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Speaker 1: Somebody said, I'm going to develop an affordable housing apartment

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Speaker 1: community or I'm going to develop a market rate apartment community.

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Speaker 1: If you stack those two together, you would, and you

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Speaker 1: did a financial analysis, you would never build affordable housing

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Speaker 1: because you take three times the risk and you make

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Speaker 1: a fraction of the upside. So that's why there's so

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Speaker 1: many more market rate apartments getting built and not affordable housing.

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Speaker 1: But I like to say God keeps scoring differently than

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Speaker 1: we do. You know, he has a different scorecard, and

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Speaker 1: you know, how much money do you really need?

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Speaker 2: Welcome to an army of normal folks. I'm Bill Courtney,

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Speaker 2: I'm a normal guy. I'm a husband, I'm a father,

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Speaker 2: I'm an entrepreneur, and I've been a football coach an

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Speaker 2: inner city Memphis. And the last part unintentionally led to

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Speaker 2: an oscar for the film about our team. It's called Undefeated.

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Speaker 2: I believe our country's problems will never be solved by

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Speaker 2: a bunch of fancy people in nice suits talking big

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Speaker 2: words that nobody uses on CNN and Fox, but rather

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Speaker 2: an army of normal folks, us just you and me

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Speaker 2: deciding hey, I can help. That's what Tim Cinema the Voice.

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Speaker 2: We just heard is done. Tim is a real estate

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Speaker 2: developer who decided to live by a different scorecard after

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Speaker 2: years of doing traditional development work. One day he was

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Speaker 2: woken up by an academic study that absolutely shocked him

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Speaker 2: and changed him. Since then, he's built five hundred affordable

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Speaker 2: housing units, with another five hundred on the way. There's

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Speaker 2: folks like Tim who could do this in every community

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Speaker 2: across our country, and even creating just one affordable housing

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Speaker 2: unit or home can change a life. I can't wait

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Speaker 2: for you to meet Tim right after these brief messages

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Speaker 2: from Hours and Oer sponsors. So today's an interesting day

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Speaker 2: because of the way it started. I occasionally, you know,

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Speaker 2: we all have our vices, and I occasionally like to

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Speaker 2: load up Lisa or my sons and my father in

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Speaker 2: law and fly to Vegas and hide in a corner

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Speaker 2: and get away from people. It's where I forget about

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Speaker 2: all of the problems of my business and everything I've

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Speaker 2: got going on, and pull out a couple hundred bucks

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Speaker 2: and play some black jack and maybe drink a beer

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Speaker 2: and hang out and have fun with my wife or

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Speaker 2: my family and go eat too much and go to shows.

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Speaker 2: So there you have it. One of my vices. Is

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Speaker 2: I like to go to Vegas and hang out, and

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Speaker 2: so I'm doing that not too long ago. And this

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Speaker 2: young kid, I call him a kid. He's a young adult,

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Speaker 2: probably thirty, named Peter STIPOVICHIK or something. I can't even

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Speaker 2: pronounce it now I know he's just Peter stip walks

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Speaker 2: up to me and says, hey, I saw you on

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Speaker 2: Undefeated that he'd watched recently. We got of the whole thanks,

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Speaker 2: I'm glad you enjoyed it, humbling comment stuff, and he

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Speaker 2: didn't leave it alone. He kept on with, you know,

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Speaker 2: I'm so you know, inspired to do more, and then

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Speaker 2: he started talking about something he was involved in Charlotte,

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Speaker 2: and candidly, I'm trying to sneak away from everyday life,

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Speaker 2: so I'm not paying that much attention to him, smiling

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Speaker 2: and nodding gratuitously. But then as he kept talking, I

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Speaker 2: started to get more and more interested in what he

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Speaker 2: was talking about, and it led to today's podcast with

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Speaker 2: another name that's hard to say for me, Tim's Cinema,

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Speaker 2: who is our guest today and has done something absolutely

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Speaker 2: phenomenal in Charlotte that I think is replicable all over

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Speaker 2: our country. And that's what we're going to talk today,

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Speaker 2: and Tim, thanks for being with us.

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Speaker 1: Thanks coach, it's great to be here.

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Speaker 2: Tell me about Peter a little bit. The guy who

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Speaker 2: bothered me at the casino.

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Speaker 1: Stiff is a quiet, humble guy, like you say. He's

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Speaker 1: about thirty something, and he's very reserved until he's not.

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Speaker 1: And he's a good cold caller. He co ca we're

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Speaker 1: a real estate team, and he co calls sellers and

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Speaker 1: so on, and he literally can walk through walls. But

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Speaker 1: otherwise he'll sit in a meeting and won't say anything.

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Speaker 1: And he was so excited about meeting you. He had

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Speaker 1: just told us the week before about this great movie

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Speaker 1: he watched. He said it was fantastic. You had to

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Speaker 1: see it. It's Undefeated, And I did watch it and

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Speaker 1: it was fantastic. But then he ends up running into

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Speaker 1: you in Vegas and he was all excited when he

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Speaker 1: came back.

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Speaker 2: So I guess his faith that we're together and maybe

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Speaker 2: take him to Vegas. He clearly comes out of his

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Speaker 2: shell there. That's right. So before we get into the

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Speaker 2: amazing work that you've done that I really want to

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Speaker 2: dive into and understand more of, tell me about Tim,

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Speaker 2: the kid Tim where you grew up, your mom, your dad,

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Speaker 2: your siblings. Tell me about, you know, the foundation where

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Speaker 2: you came from.

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Speaker 1: Oh, happy to do that. So it's fun for me

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Speaker 1: to talk a little bit about that. So I'm the

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Speaker 1: youngest son of my mom and dad. There were I

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Speaker 1: have three brothers, an identical twin brother and two older brothers.

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Speaker 1: My folks were normal folks. My dad worked in the

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Speaker 1: steel mills. My mom was a teacher. They were big

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Speaker 1: about hard work and big about education. Do your job

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Speaker 1: and get it done right, do it with excellence. And

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Speaker 1: so three of the four of us went to college

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Speaker 1: and beyond. One of my brothers didn't, but and he

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Speaker 1: still lives in what we call the Calumet region. We

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Speaker 1: grew up in South Chicago, all right.

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Speaker 2: And so what's the democratic Is that blue collar? What

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Speaker 2: What was it like when you grew up there?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, so when I grew up, it was and still

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Speaker 1: is blue collar, predominantly blue collar. We grew up in

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Speaker 1: roseland Hunter Nathan State. And today there's a lot of

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Speaker 1: crime and a lot of a lot of the shootings

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Speaker 1: in Chicago happened in Roseland and near there. It's a

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Speaker 1: pretty dangerous place today. It wasn't. It wasn't when I

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Speaker 1: was growing up.

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Speaker 2: So it's one of those typical blue collar, kind of

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Speaker 2: inner city neighborhoods really all over our country that was

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Speaker 2: fed with typical blue collar families that really the expansion

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Speaker 2: of suburbia and a lot of white flight honestly left

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Speaker 2: kind of deserved and poverty filled the gap.

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Speaker 1: That's exactly right. You know, we don't talk about it

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Speaker 1: quite as directly anymore, but we were products of white flight.

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Speaker 1: The whole neighborhood shifted racially in just a five year period,

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Speaker 1: and our entire church sold to an African American congregation.

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Speaker 1: We moved to northwest Indiana and built a new church,

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Speaker 1: and most of the families from our church actually migrated

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Speaker 1: there as well. So it's interesting. I had an instance

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Speaker 1: just two weeks ago. I was on a historically back

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Speaker 1: college in Charlotte called Johnson C. Smith University, and I

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Speaker 1: was taking a tour there and I was introduced to

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Speaker 1: an African American guy that runs the security detail there,

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Speaker 1: and he's a big, strong guy, and I commented about,

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Speaker 1: you know, he throws a lot of you know, steel around,

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Speaker 1: he lifts a lot of weights, and he said, oh,

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Speaker 1: back in the day in Chicago. I did that and

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Speaker 1: I said, are you from Chicago?

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Speaker 2: Where are you from?

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Speaker 1: He said to the south Side. I said, oh, me too.

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Speaker 1: He said na where and I said one hundred naighth

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Speaker 1: in state. And he told me, he says, you're the

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Speaker 1: whitest black guy I've ever met. He doesn't, he said,

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Speaker 1: there are no white people from that.

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Speaker 2: So suffice it say, you grew up the son of

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Speaker 2: a steel mill worker and a teacher, and so you

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Speaker 2: had the organic family, were cared for. But I gotta

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Speaker 2: imagine just you know, a very normal, average blue collar

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Speaker 2: had what you needed, but not a whole lot extra family.

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Speaker 1: That's exactly right. My dad didn't have a new car

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Speaker 1: until he was in his sixties.

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Speaker 2: I think he was.

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Speaker 1: He was buying hand me down cars and because he

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Speaker 1: had to.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I get it.

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Speaker 1: You know.

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Speaker 2: I have four kids too, so they take everything. So yeah,

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Speaker 2: and then you lose your mind. Then you decide that

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Speaker 2: you don't like some things going on in Charlotte. And

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Speaker 2: by the way, I gotta say, your timing's pretty good.

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Speaker 2: It sounds like you call Denver on the run up

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Speaker 2: and you caught Charlotte on a pretty good run up too.

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Speaker 2: I'm surprised you're not living in Nashville and you didn't

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Speaker 2: catch that thing five years ago, because if you go

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Speaker 2: downtown Nashville, all you see is cranes. It's it's insane.

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Speaker 2: It looks like Shanghai did fifteen years ago. But anyway,

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Speaker 2: you caught it up and I've read that. You know,

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Speaker 2: you were doing your world and then one day you

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Speaker 2: happened to read something out of Harvard or UC Berkeley

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Speaker 2: or something that gave you a stat that absolutely floored you.

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Speaker 2: What was that?

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Speaker 1: That's accurate? There was a professor from Harvard named RAJ

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Speaker 1: Chetti who did a study. And I can't remember exactly

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Speaker 1: the year that came out, maybe.

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Speaker 2: But you were already living in Charlotte.

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Speaker 1: I was in Charlotte. We moved there in two thousand

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Speaker 1: and five. This was maybe ten years later, so twenty

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Speaker 1: fifteen or so.

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Speaker 2: Not too long ago. Yeah, And it's just and you're

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Speaker 2: long enough there now and developing property and making a

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Speaker 2: life there. That Charlotte's home, and you have a reality

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Speaker 2: about your Charlotte, right, And what is your reality of

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Speaker 2: your Charlotte? There's growing city. What is your reality before

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Speaker 2: you read this of your Charlotte. Yeah, I lived in

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Speaker 2: a bubble.

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Speaker 1: I lived in a you know, an affluent neighborhood in

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Speaker 1: South Charlotte, and had friends that looked like me and uh.

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Speaker 2: And worshiped like you, and worshiped like him, voted like

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Speaker 2: and voted like me, thought like you.

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Speaker 1: It's exactly right, right, yeah, correct on all fronts, And

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Speaker 1: my world got a little rocked. So Professor Chetty wrote

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Speaker 1: a study, and he did a lot of research, and

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Speaker 1: he basically ranked the top fifty cities in the country

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Speaker 1: by population by population, and he ranked them on the

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Speaker 1: basis of upward mobility. If you're born in the lowest

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Speaker 1: twenty percentile of income in those cities, what are your

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Speaker 1: chances of migrating up to the top twenty percentile, Not

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Speaker 1: the top one, but the top twenty percent.

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Speaker 2: There's lower twenty, top twenty.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, going from the bottom fifth to the top fifth.

