15:34but it is, I first got involved
15:37when I was working for the Walt Disney Company,
15:40back, gosh, that would have been 2002,
15:44and no, 1992, it's been a long time.
15:48And like so many people, I just came out
15:51because Disney was sponsoring a couple of houses,
15:54and that experience of community,
15:57and I learned about the model, learned what was going on,
15:59and then I became a regular volunteer like so many,
16:01and our hope is to do a better job of educating people
16:05when they come out so they learn a little bit
16:06about the housing issues in their community.
16:08And then my hope is that helps them become
16:11a yes-in-my-backyard kind of person,
16:13and that they help us create better housing policies
16:16in the market.
16:16If we can create better housing policies
16:18at the local level, state level, federal level,
16:20then the market can start working better.
16:23Because a lot of our deep innovation was in the global south
16:27and where markets really don't work
16:29for about half the population.
16:32And now I would argue the market in a way is broken
16:34in the wealthy countries of the world.
16:36So if you look at Western Europe, North America,
16:39and the rich countries in Asia,
16:41none of that, they all have a housing crisis right now.
16:45So you recently had an annual,
16:49your annual legislative conference in Washington.
16:52What were your takeaways from that conference?
16:56Yeah, it was, you know, going in,
16:58we were a little worried it was too early.
17:00It's usually designed to get in front
17:01of the appropriations process.
17:03It actually turned out to be a really good time.
17:05We had almost 500 Habitat leaders
17:07and a bunch of our corporate partners come together
17:10and we do a couple of days of training on advocacy.
17:15But then we also have our Hill Day,
17:17and we met with about 300 members of Congress last Wednesday
17:21and that was, I think it was encouraging.
17:24Obviously there's a lot of swirl going on.
17:26We have a brand new HUD secretary, we have DOJ,
17:29we have so many things that are unknown right now.
17:32And I won't, I'm not gonna predict
17:34how that's gonna all turn out
17:35because it seems to change every day.
17:37But what I did hear loudly from both Republican
17:41and Democratic members of Congress
17:43is housing is a big issue in their districts.
17:47They care about it and they wanna find solutions.
17:51So that made me a little bit more optimistic.
17:53Now that's in the environment
17:54of a really tough budget environment,
17:57a debt ceiling and all the other stuff
17:58they've got to grapple with.
17:59So, but our certainly heavy point of emphasis
18:03was if we don't deal with housing,
18:05we're not gonna solve all the other things we care about.
18:07We know that when you have good stable housing,
18:09kids stay healthier, they do better in school,
18:12they have better livelihoods,
18:14they have better mental health.
18:15So there's a whole series of other things we spend money on
18:19because we don't have good housing.
18:21If you pull housing out, then you get the opposite.
18:24So these poor children who are bouncing around
18:28from place to place, they lose educational ground,
18:30they stay less healthy,
18:32and it's much harder to ever to break out.
18:34So obviously our view where a housing organization
18:37is we need to make housing a higher priority.
18:39And if we do that well,
18:41that will actually create a whole series of other benefits
18:43that will reduce costs for society.
18:46So we have a new administration
18:49with a real estate guy at the top.
18:52How are you planning to collaborate
18:53with this new administration?
18:56Yeah, we are, as I say all the time,
18:59we are political but not partisan.
19:00We're political because you can't solve housing
19:03without partnering with governments.
19:04For the first 30 years of Habitat's existence,
19:06we actually had a stay away from government policy.
19:09We only work with private funding.
19:11And I think the principle
19:13rather than not work with governments,
19:14because there's no example in the world
19:16of solving housing without government partnership
19:19is really not to be dependent on the government.
19:20I think that's a good principle
19:22that we don't wanna be,
19:23I think a strength for us
19:24is that we bring a lot of private capital
19:26and to the government as well.
19:30But we've worked with every administration,
19:33both Republican and Democrat.
19:35And we certainly worked
19:36with the first Trump administration.
19:38First administration, they didn't focus on housing.
19:41And I was disappointed by that.
19:42I thought home ownership would be something
19:44that could be a rallying cry.
19:46We hope given how much the president ran
19:51on lowering costs for families
19:54that addressing housing could be a priority for the issue.
19:57The HUD secretary only got confirmed
20:00less than two weeks ago.
20:01So the next step will be meeting
20:04with the administration and the housing folks
20:07and then getting very practical on specific programs.
20:11And certainly my hope and our message would be,
20:14if we can streamline some of these programs
20:16and make them easier to use, we would celebrate that.
20:18That would be a very good thing.