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Speaker 2: And Charlotte, which would you agree that's from lower class

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Speaker 2: to call it upper middle, Yeah, I would say that

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Speaker 2: middle upward. We're not talking about getting rich, right, We're

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Speaker 2: talking about just getting out of out of kind of

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Speaker 2: lower middle to upper middle. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: And he was trying to I'm sure I don't know

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Speaker 1: the man, but he was, I'm sure, trying to essentially

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Speaker 1: come up with a methodology to evaluate on a relative

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Speaker 1: basis one city against another in terms of the opportunities

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Speaker 1: for poor people basically, and so he came up with

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Speaker 1: this upward mobility metric, and Charlotte was listed fiftieth out

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Speaker 1: of the top fifty cities in the country in terms

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Speaker 1: of his metric of upward mobility, going from the bottom

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Speaker 1: fifth to the top fifth. And now, in fairness, I

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Speaker 1: don't remember the numbers because I haven't looked at him

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Speaker 1: now for many years, but you know, if Charlotte was

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Speaker 1: whatever four point to one per or something or other,

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Speaker 1: Atlanta was four point two two percent, and Nashville may

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Speaker 1: have been four point two three percent. I mean, there

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Speaker 1: were a bunch of them that were pretty close. But

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Speaker 1: it was a gift to Charlotte that we actually came

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Speaker 1: in to last, because it started a lot of conversations

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Speaker 1: at every level in our community, every water cooler, every business,

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Speaker 1: the seats of government. We're saying, Wow, we don't want

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Speaker 1: to be last, we don't want to be fifty out

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Speaker 1: of fifty. And it started conversations between me and some

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Speaker 1: business friends of mine saying, wow, is there something the

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Speaker 1: business community can do about this? As you said on

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Speaker 1: previous podcasts, the public sector has spent literally trillions of dollars,

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Speaker 1: you know, on the declared war on poverty, and they've

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Speaker 1: done a bunch of great work, but the needle hasn't

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Speaker 1: really been moved all that much. And the nonprofit world

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Speaker 1: has done it and still does a bunch of great work,

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Speaker 1: but there's certainly more to do, as we could see,

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Speaker 1: you know, in every city in the country, and largely

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Speaker 1: in my view, the business community has been writing checks,

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Speaker 1: but that's about it. And it just felt to me

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Speaker 1: like there had to be something else that we could

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Speaker 1: and should be doing in some of these intractable social problems.

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Speaker 2: You know, as I listened to you, there's two things

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Speaker 2: that pop in my head. Is one, Charlotte has always

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Speaker 2: ranked as one of the top ten cities to live

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Speaker 2: And isn't it interesting that Forbes or US News Report

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Speaker 2: or Time or whoever does those kind of rankings would

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Speaker 2: say that you're one of the top ten cities in

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Speaker 2: the country to live in, but the metrics say maybe so.

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Speaker 2: But it's also the hardest of the top fifty cities

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Speaker 2: in our country. To advance in. So who is it

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Speaker 2: the best city to live in for?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a good question. Certainly, not the people in

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Speaker 1: the study, clearly. Yeah.

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Speaker 2: And the other thing is, as I heard what you

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Speaker 2: just said. You know, I'm a business guy. I own

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Speaker 2: a business, you know, and I started with nothing, and

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Speaker 2: twenty something years later, we've got one hundred and thirty

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Speaker 2: employees in a manufacturing facility in Memphis, and our sales

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Speaker 2: offices here, we got offices in Shanghai and coachmen. We

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Speaker 2: actually do business in forty two different countries. We do

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Speaker 2: business and everywhere from England to Albania to the Dominican

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Speaker 2: Republic of Guatemala and all points in between. Truly, it's

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Speaker 2: an unfortunate reality of my industry because you have to

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Speaker 2: do business in the world to move your goods. But

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Speaker 2: the point is, I've learned a lot over the last

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Speaker 2: twenty three years, and I've made an enormous amount of stakes,

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Speaker 2: and I've lost a lot of money because of my mistakes.

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Speaker 2: But what that does, if it doesn't kill you, it

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Speaker 2: gives you a lot of wisdom and you don't make

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Speaker 2: those mistakes again, and you grow. And the point is

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Speaker 2: that being held accountable to a bottom line and a

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Speaker 2: bank and a lender, and leverage and customers and vendors

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Speaker 2: and employees and yourself. The stress of that is a

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Speaker 2: wonderful incentive to learn quickly and wisely and not make

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Speaker 2: the same mistakes twice. I don't think that same dynamic

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Speaker 2: exists in the public sector. And I'm not beating up

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Speaker 2: public servants. I'm not. I'm just saying business people look

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Speaker 2: at things differently than public sector people do, and I

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Speaker 2: have been noted as saying, and I do believe it

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Speaker 2: that I think government has proven over time inadequate in

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Speaker 2: caring for the most disadvantaged among us. And I don't

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Speaker 2: mean that they do that on purpose. I just don't

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Speaker 2: think the realities of the work that the public sector

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Speaker 2: does necessarily serves the least advantaged among us, because we

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Speaker 2: constantly introduce program after program after program. And what happens

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Speaker 2: is programs are invented fifty sixty years ago that I

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Speaker 2: do believe are well intentioned. The world evolves and the

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Speaker 2: programs don't, and then they just get kind of band

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Speaker 2: aidd and fixed along the way and end up completely inadequate.

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Speaker 2: Whereas in business, you can't afford to do that because

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Speaker 2: you'll go broke. And so a business person looks at

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Speaker 2: things differently. And it would be then my assumption that

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Speaker 2: you guys were taking a fresh look at what these

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Speaker 2: data offered you.

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Speaker 1: I couldn't agree more with you, coach, And I love

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Speaker 1: what you said early on when you're starting this podcast,

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Speaker 1: you drive through a poor area, you see the frustration

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Speaker 1: and the despair, and you know, you think somebody ought

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Speaker 1: to do something about that. And I like how you

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Speaker 1: said it, as if the sentiment matters, sentiment doesn't matter.

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Speaker 1: You know, you should turn the beer down and look

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Speaker 1: at yourself and say I should do something about that, and.

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Speaker 2: I can start hosting. Now. Yeah, I'm gonna step down.

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Speaker 2: You got the whole, you got the you got it down, dude.

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Speaker 1: Well, I mean that was me. That that was me,

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Speaker 1: you know, because I'm I'm I tell people I couldn't

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Speaker 1: spell affordable housing ten years ago, seven years ago, and

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Speaker 1: now I spend more than half my time, you know,

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Speaker 1: living and walking that that talk. Because it finally hit

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Speaker 1: me that, you know, maybe I need to do something,

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Speaker 1: maybe I need to try that. And that's that's kind

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Speaker 1: of what got me. So these conversations around the water

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Speaker 1: cooler and with friends were saying boy. And at the

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Speaker 1: same time or about the same time, there was a

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Speaker 1: shooting of a young African American male in Charlotte and

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Speaker 1: that led to some protests. And so the combination of

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Speaker 1: those two events, this Harvard study and I think it

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Speaker 1: was Keith Lamont Scott shooting had everybody kind of in

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Speaker 1: Charlotte talking about this stuff. And so a friend of

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Speaker 1: mine and I convened a group of guys you know

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Speaker 1: that looked like us, and we're starting to talk about

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Speaker 1: is there something that we could and should be doing here?

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Speaker 1: And there was a lot of interest to do something,

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Speaker 1: but no unity in terms of vision, and so we

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Speaker 1: ended up meeting a young white pastor, Dave Dukison.

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Speaker 2: This is the guy that I've found. I mean this

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Speaker 2: Dukeasson Dukeson, Yeah, right, Dave Dukison everybody was a pastor

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Speaker 2: working in West Charlotte who was pursuing his PhD and

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Speaker 2: the Cyclical Patterns of Generational poverty. I didn't even know

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Speaker 2: you could get a PhD and the cyclical patterns of

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Speaker 2: generational poverty. And this guy spent his time family traveling

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Speaker 2: around the US, visiting different community development initiatives to understand,

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Speaker 2: you know, what was really happening in generation poverty, and

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Speaker 2: you guys had the good sense to grab him up

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Speaker 2: and say, you've seen it, tell us what the real

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Speaker 2: world is.

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Speaker 1: That's exactly right. We actually funded his trips to go

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Speaker 1: out there because he was you know the pastors.

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Speaker 2: Oh I did. I thought he was doing that as

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Speaker 2: a part of you said, well, he was going to

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Speaker 2: do that, but he didn't have the and you guys said,

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Speaker 2: go do it, but bring us back the data.

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Speaker 1: That's exactly right. And so we was a perfect win win.

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Speaker 1: So we helped send him to these different places, and

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Speaker 1: he brought the research back and in a shameless plug,

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Speaker 1: he ended up writing a book that I'd highly recommend

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Speaker 1: called Neighborliness, very good book. And he's still a friend

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Speaker 1: and dear friend, and he's on our board still and

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Speaker 1: a great guy. But he studied. He flew to Chicago

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Speaker 1: and Detroit and d C. And Atlanta and Orlando and

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Speaker 1: studied places that you know, they were working to transform

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Speaker 1: kind of impoverished, under invested areas and brought back kind

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Speaker 1: of those models that worked. And the punchline was a

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Speaker 1: lot of the areas that were more successfully transformed. Had

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Speaker 1: used a model that was originally developed by the Purpose

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Speaker 1: Built Communities folks out of Atlanta, again a great, great organization.

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Speaker 1: They transformed the East Lake area of Atlanta. And so

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Speaker 1: Dave and several other friends and I went down to

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Speaker 1: Atlanta and spent a day, you know, sitting at their feet,

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Speaker 1: listening and learning, and the punchline, if you're going to

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Speaker 1: if you're according to purpose build, if you're going to

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Speaker 1: transform an underinvested area like in Memphis or in Nashville

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Speaker 1: or Charlotte or anywhere, you've got to do Essentially, they

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Speaker 1: would say four things. You've got to focus on education.

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Speaker 1: You've got to have quality schools. You got to focus

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Speaker 1: on housing because you've got to have stable, affordable housing.

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Speaker 1: You've got to focus on jobs and economic opportunity. And

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Speaker 1: you've got to focus on health and wellness. Education, housing, employment, healthcare.

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Speaker 1: You got to do all of those. You can't just

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Speaker 1: do one and expect things to, you know, life trajectories

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Speaker 1: to change. You've got to invest in all of those things.

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Speaker 1: And so it was amazing just you know, all of

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Speaker 1: a sudden, we spent a day and we had kind

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Speaker 1: of a playbook to go adopt an underinvested area, and

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Speaker 1: so now we had no excuses. We kind of sort

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Speaker 1: of knew what we needed to do, and so we

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Speaker 1: went back to Charlotte and said, all right, we're either

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Speaker 1: gonna do it or we're not.

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Speaker 2: And now a few messages from our general sponsors. But first,

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Speaker 2: I hope you'll subscribe to the podcast so that you

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Speaker 2: get the newest episodes in your library every week. And

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Speaker 2: please consider signing up to join the Army at normalfolks

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Speaker 2: dot us because together we can change the country, and

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Speaker 2: you'll also receive weekly email updates about the Army. We'll

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Speaker 2: be right back. It's funny that you say, now we

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Speaker 2: have no excuses. You know, you remove the barriers to

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Speaker 2: entry when you remove the excuse. And the interesting part

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Speaker 2: to me is you talk about the four key ingredients

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Speaker 2: is housing, education, employment, and health. Not exactly the most

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Speaker 2: lofty expectations. I mean, we're saying, I guess it should

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Speaker 2: be a dumb moment too. Oh, you mean people need

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Speaker 2: to have good schools, have some kind of a job,

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Speaker 2: a decent roof over the head, and their health taken

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Speaker 2: care of. Shocking, that's not a high bar. It's not

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Speaker 2: a high bar. So I go back to South Chicago.

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Speaker 2: When you grew up, you had a dad working in

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Speaker 2: steel mill who's never been able to afford a new car.

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Speaker 2: I don't assume the house you lived in was anything

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Speaker 2: other than just probably a normal your brothers share rooms.

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Speaker 2: I doubt you had a six bedroom house and a

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Speaker 2: still worker. Yeah, but what you did have was a house.

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Speaker 2: You had a good education, your health was taken care of,

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Speaker 2: and your parents were employed. So even though you were

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Speaker 2: you know, middle to low middle ish income coming up,

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Speaker 2: you had the very things you needed to have to

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Speaker 2: be able to get to the station in life that

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Speaker 2: allows you to move from Denver to Charlotte.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, that's exactly right.

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Speaker 2: But if you didn't have those things and you were

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Speaker 2: in the in the in the demographic from the Harvard

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Speaker 2: guy of the impossibility of the upward mobility, you would

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Speaker 2: just still be in South Chicago.

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Speaker 1: You're exactly right. I'll give you an example. One of

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Speaker 1: the early things we did. So now we're armed with

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Speaker 1: this model. So we had kind of decided West Charlotte

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Speaker 1: was an area that we were going to concentrate on,

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Speaker 1: and so we convened a we call it an education

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Speaker 1: summit with the principles of area public schools in West

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Speaker 1: Charlotte and the principles of the schools themselves, the schools themselves,

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Speaker 1: the district get up. So now we didn't we didn't,

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Speaker 1: we just it was an informal deal. We invited them,

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Speaker 1: We said, we're going to buy you launch.

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Speaker 2: We'd love to chat.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, let's have a chat. And and you know, they

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Speaker 1: they showed up and there was I don't know, six

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Speaker 1: or eight, maybe ten educators in the room along with

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Speaker 1: a number of us. And what's interesting, And now I

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Speaker 1: have grandkids that are in My oldest grandchild is in

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Speaker 1: secon grade and she's doing quite well reading and so on.

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Speaker 1: And what we learned is one of the key metrics

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Speaker 1: in education is third grade reading literacy. Up until third grade,

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Speaker 1: you learn how to read. After third grade, you read

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Speaker 1: to learn. So if you leave third grade.

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Speaker 2: Now that's hold it. That's interesting. I'm sorry to interrupt you,

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Speaker 2: but say that again. Up to third grade you learn

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Speaker 2: how to read. After third grade you read to learn.

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Speaker 2: So if you're not up to third grade literal literate

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Speaker 2: by third grade, you're falling behind minute by minute because

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Speaker 2: you can't learn. You can't read to learn because you

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Speaker 2: still had learned to read.

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Speaker 1: That's exactly right.

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Speaker 2: There are some people really interesting.

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Speaker 1: There are some people that can can make projections on

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Speaker 1: the prison space they're going to need based on third

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Speaker 1: grade literacy.

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00:25:50,320 --> 00:25:51,080
Speaker 2: Are you kidding?

436
00:25:51,200 --> 00:25:56,320
Speaker 1: Your chances of incarceration and all kinds of social challenges

437
00:25:56,600 --> 00:25:59,520
Speaker 1: increase dramatically if you go into fourth grade with the

438
00:25:59,560 --> 00:26:04,320
Speaker 1: inability to read. And in West Charlotte, the third grade

439
00:26:04,400 --> 00:26:08,719
Speaker 1: reading letteracy was and is about fifteen percent, meaning more

440
00:26:08,840 --> 00:26:11,680
Speaker 1: than four out of five kids leave third grade not

441
00:26:11,960 --> 00:26:15,199
Speaker 1: reading at grade level. And so that's what prompted us

442
00:26:15,320 --> 00:26:19,679
Speaker 1: to have this education summit, to talk to the educators,

443
00:26:19,760 --> 00:26:22,240
Speaker 1: to say, what the heck I mean, you know, because

444
00:26:22,400 --> 00:26:26,280
Speaker 1: I've got grandkids, nothing short of one hundred percent reading

445
00:26:26,400 --> 00:26:29,800
Speaker 1: letteracy is acceptable. I wouldn't want any of my grandkids,

446
00:26:30,359 --> 00:26:32,440
Speaker 1: or my kids or anybody else's kids to be leaving

447
00:26:32,520 --> 00:26:35,879
Speaker 1: third grade unable to read. So we sat down with

448
00:26:36,000 --> 00:26:40,320
Speaker 1: these principles and educators and said, why, I mean, what

449
00:26:40,800 --> 00:26:41,240
Speaker 1: do you need?

450
00:26:41,359 --> 00:26:42,760
Speaker 2: What I mean, I mean, did it ever go through

451
00:26:42,800 --> 00:26:44,359
Speaker 2: your head? Why aren't your teachers teaching it?

452
00:26:44,600 --> 00:26:47,480
Speaker 1: Well, that's exactly right. And I tell a lot of

453
00:26:47,520 --> 00:26:53,080
Speaker 1: people this, my uninformed, ignorant approach. When I walked in

454
00:26:53,200 --> 00:26:56,080
Speaker 1: the room, was thinking, the schools are terrible, the teachers

455
00:26:56,119 --> 00:26:59,280
Speaker 1: are terrible, they're not committed, blah blah blah. And I

456
00:26:59,320 --> 00:27:00,440
Speaker 1: could not have been more wrong.

457
00:27:00,680 --> 00:27:06,640
Speaker 2: And I think when you think about these massive urban districts,

458
00:27:07,560 --> 00:27:10,560
Speaker 2: I think Shelby count our district Shelby County in Memphis,

459
00:27:10,640 --> 00:27:12,639
Speaker 2: I think is one of the largest districts in the

460
00:27:12,720 --> 00:27:15,960
Speaker 2: country because it's just it covers such a huge area

461
00:27:16,000 --> 00:27:18,240
Speaker 2: and it's not broken up. But you think about the

462
00:27:18,320 --> 00:27:20,960
Speaker 2: districts in New York and Chicago and Detroit and Baltimore

463
00:27:20,960 --> 00:27:27,080
Speaker 2: and everywhere else, and you know, you can talk about teachers' unions,

464
00:27:27,200 --> 00:27:30,960
Speaker 2: you can talk about school board elections, you can talk

465
00:27:31,000 --> 00:27:36,080
Speaker 2: about district presidents, you can talk about all that stuff,

466
00:27:36,680 --> 00:27:40,320
Speaker 2: and you can quickly get balled up in really a

467
00:27:40,359 --> 00:27:43,359
Speaker 2: political argument. And you can get baled up in a

468
00:27:43,440 --> 00:27:47,840
Speaker 2: lot of arguments regarding education. And I think there's a

469
00:27:47,920 --> 00:27:50,120
Speaker 2: whole lot of people, even listen to us right now,

470
00:27:50,320 --> 00:27:54,639
Speaker 2: that have some preconceived assumptions about the people working in

471
00:27:54,680 --> 00:27:58,280
Speaker 2: our public schools, especially in urban areas, and their effort

472
00:27:59,040 --> 00:28:03,520
Speaker 2: and their dedication to teach children. And I got to

473
00:28:03,960 --> 00:28:06,840
Speaker 2: be honest with you. Before I worked at Manassas, I

474
00:28:06,960 --> 00:28:12,200
Speaker 2: had some of those same inaccurate beliefs. What did you

475
00:28:12,359 --> 00:28:14,160
Speaker 2: find the same?

476
00:28:14,240 --> 00:28:17,720
Speaker 1: I can't speak to Chicago Public schools or some of

477
00:28:17,720 --> 00:28:20,800
Speaker 1: the other cities. I can speak more intelligently about what

478
00:28:20,920 --> 00:28:24,360
Speaker 1: we see and experience in Charlotte. But I walked into

479
00:28:24,400 --> 00:28:27,320
Speaker 1: that room and then we actually, my wife and I

480
00:28:27,520 --> 00:28:30,399
Speaker 1: and some of our team members at our company volunteered

481
00:28:30,480 --> 00:28:34,280
Speaker 1: to tutor and so on every week for a while

482
00:28:34,359 --> 00:28:37,000
Speaker 1: in one of the schools, and I was blown away.

483
00:28:37,080 --> 00:28:41,360
Speaker 1: The teachers were great, the principles were great, the facilities

484
00:28:41,400 --> 00:28:46,400
Speaker 1: were fine, the technology was available. That's not the case everywhere,

485
00:28:46,640 --> 00:28:50,280
Speaker 1: and you certainly have bad actors in teaching, just like

486
00:28:50,400 --> 00:28:51,560
Speaker 1: you do in any other profession.

487
00:28:52,200 --> 00:28:54,800
Speaker 2: But by and large my experiences that is I mean,

488
00:28:54,880 --> 00:28:58,520
Speaker 2: you're right, there's always outliers, but by and large, teachers

489
00:28:58,560 --> 00:29:01,160
Speaker 2: are there, teach, take care. Yeah, they really genuinely care.

490
00:29:01,240 --> 00:29:03,680
Speaker 2: And administrators care about their students and their teachers, and

491
00:29:03,720 --> 00:29:05,080
Speaker 2: they want things to go well and they want their

492
00:29:05,160 --> 00:29:10,400
Speaker 2: kids to learn. But they don't they You just told me,

493
00:29:10,480 --> 00:29:11,960
Speaker 2: what'd you say? Fifteen percent?

494
00:29:12,240 --> 00:29:14,840
Speaker 1: That's right, fifteen percent. So we said, what what you

495
00:29:14,920 --> 00:29:17,440
Speaker 1: find out? And one of the things they said, which

496
00:29:17,960 --> 00:29:20,680
Speaker 1: you know, basically changed, you know, kind of my life

497
00:29:20,720 --> 00:29:24,800
Speaker 1: trajectory from there, was they said, if we can get

498
00:29:24,840 --> 00:29:28,760
Speaker 1: a child in school in August, you know, when school starts,

499
00:29:28,880 --> 00:29:30,880
Speaker 1: and if that child he or she is still in

500
00:29:30,960 --> 00:29:34,440
Speaker 1: school in May, they will learn. But the problem is

501
00:29:34,800 --> 00:29:37,840
Speaker 1: that's the exception, not the rule. And so we say, okay,

502
00:29:38,440 --> 00:29:41,280
Speaker 1: you know, tell us more about that. Well, a lot

503
00:29:41,320 --> 00:29:44,120
Speaker 1: of times, most of I would say, most of the

504
00:29:44,400 --> 00:29:49,800
Speaker 1: students come from single parent households, usually mom and multiple kids,

505
00:29:50,560 --> 00:29:54,040
Speaker 1: and mom gets sick, missus work gets fired, missus a

506
00:29:54,080 --> 00:29:57,640
Speaker 1: rent check, missus rentcheck gets evicted and pulls the kids

507
00:29:57,640 --> 00:29:59,200
Speaker 1: out of school to go because they got to go

508
00:29:59,280 --> 00:30:01,600
Speaker 1: to find some laced you know, in a rent by

509
00:30:01,640 --> 00:30:03,560
Speaker 1: the week hotel or something or other in a different

510
00:30:03,560 --> 00:30:06,920
Speaker 1: school district. And so they start with whatever, twenty four

511
00:30:07,000 --> 00:30:11,040
Speaker 1: kids in first grade in August, and by October, you know,

512
00:30:11,160 --> 00:30:13,800
Speaker 1: there's eight of the kids have left and six more

513
00:30:13,840 --> 00:30:18,160
Speaker 1: have joined. And it's really more of a revolving door,

514
00:30:18,360 --> 00:30:21,240
Speaker 1: kind of musical chairs kind of set up where people

515
00:30:21,400 --> 00:30:24,440
Speaker 1: come and go in these in these school districts, And

516
00:30:24,560 --> 00:30:28,240
Speaker 1: I'm quite sure that repeats itself in every other city

517
00:30:28,400 --> 00:30:29,680
Speaker 1: not just in Charlotte.

518
00:30:30,000 --> 00:30:32,280
Speaker 2: It's almost like transient school kids.

519
00:30:32,400 --> 00:30:33,520
Speaker 1: It's exactly right.

520
00:30:33,640 --> 00:30:34,479
Speaker 2: It's exactly right.