20:20Pulling away and having the government kill the programs,
20:24I think would be devastating at a time
20:26where we already have a supply problem.
20:28So there are a few programs
20:30that I think are really important for housing supply.
20:33The one, we don't get a lot
20:35through Habitat International, the umbrella group,
20:37but our network of affiliates
20:39take advantage of the home program,
20:41which is one of the biggest creators of funding
20:45that can help create housing supply.
20:48The USDA actually has a rural housing program,
20:51USDA 502 program.
20:54We strongly support that.
20:55That's been a great way to finance rural affordable housing
20:58and home ownership opportunities.
21:00And we would love to see that continue.
21:03On the tax side, we're strong supporters of LIHTC,
21:07though we don't do LIHTC projects.
21:09And a new bipartisan project though,
21:12I think it's no predictions
21:13because it's a tough environment,
21:15but we have bipartisan support
21:16for a new home ownership preservation tax credit
21:21at the federal level
21:22called the Neighborhood Homes Investment Act.
21:24And I think this is a great idea.
21:26So in many cities still around the country,
21:28there's a part of town that has been under-resourced
21:32and underdeveloped for a long time.
21:34And the conundrum at the extreme
21:36would be parts of Detroit or New Orleans or some places.
21:39You can buy a house still for quite a low amount,
21:41but by the time you fix it up and bring it up to code,
21:44it won't appraise for what you've had to put in
21:47to buy and rehab it.
21:49And this would be a federal tax credit
21:51that would help cover that gap
21:53if you then sell it to a low-income family.
21:56And we think that could actually get
21:57hundreds of thousands of units
21:59fairly quickly back into the market
22:01and being productive again,
22:03which creates property taxes for the cities,
22:05creates energy and jobs.
22:08So we're very much for that
22:09from a home preservation perspective.
22:11And then there are a couple of small pieces,
22:13but we will be certainly pushing hard.
22:16And I think a lot of people don't realize
22:18that a lot of the funding that's coming through cities
22:20and states is actually federal funding.
22:22So that funding is awfully important
22:24to sustaining new development,
22:26but we will be giving the same message
22:28we've had in this conversation,
22:29which is really focusing on
22:31if we don't create more starter homes,
22:33it's really hard to get in front of the cost burden issues.
22:37So lots of activity at the national level,
22:41but a lot of the obstacles in supply
22:45are happening at the local level
22:47through local regulations and zoning.
22:50How do you partner with your local affiliates
22:56to work on issues like,
22:57in Minneapolis, they've abolished single-family zoning,
23:01in California, they have this experiment with ADUs.
23:04How do you get involved in those local and state issues?
23:07We are deeply involved in those.
23:09So Habitat for the Twin Cities
23:12was a huge part of that campaign in St. Paul.
23:15Austin, Texas, very similar.
23:16In Portland, we helped lead an effort to get ADUs allowed.
23:20We pushed in Seattle in the same way.
23:23And I know you know this, Diego, there's no magic bullet.
23:26Our view is we need all of it.
23:27So I think ADUs are a great thing.
23:29Anything that creates sort of more infill density,
23:33anything that creates more units of housing to me
23:36is ultimately a positive and we would be for it.
23:40But you're exactly right that there's some places
23:42where you've got statewide action,
23:44but most of the zoning action is all local.
23:46So we really, that's where it really is,
23:49neighbor to neighbor and creating coalitions
23:52and doing the work to build.
23:54But the states matter too.
23:55I mean, it's interesting in our state of Georgia,
23:58you know, quite conservative state,
24:00our governor has actually been pushing
24:02to relax local zoning laws at a statewide level.
24:05Now, not winning yet.
24:07And the reason is he's recruited a lot of new companies
24:09and a lot of new businesses to Georgia.
24:11They're screaming because they can't hire workers
24:13because they don't have housing.
24:15So it's not just a moral issue,
24:17it's actually very much a practical issue.
24:19If we actually can't create housing,
24:20it becomes an economic break in terms of being able to grow.
24:26Yeah, I mean, my sense is housing is an issue
24:30that could win somebody the presidency
24:33if you went about it the right way.
24:35Because like you said,
24:36it is a super majority issue in the US
24:39and there are a few issues like that.
24:42I'm really excited to have chatted with you today.
24:46Wanna thank you again for joining me on the Powerhouse Show
24:50and good luck with the rest of 2025 and all of your efforts.
24:55Well, thanks so much, Jacob.
24:56Great to be with you and thanks to your audience.
25:00And really it's gonna take, I think,
25:01everybody to move the needle on this,
25:03but excited to be part of the conversation.
25:06♪♪