521
00:30:34,600 --> 00:30:40,160
Speaker 1: And what it it told us was the nexus that

522
00:30:40,520 --> 00:30:46,840
Speaker 1: the connection between stable affordable housing and educational outcomes. You

523
00:30:46,920 --> 00:30:50,360
Speaker 1: can go spend fifty million dollars investing in public schools

524
00:30:50,880 --> 00:30:53,040
Speaker 1: and not have you know, not moved the needle all

525
00:30:53,080 --> 00:30:56,160
Speaker 1: that much. But if you're going to make an investment,

526
00:30:57,200 --> 00:31:00,520
Speaker 1: you know, education, housing, employment, healthcare, do all of those

527
00:31:00,600 --> 00:31:03,680
Speaker 1: things and invest in a collective impact model. And so

528
00:31:04,240 --> 00:31:06,720
Speaker 1: we said, wow, we've got to We've got to do

529
00:31:06,880 --> 00:31:10,719
Speaker 1: something about the stable affordable housing so these families can

530
00:31:10,800 --> 00:31:14,120
Speaker 1: stay put, the kids can walk to school even when

531
00:31:14,200 --> 00:31:17,680
Speaker 1: mom gets sick or whatever else, and make sure these

532
00:31:17,760 --> 00:31:20,640
Speaker 1: kids are in class from August to May or whatever

533
00:31:20,760 --> 00:31:21,520
Speaker 1: the school year is.

534
00:31:21,640 --> 00:31:24,240
Speaker 2: And then allow the teachers to do the job and allow.

535
00:31:24,040 --> 00:31:26,400
Speaker 1: The teachers that you do the job, because they've got

536
00:31:26,600 --> 00:31:28,880
Speaker 1: gray better they can do it. The teachers are for

537
00:31:28,960 --> 00:31:32,080
Speaker 1: the most part good and dedicated and committed. So that

538
00:31:32,200 --> 00:31:34,160
Speaker 1: was a real eye opener for us to say, Okay,

539
00:31:34,720 --> 00:31:38,400
Speaker 1: housing and educational outcomes are directly linked.

540
00:31:39,240 --> 00:31:40,920
Speaker 2: So we always talk about what are we going to

541
00:31:40,960 --> 00:31:43,560
Speaker 2: do to fix the proverbial it, and we're on in

542
00:31:43,680 --> 00:31:49,720
Speaker 2: some cities second and even third generations of poverty and

543
00:31:50,000 --> 00:31:54,160
Speaker 2: poorly educated kids, and a lot of it has to

544
00:31:54,280 --> 00:31:57,680
Speaker 2: do with this very thing. But my guess is if

545
00:31:57,720 --> 00:32:01,480
Speaker 2: you were like me and most folks that do have

546
00:32:01,600 --> 00:32:05,520
Speaker 2: a heart and want of exacts some major change by

547
00:32:05,720 --> 00:32:09,960
Speaker 2: actually looking at the reality of the situation rather than

548
00:32:10,080 --> 00:32:11,800
Speaker 2: what you hear on the news or what you read

549
00:32:11,800 --> 00:32:19,120
Speaker 2: in the newspaper or whatever your particular political party slants

550
00:32:19,200 --> 00:32:22,360
Speaker 2: the story to you. As you had to have been

551
00:32:22,440 --> 00:32:26,240
Speaker 2: sitting at home going wow, yeah.

552
00:32:26,680 --> 00:32:30,040
Speaker 1: And I was in this group of folks that you

553
00:32:30,120 --> 00:32:32,360
Speaker 1: know that we had been meeting and talking about. I

554
00:32:32,480 --> 00:32:36,440
Speaker 1: was the only real estate guy. So education, housing, employment, healthcare,

555
00:32:36,520 --> 00:32:39,479
Speaker 1: housing is kind of real estate. So I said, all right,

556
00:32:39,600 --> 00:32:41,760
Speaker 1: let me lean into that. You know, how hard can

557
00:32:41,800 --> 00:32:43,640
Speaker 1: it be? I say that a lot. How hard can

558
00:32:43,720 --> 00:32:46,600
Speaker 1: it be? Well, well, it can be pretty darn hard.

559
00:32:48,520 --> 00:32:49,400
Speaker 2: We'll be right back.

560
00:33:00,240 --> 00:33:04,680
Speaker 1: So we decided to start doing something in the housing space,

561
00:33:04,920 --> 00:33:10,040
Speaker 1: and initially again armed with the purpose built model. I

562
00:33:10,080 --> 00:33:12,560
Speaker 1: give them all the credit. This is no original thinking

563
00:33:12,680 --> 00:33:16,240
Speaker 1: on our part. We're taking what they had developed. We

564
00:33:16,360 --> 00:33:19,720
Speaker 1: came to Charlotte and decided to focus on West Charlotte.

565
00:33:20,400 --> 00:33:23,160
Speaker 1: Casey Crawford, who owns a movement mortgage. He was then

566
00:33:23,160 --> 00:33:27,640
Speaker 1: next NFL guy and has a real heart for the

567
00:33:27,720 --> 00:33:31,120
Speaker 1: inner city and he's investing a lot of his personal

568
00:33:31,240 --> 00:33:34,800
Speaker 1: money building public charter schools in the inner city. And

569
00:33:35,080 --> 00:33:38,840
Speaker 1: so he bought a property and started investing.

570
00:33:38,960 --> 00:33:42,040
Speaker 2: I think, what is a property? What has bought a property?

571
00:33:42,280 --> 00:33:45,040
Speaker 1: Yeah? So, actually it's kind of a cool story. So

572
00:33:45,560 --> 00:33:49,360
Speaker 1: our company buys and redevelops properties. Could be an old

573
00:33:49,400 --> 00:33:51,840
Speaker 1: empty km art center, which is exactly what it was

574
00:33:52,280 --> 00:33:55,280
Speaker 1: in this example. We also buy vacant land and build

575
00:33:55,320 --> 00:33:59,440
Speaker 1: apartments or mixed use developments. Our company was under contract

576
00:33:59,560 --> 00:34:02,240
Speaker 1: on an old empty kmart in West Charlotte and we

577
00:34:02,320 --> 00:34:07,440
Speaker 1: were going to try to redevelop it into a shopping center.

578
00:34:07,560 --> 00:34:10,160
Speaker 1: But Casey had one of his guys call to say, hey,

579
00:34:10,400 --> 00:34:12,120
Speaker 1: you know, I hear you guys are going to buy

580
00:34:12,160 --> 00:34:13,640
Speaker 1: that center. What are you going to do with it?

581
00:34:14,400 --> 00:34:16,080
Speaker 1: And I told him and I said, what are you

582
00:34:16,160 --> 00:34:18,360
Speaker 1: calling about? He said, well, Casey wants to buy it

583
00:34:18,440 --> 00:34:21,200
Speaker 1: and do a charter school, and he's got a real

584
00:34:21,280 --> 00:34:24,080
Speaker 1: heart for the inner city. And we weren't all that

585
00:34:24,719 --> 00:34:28,840
Speaker 1: far along with our plans so I felt led to

586
00:34:29,160 --> 00:34:32,480
Speaker 1: assign our contract to Casey. He paid us for our

587
00:34:32,560 --> 00:34:35,279
Speaker 1: expenses to date, and he bought the center and spent

588
00:34:35,320 --> 00:34:37,719
Speaker 1: I think twelve or fourteen million of his own money

589
00:34:37,800 --> 00:34:41,239
Speaker 1: building a charter school which has now been open for

590
00:34:41,320 --> 00:34:44,120
Speaker 1: a number of years, and so that was kind of

591
00:34:44,200 --> 00:34:46,680
Speaker 1: the start. That was the start of the education piece.

592
00:34:47,239 --> 00:34:49,680
Speaker 2: Yeah, but now you've got to have affordable housing near.

593
00:34:49,560 --> 00:34:52,560
Speaker 1: It, that's right. So there was some extra land that

594
00:34:52,680 --> 00:34:55,160
Speaker 1: came with the site. So I talked to Casey about, hey,

595
00:34:55,440 --> 00:34:57,680
Speaker 1: we want to do something, maybe some affordable housing there.

596
00:34:57,760 --> 00:35:00,840
Speaker 1: He said, great, it wasn't big enough. We had assemble

597
00:35:00,880 --> 00:35:04,440
Speaker 1: a piece next next to it. We didn't develop affordable housing.

598
00:35:04,520 --> 00:35:07,200
Speaker 1: So we went out and interviewed different nonprofits that developed

599
00:35:07,239 --> 00:35:10,680
Speaker 1: affordable housing, invited one to come in, and they loved

600
00:35:10,719 --> 00:35:13,600
Speaker 1: the idea and it was a great sight. So we

601
00:35:13,719 --> 00:35:17,239
Speaker 1: started working with them and it was just tough. It

602
00:35:17,360 --> 00:35:20,440
Speaker 1: was a more difficult process working with them. And I

603
00:35:20,560 --> 00:35:23,360
Speaker 1: remember sitting now with Casey was involved because he owned

604
00:35:23,520 --> 00:35:25,920
Speaker 1: part of the land, and in one of our meetings

605
00:35:25,960 --> 00:35:27,200
Speaker 1: he looked at me and said, I wish you were

606
00:35:27,239 --> 00:35:29,359
Speaker 1: developing this, and I said, yeah, I'm kind of getting

607
00:35:29,400 --> 00:35:33,200
Speaker 1: a sense that maybe maybe you know that's in my future, and.

608
00:35:35,200 --> 00:35:39,359
Speaker 2: I kind of get the sen maybe. Yeah.

609
00:35:40,560 --> 00:35:45,080
Speaker 1: Anyway, we finished that deal, this nonprofit developed the housing there,

610
00:35:45,680 --> 00:35:49,080
Speaker 1: and then we ended up I ended up hiring a

611
00:35:49,120 --> 00:35:52,000
Speaker 1: couple of folks and building a team to go start

612
00:35:52,160 --> 00:35:55,800
Speaker 1: developing affordable housing. And we've been doing it now for

613
00:35:56,680 --> 00:35:58,840
Speaker 1: I guess about six six years or so, six or

614
00:35:58,880 --> 00:35:59,359
Speaker 1: seven years.

615
00:35:59,520 --> 00:36:04,319
Speaker 2: All right, So, as I hear all that, not many

616
00:36:04,400 --> 00:36:06,799
Speaker 2: normal folks have twelve million dollars to buy cam Art

617
00:36:07,080 --> 00:36:12,480
Speaker 2: and make a school. But there are plenty of people

618
00:36:13,360 --> 00:36:17,719
Speaker 2: with good hearts who are business folks who know how

619
00:36:18,160 --> 00:36:21,480
Speaker 2: finance and leverage works, that can pull things off like

620
00:36:21,600 --> 00:36:27,800
Speaker 2: that in every city. But it first took learning what

621
00:36:27,960 --> 00:36:31,000
Speaker 2: the problems are to even understand what in the world

622
00:36:31,120 --> 00:36:33,440
Speaker 2: you really needed to do, rather than just write and

623
00:36:33,560 --> 00:36:36,960
Speaker 2: checks and throwing money at it, which I would argue

624
00:36:37,239 --> 00:36:42,600
Speaker 2: happens a lot. So that points back to what I'm saying.

625
00:36:43,120 --> 00:36:46,640
Speaker 2: I don't think any public entity could have pulled that off.

626
00:36:47,360 --> 00:36:50,640
Speaker 2: There's no cities buying cam arts and converting them to

627
00:36:50,760 --> 00:36:56,200
Speaker 2: public schools and then working with a developer to build

628
00:36:56,440 --> 00:37:01,040
Speaker 2: housing around the school to better the community. It's it's

629
00:37:01,239 --> 00:37:04,440
Speaker 2: not that public people, it's just not what they do.

630
00:37:05,160 --> 00:37:08,840
Speaker 2: That's that's my That was my point earlier about the

631
00:37:08,920 --> 00:37:12,600
Speaker 2: difference in a private business approach to this stuff and

632
00:37:12,719 --> 00:37:16,400
Speaker 2: a and a public approach. Get the facts, learn the facts,

633
00:37:16,560 --> 00:37:19,640
Speaker 2: understand the data, find out what the real problems are

634
00:37:19,760 --> 00:37:24,839
Speaker 2: in a very practical, realistic sense, and then go fix

635
00:37:24,880 --> 00:37:29,640
Speaker 2: the problems in a in a very business like approach.

636
00:37:29,880 --> 00:37:32,319
Speaker 2: And that sounds exactly to me like what you've done.

637
00:37:33,480 --> 00:37:36,560
Speaker 1: Yeah, I totally agree with you. I mean, business people

638
00:37:36,600 --> 00:37:41,760
Speaker 1: are known for building a vision, casting the vision, selling

639
00:37:41,840 --> 00:37:45,319
Speaker 1: the vision, coming up with a strategy to execute. That's

640
00:37:45,360 --> 00:37:48,600
Speaker 1: what we do. And you know, these are tough, tough,

641
00:37:48,840 --> 00:37:54,880
Speaker 1: tough challenges, but they need people to think clearly, have vision,

642
00:37:55,239 --> 00:37:57,480
Speaker 1: cast the vision, and so on. And so that's what

643
00:37:57,560 --> 00:38:00,600
Speaker 1: we tried to do. And so we started in what Charlotte,

644
00:38:00,600 --> 00:38:04,000
Speaker 1: and what we quickly learned was this group of us

645
00:38:04,920 --> 00:38:07,080
Speaker 1: and I'm sitting here, but any of this group, you know,

646
00:38:07,160 --> 00:38:10,080
Speaker 1: could be here telling the same story. Couldn't have done

647
00:38:10,120 --> 00:38:13,680
Speaker 1: it by myself. Didn't do it by myself. But what

648
00:38:13,800 --> 00:38:16,040
Speaker 1: we learned was we were the limitter because there's so

649
00:38:16,160 --> 00:38:18,480
Speaker 1: much work to do and we only had so much

650
00:38:18,560 --> 00:38:21,080
Speaker 1: time to do it. So we ended up starting a

651
00:38:21,160 --> 00:38:26,000
Speaker 1: nonprofit which we called Freedom Communities Plural, because we thought

652
00:38:26,080 --> 00:38:29,279
Speaker 1: we could prove the concept and then scale it, you know,

653
00:38:29,400 --> 00:38:33,879
Speaker 1: to other places. So we started this nonprofit and I'm

654
00:38:33,920 --> 00:38:38,400
Speaker 1: still involved, still board chair, and it's so fulfilling for

655
00:38:38,480 --> 00:38:39,480
Speaker 1: me to still be evolved.

656
00:38:39,560 --> 00:38:43,120
Speaker 2: So tell us about the first Freedom community, which was

657
00:38:43,160 --> 00:38:47,480
Speaker 2: a kmart and some land beside it. Yeah, how many units,

658
00:38:47,719 --> 00:38:51,320
Speaker 2: I guess is the right word. I'm thinking of affordable housing.

659
00:38:51,560 --> 00:38:56,239
Speaker 2: I'm imagining something that looks something like apartments or condominiums

660
00:38:56,360 --> 00:38:59,400
Speaker 2: or something like that. So how many units was that

661
00:38:59,560 --> 00:38:59,920
Speaker 2: first one?

662
00:39:00,600 --> 00:39:04,760
Speaker 1: Yeah? So I think the first community, which we didn't develop,

663
00:39:04,880 --> 00:39:07,800
Speaker 1: that's the one next to the public charter school. I

664
00:39:07,840 --> 00:39:10,719
Speaker 1: think it's probably about one hundred and forty units. It's

665
00:39:10,719 --> 00:39:15,719
Speaker 1: apartment community. We have since now, we've completed three full

666
00:39:15,800 --> 00:39:18,840
Speaker 1: communities from one hundred and thirty units up to one

667
00:39:18,920 --> 00:39:20,680
Speaker 1: hundred and eighty units. So we've got two more under

668
00:39:20,719 --> 00:39:23,239
Speaker 1: construction right now, so call it. And then we've got

669
00:39:23,280 --> 00:39:25,800
Speaker 1: several more in the work, so, you know, five or

670
00:39:25,880 --> 00:39:30,200
Speaker 1: six different developments in different parts of West Charlotte. We're

671
00:39:30,239 --> 00:39:34,399
Speaker 1: trying to invest in areas that are gentrifying, meaning there's

672
00:39:34,600 --> 00:39:37,680
Speaker 1: new investment coming in. But what happens with the new

673
00:39:37,719 --> 00:39:40,600
Speaker 1: investment is it displaces the people that have been there,

674
00:39:41,239 --> 00:39:44,160
Speaker 1: you know, as prices rise, as rents rise, and so on.

675
00:39:44,320 --> 00:39:47,160
Speaker 1: And so we're trying to get ahead of that gentrification,

676
00:39:47,360 --> 00:39:50,719
Speaker 1: trying to find sites that we can develop affordable housing in.

677
00:39:51,440 --> 00:39:55,520
Speaker 1: And this gets technical, but in North Carolina and in

678
00:39:55,600 --> 00:39:59,600
Speaker 1: most states, if you're a nonprofit owner of affordable housing,

679
00:39:59,680 --> 00:40:03,360
Speaker 1: you don't to pay property tax. Well, not paying property

680
00:40:03,440 --> 00:40:06,880
Speaker 1: tax is a big deal on a big property like that,

681
00:40:07,120 --> 00:40:09,920
Speaker 1: and so we try to set up a nonprofit to

682
00:40:10,000 --> 00:40:13,040
Speaker 1: build our affordable housing, and the IRS didn't like the

683
00:40:13,120 --> 00:40:16,800
Speaker 1: idea of bolting a nonprofit onto a for profit development company,

684
00:40:18,080 --> 00:40:20,680
Speaker 1: and so what we ended up doing was we just said, shoot,

685
00:40:20,800 --> 00:40:23,480
Speaker 1: we're just going to let Freedom Communities, a nonprofit that

686
00:40:23,560 --> 00:40:26,480
Speaker 1: we had just started, We'll let them own all these

687
00:40:26,560 --> 00:40:29,960
Speaker 1: affordable housing developments. And so that wasn't something that we

688
00:40:30,120 --> 00:40:32,439
Speaker 1: set out to do, but we kind of fell into

689
00:40:32,520 --> 00:40:36,160
Speaker 1: it and it turned out to be a That's one

690
00:40:36,160 --> 00:40:40,800
Speaker 1: of the coolest parts of our structure. Our company, Crossing

691
00:40:40,840 --> 00:40:43,479
Speaker 1: Southeast is doing all the work, taking all the risk,

692
00:40:43,600 --> 00:40:48,600
Speaker 1: investing all the capital and freedom communities owns the affordable housing,

693
00:40:48,680 --> 00:40:51,600
Speaker 1: and they can then invest in the families within the

694
00:40:51,640 --> 00:40:55,200
Speaker 1: affordable housing developments. They get the cash flow that comes

695
00:40:55,239 --> 00:40:57,800
Speaker 1: from those units, they get the future value, which.

696
00:40:57,719 --> 00:40:59,920
Speaker 2: Which can be lower because they're not paying property time.

697
00:41:00,239 --> 00:41:01,120
Speaker 1: That's exactly right.

698
00:41:02,280 --> 00:41:04,759
Speaker 2: So you're able to lower the rent, run it as

699
00:41:04,800 --> 00:41:09,120
Speaker 2: a nonprofit, keep the property up. But because you're not

700
00:41:09,200 --> 00:41:11,040
Speaker 2: having it, because it's a nonprofit, you're not having to

701
00:41:11,080 --> 00:41:14,560
Speaker 2: pay property taxes. You can charge less rent, just enough

702
00:41:14,640 --> 00:41:17,719
Speaker 2: to cover the maintenance and everything of the project, and

703
00:41:17,880 --> 00:41:24,840
Speaker 2: in doing so offer significantly lower rent for really nice places.

704
00:41:25,040 --> 00:41:28,680
Speaker 1: Yeah, kind of like that. So if you're doing affordable housing,

705
00:41:29,239 --> 00:41:32,000
Speaker 1: and this gets back to what something you said earlier.

706
00:41:32,719 --> 00:41:35,520
Speaker 1: So our first development deal using real numbers, our first

707
00:41:35,560 --> 00:41:37,320
Speaker 1: development deal was one hundred and eighty units and it

708
00:41:37,480 --> 00:41:39,480
Speaker 1: costs back then thirty one million dollars.

709
00:41:39,680 --> 00:41:41,239
Speaker 2: Okay, lord, where's the money come from?

710
00:41:41,400 --> 00:41:45,920
Speaker 1: Yeah, thirty one million dollars. We had to build to

711
00:41:46,000 --> 00:41:50,960
Speaker 1: build those units. But the government tells you if it's

712
00:41:51,000 --> 00:41:54,000
Speaker 1: going to be affordable housing, they tell you what the

713
00:41:54,120 --> 00:41:57,720
Speaker 1: rent needs to be to be affordable, and generally speaking,

714
00:41:58,719 --> 00:42:02,160
Speaker 1: the rent is for some to have an affordable home,

715
00:42:02,880 --> 00:42:05,080
Speaker 1: they can't be spending more than thirty percent of their

716
00:42:05,120 --> 00:42:09,319
Speaker 1: income on housing. And so depending on how much you make,

717
00:42:10,360 --> 00:42:12,520
Speaker 1: you know, you take thirty percent of whatever you make,

718
00:42:12,600 --> 00:42:16,520
Speaker 1: and that's what is considered an affordable rent. And so

719
00:42:17,719 --> 00:42:21,040
Speaker 1: when you're setting those affordable rents, it costs you thirty

720
00:42:21,080 --> 00:42:24,680
Speaker 1: one million dollars to build this thing. The building upon completion,

721
00:42:25,400 --> 00:42:27,560
Speaker 1: with the rents that you're charging, is only worth about

722
00:42:27,600 --> 00:42:29,880
Speaker 1: half that fifteen or sixteen million dollars.

723
00:42:30,120 --> 00:42:30,960
Speaker 2: Well, how do you cover it?

724
00:42:31,160 --> 00:42:32,800
Speaker 1: How do you cover it? Because you get bills for

725
00:42:32,920 --> 00:42:36,040
Speaker 1: thirty one million dollars, and so you can only finance

726
00:42:36,320 --> 00:42:38,600
Speaker 1: a certain amount of you know, maybe you get a

727
00:42:38,719 --> 00:42:42,560
Speaker 1: ten or twelve million dollar construction loan, because they're not

728
00:42:42,600 --> 00:42:44,600
Speaker 1: going to loan you thirty million on an asset that's

729
00:42:44,640 --> 00:42:48,000
Speaker 1: only worth fifteen million dollars. And so the Low Income

730
00:42:48,080 --> 00:42:52,080
Speaker 1: Housing Tax Credit program is the it's a terrible program,

731
00:42:52,200 --> 00:42:55,000
Speaker 1: but it's the best thing that's out there for.

732
00:42:55,600 --> 00:42:57,240
Speaker 2: A week government process.

733
00:42:57,320 --> 00:42:59,719
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's exactly right. We couldn't do what we're doing

734
00:42:59,760 --> 00:43:03,480
Speaker 1: with it, so I mean, I mean, that's sincerely, but

735
00:43:03,640 --> 00:43:06,320
Speaker 1: there's all kinds of challenges with it, and so so

736
00:43:06,480 --> 00:43:09,879
Speaker 1: we got call it conventional debt Safe use round numbers

737
00:43:09,920 --> 00:43:13,480
Speaker 1: fifteen million dollars. We've got about ten or eleven million

738
00:43:13,560 --> 00:43:17,520
Speaker 1: dollars of low income housing tax credits through the federal government,

739
00:43:18,360 --> 00:43:20,919
Speaker 1: and then we still had about five million dollars left

740
00:43:21,120 --> 00:43:25,320
Speaker 1: to solve for And fortunately, the City of Charlotte and

741
00:43:25,640 --> 00:43:28,640
Speaker 1: many other cities have something we call it the Housing

742
00:43:28,760 --> 00:43:32,040
Speaker 1: Trust Fund. The city floats a bond for now it's

743
00:43:32,320 --> 00:43:35,640
Speaker 1: fifty million, it used to be fifteen million every two years,

744
00:43:35,680 --> 00:43:38,960
Speaker 1: and they use that for affordable housing initiatives. And so

745
00:43:39,080 --> 00:43:43,240
Speaker 1: you make an application for your development and they review

746
00:43:43,320 --> 00:43:46,719
Speaker 1: it and if they deem it worthy, then they'll make

747
00:43:46,800 --> 00:43:50,520
Speaker 1: this five million or three million dollar investment. In our case,

748
00:43:50,560 --> 00:43:53,520
Speaker 1: it was five million, and it's a one percent loan

749
00:43:54,239 --> 00:43:58,040
Speaker 1: that we need to repay. But one percent money is

750
00:43:58,160 --> 00:44:01,680
Speaker 1: pretty cheap, and so we built this thirty million dollar project.

751
00:44:01,960 --> 00:44:05,000
Speaker 1: We borrowed fifteen million, we got ten million of low

752
00:44:05,040 --> 00:44:07,960
Speaker 1: income housing tax credits, five million from the city Housing

753
00:44:08,000 --> 00:44:10,400
Speaker 1: Trust Fund, and we were off to the races and.

754
00:44:10,440 --> 00:44:13,040
Speaker 2: We build a project and nobody makes any money.

755
00:44:13,160 --> 00:44:16,759
Speaker 1: There's no profit, but we get a little development fee

756
00:44:16,840 --> 00:44:19,840
Speaker 1: to cover some overhead and so on, and we also

757
00:44:20,400 --> 00:44:24,360
Speaker 1: have to sign loan guarantees and tax credit compliance guarantees,

758
00:44:24,400 --> 00:44:25,920
Speaker 1: and I mean it gets involved.

759
00:44:25,920 --> 00:44:27,880
Speaker 2: I got to step out there, and you got to

760
00:44:27,920 --> 00:44:29,799
Speaker 2: go to work, and you got to put your name

761
00:44:29,880 --> 00:44:30,040
Speaker 2: on it.

762
00:44:30,239 --> 00:44:33,239
Speaker 1: That's right. But one of the earliest things we did,

763
00:44:33,440 --> 00:44:37,320
Speaker 1: knowing what we learned from purpose built education, housing, employment, healthcare,

764
00:44:37,320 --> 00:44:38,920
Speaker 1: we said, okay, here's what we're going to do. We're

765
00:44:38,920 --> 00:44:42,800
Speaker 1: going to and I had my team plot the thirty

766
00:44:42,840 --> 00:44:46,719
Speaker 1: best elementary schools in Charlotte, and I said, okay, we're

767
00:44:46,760 --> 00:44:50,040
Speaker 1: going to pair housing with education. Plot the thirty best

768
00:44:50,600 --> 00:44:54,440
Speaker 1: elementary schools in Charlotte, and wherever you know there's an

769
00:44:54,520 --> 00:44:57,359
Speaker 1: elementary school, a great elementary school, we're going to try

770
00:44:57,400 --> 00:44:59,000
Speaker 1: to get as close to that school as who can

771
00:44:59,120 --> 00:45:01,839
Speaker 1: with housing. Well, then as you start getting smarter about

772
00:45:01,880 --> 00:45:06,600
Speaker 1: this low income housing tax credits, you realize that one

773
00:45:06,640 --> 00:45:10,400
Speaker 1: of the programs says you need as many tax credits

774
00:45:10,840 --> 00:45:13,640
Speaker 1: as you can get, but there's a program that says

775
00:45:13,680 --> 00:45:17,440
Speaker 1: we'll give you thirty percent more tax credits if you

776
00:45:17,600 --> 00:45:21,920
Speaker 1: build in what they call a qualified Census tract QCT areas.

777
00:45:22,120 --> 00:45:24,120
Speaker 1: And so we said, okay, great, we're going to plot

778
00:45:24,239 --> 00:45:27,040
Speaker 1: these thirty elementary schools and we're going to plot all

779
00:45:27,120 --> 00:45:32,000
Speaker 1: the qualified census tracks in Charlotte and wherever there's an intersection,

780
00:45:32,160 --> 00:45:34,680
Speaker 1: that's where we're going to look for affordable housing. And

781
00:45:34,840 --> 00:45:37,640
Speaker 1: I was eagerly weighting. I'm thinking, oh, you know, we're

782
00:45:38,000 --> 00:45:41,120
Speaker 1: pretty clever. We got it, we got this strategy, and

783
00:45:41,280 --> 00:45:43,440
Speaker 1: we got this map printed. And I looked at it.

784
00:45:43,520 --> 00:45:47,640
Speaker 1: My heart sank. There were no intersections. Well qualified census

785
00:45:47,760 --> 00:45:52,200
Speaker 1: tracks by definition are areas of concentrated poverty. And that

786
00:45:52,440 --> 00:45:57,200
Speaker 1: was a definition like from the nineteen seventies the government,

787
00:45:57,440 --> 00:46:00,560
Speaker 1: you know, to combat redlining and some of those things

788
00:46:00,560 --> 00:46:01,080
Speaker 1: that were done.

789
00:46:01,440 --> 00:46:04,200
Speaker 2: You mean something five decades ago that was well intentioned,

790
00:46:04,280 --> 00:46:07,120
Speaker 2: but it's outlorn. It's usefulness, like I was describing about

791
00:46:07,160 --> 00:46:09,000
Speaker 2: thirty minutes ago, exactly that.

792
00:46:09,400 --> 00:46:13,799
Speaker 1: So I looked at this and said, so you get

793
00:46:13,880 --> 00:46:16,600
Speaker 1: thirty percent more tax credits to build in areas of

794
00:46:16,719 --> 00:46:21,120
Speaker 1: concentrated poverty that, for the most part don't have quality education,

795
00:46:21,280 --> 00:46:25,200
Speaker 1: don't have access to healthcare, don't have jobs and economic opportunity,

796
00:46:25,600 --> 00:46:28,239
Speaker 1: But you get more tax credits to build there. The

797
00:46:28,320 --> 00:46:32,280
Speaker 1: program should be the exact inverstive. You should be getting

798
00:46:33,160 --> 00:46:37,360
Speaker 1: bonuses to build in predominantly affluent areas with grade schools

799
00:46:37,480 --> 00:46:43,240
Speaker 1: and all the other infrastructure, but were incentivized to actually

800
00:46:43,920 --> 00:46:48,239
Speaker 1: further concentrate poverty, which is crazy in my view.

801
00:46:48,600 --> 00:46:54,200
Speaker 2: Well and to that point, and the gentrification point is

802
00:46:58,800 --> 00:47:04,000
Speaker 2: way too much reading. But it's a chicken or the

803
00:47:04,040 --> 00:47:10,640
Speaker 2: egg thing, and it is the scourge of what white

804
00:47:10,719 --> 00:47:14,320
Speaker 2: flight in the seventies that could be argued started with bussing,

805
00:47:15,960 --> 00:47:19,640
Speaker 2: by a large bussing and then school integration, which is

806
00:47:20,000 --> 00:47:24,120
Speaker 2: another stain on our history. In my opinion, I understand it,

807
00:47:24,360 --> 00:47:27,560
Speaker 2: understand why I live in the city that dealt with it.

808
00:47:27,840 --> 00:47:32,239
Speaker 2: But the reason I say it's sustain is one of

809
00:47:32,239 --> 00:47:36,360
Speaker 2: the things I've read is one of the greatest accelerators

810
00:47:36,560 --> 00:47:40,520
Speaker 2: out of poverty is to have lower income people living

811
00:47:40,640 --> 00:47:44,759
Speaker 2: amongst working with and going to school at least middle income.

812
00:47:44,520 --> 00:47:46,960
Speaker 1: People, mixed income. That's exactly right.

813
00:47:48,560 --> 00:47:52,880
Speaker 2: And the problem is when you're incented to invest in

814
00:47:53,080 --> 00:47:59,520
Speaker 2: poverty and concentrate poverty in poverty, you lose that step up.

815
00:48:00,360 --> 00:48:02,160
Speaker 2: I mean, that's right, that's.

816
00:48:02,080 --> 00:48:05,040
Speaker 1: Exactly right, that's exactly right. Studies have shown that if

817
00:48:05,560 --> 00:48:08,040
Speaker 1: you get in some of the communities that we're building now,

818
00:48:08,560 --> 00:48:12,319
Speaker 1: we're trying to mix incomes from as low as there's

819
00:48:12,360 --> 00:48:17,279
Speaker 1: a lot of acronyms and abbreviations in this business. But

820
00:48:18,040 --> 00:48:22,000
Speaker 1: AMI area median income. So every city or every neighborhood

821
00:48:22,040 --> 00:48:25,520
Speaker 1: has an area median income. In Charlotte, if you're a

822
00:48:25,680 --> 00:48:28,600
Speaker 1: family of four, it's somewhere around ninety thousand dollars. That's

823
00:48:28,640 --> 00:48:33,120
Speaker 1: the area of meeting income. Affordable housing generally serves people

824
00:48:33,239 --> 00:48:36,840
Speaker 1: that make from thirty percent of the AMI up to

825
00:48:37,000 --> 00:48:39,720
Speaker 1: eighty percent of the AMI. So again, for a family

826
00:48:39,760 --> 00:48:40,360
Speaker 1: of thirty.

827
00:48:40,320 --> 00:48:43,920
Speaker 2: Percent of the AMI, ninety is only twenty seven thousand

828
00:48:43,960 --> 00:48:46,719
Speaker 2: a year. So family of four, how the heck are

829
00:48:46,719 --> 00:48:47,640
Speaker 2: they going to afford rent?

830
00:48:48,120 --> 00:48:52,560
Speaker 1: Because we set the rent at again, thirty percent of

831
00:48:52,640 --> 00:48:55,760
Speaker 1: what they make. So to use round numbers, if somebody

832
00:48:55,880 --> 00:48:59,759
Speaker 1: makes thirty thousand dollars, they're paying nine thousand dollars for

833
00:49:00,080 --> 00:49:03,000
Speaker 1: or you know, a two bedroom apartment annually.

834
00:49:03,200 --> 00:49:06,200
Speaker 2: So whatever that is, EIGHTYUS.

835
00:49:06,160 --> 00:49:08,719
Speaker 1: Eight hundred dollars a less than seven hundred dollars a

836
00:49:08,840 --> 00:49:12,480
Speaker 1: month for an apartment that you know, a market rate

837
00:49:12,560 --> 00:49:15,560
Speaker 1: for that deal might be two thousand dollars and they're

838
00:49:15,600 --> 00:49:16,879
Speaker 1: only paying seven hundred dollars.

839
00:49:17,040 --> 00:49:18,920
Speaker 2: I bet it's more than that. My kid just rented

840
00:49:18,960 --> 00:49:22,080
Speaker 2: an apartment in Atlanta, first job out, and I mean

841
00:49:22,160 --> 00:49:25,279
Speaker 2: it's nice, it's safe, but it's nothing overly special. It's

842
00:49:25,320 --> 00:49:30,480
Speaker 2: a one bedroom apartment, not even inside the city limits.

843
00:49:30,520 --> 00:49:32,360
Speaker 2: And he pays twenty two to fifty a month for

844
00:49:32,440 --> 00:49:34,880
Speaker 2: that thing. And I mean I could we Lisa and

845
00:49:34,920 --> 00:49:37,600
Speaker 2: I went with him to find an apartment and we

846
00:49:37,719 --> 00:49:39,879
Speaker 2: spent all weekend and he did a really good job,

847
00:49:40,000 --> 00:49:44,400
Speaker 2: and we had eighteen different places to visit. And I

848
00:49:44,600 --> 00:49:49,399
Speaker 2: was shocked that kids, when I say kids, twenty five

849
00:49:49,480 --> 00:49:51,960
Speaker 2: to thirty year old kids that can't afford a house

850
00:49:52,000 --> 00:49:54,560
Speaker 2: shut that are out there starting their lives, are actually

851
00:49:54,680 --> 00:49:57,680
Speaker 2: dumping twenty two, twenty three, twenty four hundred dollars a

852
00:49:57,800 --> 00:50:00,480
Speaker 2: month on rent for a one bedroom room or a

853
00:50:00,560 --> 00:50:01,920
Speaker 2: two bedroom apartment.

854
00:50:02,520 --> 00:50:03,480
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's insane.

855
00:50:03,680 --> 00:50:06,640
Speaker 2: It is insane. But given that you talk about gentrification,

856
00:50:07,840 --> 00:50:11,760
Speaker 2: you build that in an area that is being redeveloped,

857
00:50:12,080 --> 00:50:15,800
Speaker 2: How is somebody making twenty seven thirty thirty five thousand dollars,

858
00:50:16,400 --> 00:50:20,120
Speaker 2: a lower income, blue collar person trying to make it

859
00:50:20,400 --> 00:50:23,120
Speaker 2: from that bottom twenty percent out of the twenty percent?

860
00:50:23,560 --> 00:50:26,960
Speaker 2: How do they ever live there? Yeah? And so then

861
00:50:27,000 --> 00:50:30,439
Speaker 2: they got to move down the wrong to be able

862
00:50:30,480 --> 00:50:35,120
Speaker 2: to afford housing, which puts them in worse neighborhoods, worse everything,

863
00:50:35,280 --> 00:50:44,919
Speaker 2: and so goes the cycle. We'll be right back.

864
00:50:57,680 --> 00:51:01,279
Speaker 1: One of the principal programs that Freedom does is we

865
00:51:02,239 --> 00:51:05,080
Speaker 1: run cohorts. We have a program called Moms Moving Forward,

866
00:51:05,120 --> 00:51:09,040
Speaker 1: and we get a cohort, typically around fifteen moms. We

867
00:51:09,160 --> 00:51:12,520
Speaker 1: do a one year program, and we start a new

868
00:51:13,040 --> 00:51:15,480
Speaker 1: cohort a new class every three or four months, so

869
00:51:15,560 --> 00:51:19,080
Speaker 1: we may have three classes going at one time in

870
00:51:19,080 --> 00:51:22,640
Speaker 1: their twelve month programs, and we pay these moms to

871
00:51:22,760 --> 00:51:26,799
Speaker 1: attend our classes. They meet one on one every week

872
00:51:26,920 --> 00:51:29,919
Speaker 1: with a life coach, and then they meet a couple

873
00:51:30,000 --> 00:51:32,719
Speaker 1: of times a month in a group, and we have

874
00:51:32,920 --> 00:51:36,640
Speaker 1: curriculum that we go through with parenting and financial literacy

875
00:51:36,920 --> 00:51:41,840
Speaker 1: and family planning and all these different important skills, and

876
00:51:42,360 --> 00:51:45,520
Speaker 1: these moms build a network of people that are in

877
00:51:45,640 --> 00:51:49,120
Speaker 1: it with them. You know, the average single mom has

878
00:51:49,200 --> 00:51:51,960
Speaker 1: three kids in our programs, so there may be fifteen

879
00:51:52,080 --> 00:51:55,480
Speaker 1: moms and forty five kids, and so we're serving these

880
00:51:55,600 --> 00:51:59,720
Speaker 1: moms through this curriculum, but we're also trying to build

881
00:52:00,320 --> 00:52:03,839
Speaker 1: educational programs for each of the kids to make sure

882
00:52:03,960 --> 00:52:07,640
Speaker 1: these kids have every chance they can of learning how

883
00:52:07,680 --> 00:52:12,000
Speaker 1: to read by third grade great and continuing to advance

884
00:52:12,200 --> 00:52:16,480
Speaker 1: in school and sticking with the education, because that's one

885
00:52:16,520 --> 00:52:20,120
Speaker 1: of the big difference makers is if these kids can

886
00:52:20,320 --> 00:52:24,520
Speaker 1: change their you know, educational outcomes, complete high school, and

887
00:52:24,640 --> 00:52:27,959
Speaker 1: hopefully get inspired to go to college. Not every kids

888
00:52:28,640 --> 00:52:30,360
Speaker 1: you know wants to go to college or needs to

889
00:52:30,400 --> 00:52:30,880
Speaker 1: go to college.

890
00:52:31,000 --> 00:52:33,680
Speaker 2: Trade schools are coming back, thank the Lord.

891
00:52:33,920 --> 00:52:36,400
Speaker 1: That's exact, and community colleges are. We've got a great

892
00:52:37,000 --> 00:52:40,400
Speaker 1: Central Piedmont Community college system is great in Charlotte. So

893
00:52:40,960 --> 00:52:44,520
Speaker 1: any kid that wants the opportunity or has the desire

894
00:52:44,560 --> 00:52:46,239
Speaker 1: should have the opportunity to do it. And that's what

895
00:52:46,320 --> 00:52:47,120
Speaker 1: we're trying to work on.

896
00:52:47,719 --> 00:52:55,040
Speaker 2: So tell me about the ridiculously amazing and shocking and

897
00:52:55,320 --> 00:53:02,600
Speaker 2: probably going to surprise everybody listening to the aha moment

898
00:53:02,680 --> 00:53:05,560
Speaker 2: when you found out that eighty percent of a child's

899
00:53:05,640 --> 00:53:09,760
Speaker 2: brain develops by the age of three, not third grade.

900
00:53:10,719 --> 00:53:15,040
Speaker 2: Eighty percent of the human being's brain is fully developed

901
00:53:15,080 --> 00:53:16,359
Speaker 2: by the age three.

902
00:53:16,600 --> 00:53:18,919
Speaker 1: Yeah, and give credit where credit is due. I didn't

903
00:53:18,920 --> 00:53:21,759
Speaker 1: discover that. Hannah Beaver's the executive director, did and she

904
00:53:21,840 --> 00:53:22,919
Speaker 1: read it someplace.

905
00:53:22,800 --> 00:53:23,480
Speaker 2: Just when you heard it.

906
00:53:24,080 --> 00:53:27,320
Speaker 1: That's amazing and there's all kinds of moments that that

907
00:53:27,440 --> 00:53:30,120
Speaker 1: stand out for me. You know, one moment one of

908
00:53:30,160 --> 00:53:32,680
Speaker 1: the early things we did is we learned that a

909
00:53:32,760 --> 00:53:35,120
Speaker 1: lot of these moms don't have books at home. These

910
00:53:35,160 --> 00:53:36,120
Speaker 1: kids don't have books at home.

911
00:53:36,200 --> 00:53:39,000
Speaker 2: So which speaks to the ABC's the one, two, three,

912
00:53:39,120 --> 00:53:42,920
Speaker 2: the learning colors, and the earliest childhood development. But your

913
00:53:43,000 --> 00:53:46,560
Speaker 2: child at three, their eighty percent of their brains developed.

914
00:53:46,280 --> 00:53:48,759
Speaker 1: Right, So you got to start early and you got it.

915
00:53:49,120 --> 00:53:52,080
Speaker 1: You know, there's there's you know, all kinds of terms.

916
00:53:52,400 --> 00:53:55,480
Speaker 1: We're deficit. You know, one of your kids when they

917
00:53:55,520 --> 00:53:58,239
Speaker 1: were little, one of my kids. You know, they hear

918
00:53:58,360 --> 00:54:01,320
Speaker 1: a certain number of you know, ten of thousands of words.

919
00:54:02,640 --> 00:54:04,440
Speaker 1: You know, I don't know what the stats are in

920
00:54:04,560 --> 00:54:07,000
Speaker 1: a week or a day or whatever the deal is.

921
00:54:07,560 --> 00:54:09,600
Speaker 1: But a lot of these inner city kids, because they're

922
00:54:09,640 --> 00:54:12,919
Speaker 1: home alone or whatever, they you know, they have these

923
00:54:13,239 --> 00:54:15,920
Speaker 1: you know, thousands and thousands of word deficit. They're not

924
00:54:16,080 --> 00:54:19,000
Speaker 1: hearing the words, and so they're you know, that's part

925
00:54:19,040 --> 00:54:21,120
Speaker 1: of the challenge they've got to overcome a little bit.

926
00:54:21,560 --> 00:54:22,960
Speaker 1: So one of the things we did is we we

927
00:54:23,120 --> 00:54:24,919
Speaker 1: bought books and sent them home with these.

928
00:54:24,920 --> 00:54:28,640
Speaker 2: Kids so they could just have children kids.

929
00:54:28,719 --> 00:54:31,160
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's exactly right, send them home. And and one

930
00:54:31,200 --> 00:54:33,680
Speaker 1: of the one of our staff members was talking to

931
00:54:33,800 --> 00:54:35,719
Speaker 1: one of the kids and said, hey, you know, are

932
00:54:35,800 --> 00:54:38,600
Speaker 1: you enjoying the book that we sent home with you

933
00:54:38,680 --> 00:54:41,640
Speaker 1: the other day? And this little kids said, I don't know.

934
00:54:41,719 --> 00:54:45,480
Speaker 1: Mom threw it away? And uh and really, was there

935
00:54:45,560 --> 00:54:47,080
Speaker 1: something wrong with the book? No, I don't know, mom

936
00:54:47,160 --> 00:54:49,840
Speaker 1: threw it away. And so this teacher was or this

937
00:54:50,000 --> 00:54:52,520
Speaker 1: staff members puzzled. Well, running and ran into the mom

938
00:54:52,560 --> 00:54:55,520
Speaker 1: a couple of days later and said, hey, your son

939
00:54:55,640 --> 00:54:58,080
Speaker 1: said that you threw the book away. Yeah, we threw

940
00:54:58,080 --> 00:54:59,919
Speaker 1: the book away. Well why did you throw the book away?

941
00:55:00,000 --> 00:55:04,279
Speaker 1: And the mom said, well, we read it man. And

942
00:55:04,520 --> 00:55:06,520
Speaker 1: I mean, my heart sunk again when I when I

943
00:55:06,600 --> 00:55:09,560
Speaker 1: hear that story. And and you know right away when

944
00:55:09,600 --> 00:55:14,040
Speaker 1: you hear that that that mom didn't know to read

945
00:55:14,120 --> 00:55:16,719
Speaker 1: that book a thousand timestore kid because nobody read her.

946
00:55:17,760 --> 00:55:20,240
Speaker 2: That's the generational cycle.

947
00:55:20,360 --> 00:55:21,880
Speaker 1: We've got to break that cycle.

948
00:55:22,000 --> 00:55:24,759
Speaker 2: And so uh, and it's not it doesn't mean they're

949
00:55:25,120 --> 00:55:28,640
Speaker 2: they're stupid or they don't care. It's just got to

950
00:55:28,680 --> 00:55:30,279
Speaker 2: be taught. That's exactly right.

951
00:55:31,239 --> 00:55:34,560
Speaker 1: It was never modeled to them. And so you and

952
00:55:34,680 --> 00:55:38,480
Speaker 1: so that's the kind of challenges that we've we've got

953
00:55:38,640 --> 00:55:42,759
Speaker 1: to overcome. And so it it it uh, you know,

954
00:55:42,880 --> 00:55:45,840
Speaker 1: it takes a lot of work over a long, prolonged

955
00:55:45,840 --> 00:55:47,480
Speaker 1: period of time. One of the other things we learned

956
00:55:47,480 --> 00:55:49,920
Speaker 1: from Purpose Built, and I'm a person of faith and

957
00:55:50,120 --> 00:55:53,920
Speaker 1: faith is certainly you know in large part why I'm

958
00:55:53,960 --> 00:55:58,160
Speaker 1: doing this. But we asked the Purpose Built folks, do

959
00:55:58,239 --> 00:56:01,040
Speaker 1: you have a lot of you know, church and faith

960
00:56:01,080 --> 00:56:04,279
Speaker 1: communities involved. And the CEO of Purpose Built made a

961
00:56:04,320 --> 00:56:08,120
Speaker 1: comment saying, actually, the faith community does more harm than good.

962
00:56:08,480 --> 00:56:10,759
Speaker 1: And all of a sudden, you know, I said, why

963
00:56:10,800 --> 00:56:15,160
Speaker 1: would you say that? And what she said was they

964
00:56:15,320 --> 00:56:19,560
Speaker 1: are well intentioned. There's a champion that says I want

965
00:56:19,600 --> 00:56:22,839
Speaker 1: to do something. So they start a committee and they

966
00:56:23,280 --> 00:56:25,719
Speaker 1: lean in and they make a bunch of promises, and

967
00:56:25,760 --> 00:56:29,400
Speaker 1: then a year later they're gone. They're gone, and they

968
00:56:29,480 --> 00:56:33,120
Speaker 1: got a new champion that's on to something else and

969
00:56:33,280 --> 00:56:36,399
Speaker 1: they disappear. And it was kind of like you're one

970
00:56:36,440 --> 00:56:39,600
Speaker 1: of your I guess it was in the Tommy Norman

971
00:56:39,760 --> 00:56:42,800
Speaker 1: episode where you're talking about Turkey people something like that.

972
00:56:43,040 --> 00:56:46,239
Speaker 1: I mean, they show up, they do good, they feel

973
00:56:46,239 --> 00:56:46,520
Speaker 1: good for.

974
00:56:46,560 --> 00:56:47,400
Speaker 2: You to see them.

975
00:56:47,400 --> 00:56:48,799
Speaker 1: Again and you never see them again.

976
00:56:48,960 --> 00:56:52,040
Speaker 2: And and do you know people in those neighborhoods that

977
00:56:52,120 --> 00:56:56,319
Speaker 2: you're trying to serve are really really accustomed to people

978
00:56:56,480 --> 00:56:58,800
Speaker 2: coming in saying a bunch of stuff, who plow and

979
00:56:58,880 --> 00:57:01,840
Speaker 2: everything else, and they bolting. And then you go in

980
00:57:02,120 --> 00:57:05,320
Speaker 2: after two generations or three decades of that, and you

981
00:57:05,440 --> 00:57:07,320
Speaker 2: wonder why when you show up they look at you

982
00:57:07,480 --> 00:57:08,200
Speaker 2: with suspicion.

983
00:57:08,360 --> 00:57:09,279
Speaker 1: It's exactly right.

984
00:57:09,640 --> 00:57:12,720
Speaker 2: Well, I mean it's because that's the picture we've painted.

985
00:57:14,480 --> 00:57:15,279
Speaker 1: We modeled it.

986
00:57:15,920 --> 00:57:20,920
Speaker 2: We have modeled it. Yeah, and we culturally we and

987
00:57:21,120 --> 00:57:25,200
Speaker 2: that is not only that's public, private's And I agree

988
00:57:25,240 --> 00:57:27,000
Speaker 2: with you. I think by and large all of that

989
00:57:27,200 --> 00:57:31,240
Speaker 2: is well intentioned. But without commitment, staying power, you're just

990
00:57:31,320 --> 00:57:32,880
Speaker 2: another noise. Yeah.

991
00:57:33,040 --> 00:57:34,560
Speaker 1: So they told us, if you're going to do it,

992
00:57:34,720 --> 00:57:37,440
Speaker 1: do it. But if you're not committed, then don't even

993
00:57:37,480 --> 00:57:39,480
Speaker 1: start because you're going to do more harm than good.

994
00:57:39,560 --> 00:57:42,080
Speaker 2: And so there's nothing worse than raising hopes and letting

995
00:57:42,120 --> 00:57:42,840
Speaker 2: down Again.

996
00:57:42,760 --> 00:57:46,120
Speaker 1: That's exactly right, and so we just there were lots

997
00:57:46,160 --> 00:57:48,840
Speaker 1: of challenges we've faced along the way, but we were

998
00:57:49,400 --> 00:57:51,280
Speaker 1: and this is where the power of teamwork comes in.

999
00:57:51,480 --> 00:57:53,360
Speaker 1: If I was doing it myself. I'd have given up

1000
00:57:53,360 --> 00:57:57,080
Speaker 1: a long time ago, but you know, my friends and

1001
00:57:57,120 --> 00:57:59,840
Speaker 1: I said, let's keep going. Let's keep going and fight

1002
00:58:00,120 --> 00:58:02,920
Speaker 1: through it. And now we're starting to roll the rock

1003
00:58:02,960 --> 00:58:04,840
Speaker 1: a little bit down the hill. It's still hard, but

1004
00:58:05,360 --> 00:58:08,680
Speaker 1: we're not pushing it uphill, you know, all the time anymore.

1005
00:58:08,840 --> 00:58:13,520
Speaker 2: And it's changing lives and we're hoping to now. I mean,

1006
00:58:13,560 --> 00:58:18,960
Speaker 2: I know, I get the humility, but it has to

1007
00:58:19,040 --> 00:58:26,280
Speaker 2: be changing lives. Yeah, I have had. This is one

1008
00:58:26,320 --> 00:58:30,400
Speaker 2: of my things I love to talk about. And again

1009
00:58:30,560 --> 00:58:32,880
Speaker 2: back to I get asked all the time as if

1010
00:58:32,920 --> 00:58:36,600
Speaker 2: I know the answers, which I don't. I just know

1011
00:58:36,760 --> 00:58:39,280
Speaker 2: what little bit of experience I've had personally, and that's

1012
00:58:39,360 --> 00:58:46,120
Speaker 2: what I can speak to. But doing the work that

1013
00:58:46,480 --> 00:58:49,800
Speaker 2: you do, you're doing and the thousands of other people

1014
00:58:49,880 --> 00:58:53,200
Speaker 2: across the country that we highlight will continue to highlight

1015
00:58:53,440 --> 00:58:57,840
Speaker 2: on an army of normal folks, especially though when working

1016
00:58:58,080 --> 00:59:01,000
Speaker 2: in the world that you're working in. I think it's

1017
00:59:01,040 --> 00:59:05,080
Speaker 2: important for people to think about the social impact. And

1018
00:59:05,240 --> 00:59:08,960
Speaker 2: we talk about the social impact a lot, and it

1019
00:59:09,120 --> 00:59:11,600
Speaker 2: makes us feel good to talk about being able to

1020
00:59:11,720 --> 00:59:14,800
Speaker 2: move the needle on the social impact. And the social

1021
00:59:14,880 --> 00:59:19,880
Speaker 2: impact is housing and education and health and employment and

1022
00:59:20,080 --> 00:59:24,080
Speaker 2: kids not being transient and staying in school and learning

1023
00:59:24,280 --> 00:59:27,000
Speaker 2: to read by grade level in third grades so that

1024
00:59:27,800 --> 00:59:30,800
Speaker 2: the indicators of their life from that point are positive

1025
00:59:30,920 --> 00:59:33,760
Speaker 2: rather than negative, and not building jails based on how

1026
00:59:33,800 --> 00:59:37,760
Speaker 2: many third graders can read and how many three year

1027
00:59:37,800 --> 00:59:40,960
Speaker 2: olds who have an eighty percent brain development have never

1028
00:59:41,040 --> 00:59:47,320
Speaker 2: been read to or Sogo lullaby and the showing up

1029
00:59:47,400 --> 00:59:50,280
Speaker 2: to first grade knowing your ABC's, you want two threes

1030
00:59:50,320 --> 00:59:52,600
Speaker 2: and your colors and if you haven't had that at home,

1031
00:59:52,680 --> 00:59:55,640
Speaker 2: we're in a pre k in early childhood development that's

1032
00:59:55,720 --> 00:59:57,360
Speaker 2: going to slow down your ability to read. And I

1033
00:59:57,440 --> 01:00:01,400
Speaker 2: love what you said about until grade you learn to read,

1034
01:00:01,480 --> 01:00:03,440
Speaker 2: and after third grade you read to learn. And the

1035
01:00:03,520 --> 01:00:07,680
Speaker 2: social impact of everything you're doing, all of it, I

1036
01:00:07,800 --> 01:00:13,280
Speaker 2: think is only half of the story, because I think

1037
01:00:13,320 --> 01:00:18,760
Speaker 2: there's a pragmatic side to this. And I'm not saying

1038
01:00:18,840 --> 01:00:21,160
Speaker 2: this takeaway from the social impact because you know me,

1039
01:00:21,280 --> 01:00:23,400
Speaker 2: I'm a touchy philly guy. I mean, there's a movie

1040
01:00:23,480 --> 01:00:26,680
Speaker 2: about it and books and everything else, and everybody listening

1041
01:00:26,720 --> 01:00:29,480
Speaker 2: should know I'm the touchy filly social impact guy I am.

1042
01:00:30,000 --> 01:00:35,080
Speaker 2: But I'm also a businessman. We need to start asking ourselves.

1043
01:00:37,320 --> 01:00:43,280
Speaker 2: The vast majority of every municipality's revenue is property tax,

1044
01:00:43,960 --> 01:00:48,200
Speaker 2: the vast majority. There's some will tax, probably maybe some

1045
01:00:48,440 --> 01:00:52,280
Speaker 2: tag tax, sales tax, maybe a little bit of sales tax,

1046
01:00:52,320 --> 01:00:55,120
Speaker 2: but in Tennessee there's no sales tax, there's no in Texas,

1047
01:00:55,200 --> 01:00:57,200
Speaker 2: and the sales tax in North Carolina, I don't know

1048
01:00:57,240 --> 01:00:59,320
Speaker 2: what it is, but it's not all going to the

1049
01:00:59,320 --> 01:01:03,160
Speaker 2: city's date and the city gets small. Peace right, I

1050
01:01:03,200 --> 01:01:07,720
Speaker 2: would say, well, I know that like ninety something percent

1051
01:01:07,800 --> 01:01:10,520
Speaker 2: of the total revenue in the city of Memphis is

1052
01:01:10,960 --> 01:01:15,040
Speaker 2: property taxes, and I would assume in most cities that's

1053
01:01:15,080 --> 01:01:20,680
Speaker 2: at least the lion's share of where your revenue comes from. Pragmatically,

1054
01:01:22,080 --> 01:01:26,920
Speaker 2: what happens to our ability to pave roads? What happens

1055
01:01:27,040 --> 01:01:30,600
Speaker 2: to our ability to provide clean water? What happens to

1056
01:01:30,680 --> 01:01:35,240
Speaker 2: our ability to provide well trained police departments and paramedics

1057
01:01:35,960 --> 01:01:41,560
Speaker 2: and fire brigades. What happens to our ability to fund schools?

1058
01:01:42,160 --> 01:01:45,880
Speaker 2: What happens to our ability to actually create a clean,

1059
01:01:46,120 --> 01:01:50,440
Speaker 2: healthy municipality in all corners of our earth and all

1060
01:01:50,520 --> 01:01:56,000
Speaker 2: these urban areas if we don't stop the generational poverty,

1061
01:01:56,680 --> 01:02:00,640
Speaker 2: because eventually you get to where you have so many

1062
01:02:00,760 --> 01:02:04,720
Speaker 2: folks that aren't contributing to the revenue and the tax

1063
01:02:04,840 --> 01:02:14,000
Speaker 2: base of these municipalities that they're unsustainable. There's a social

1064
01:02:14,440 --> 01:02:18,200
Speaker 2: impact component to all of this, which I would argue

1065
01:02:18,320 --> 01:02:20,280
Speaker 2: is the most important impact, but there's another one, and

1066
01:02:20,360 --> 01:02:25,240
Speaker 2: the pragmatic is we better get busy about doing something

1067
01:02:25,320 --> 01:02:28,040
Speaker 2: about this, because even if you don't care about the

1068
01:02:28,160 --> 01:02:31,160
Speaker 2: social impact, you should certainly care about the pragmatic impact.

1069
01:02:32,280 --> 01:02:34,880
Speaker 2: And there's only so many more generations we can go

1070
01:02:36,040 --> 01:02:40,600
Speaker 2: before the have nots far out number the halves and

1071
01:02:42,360 --> 01:02:46,800
Speaker 2: your society no longer works from a fiscal perspective.

1072
01:02:47,720 --> 01:02:50,040
Speaker 1: Pay me now or pay me later. It is that,

1073
01:02:50,720 --> 01:02:54,080
Speaker 1: it is, it's very much that. And you know our

1074
01:02:54,240 --> 01:02:56,520
Speaker 1: Mom's Moving Forward program. We'd like to say it's a

1075
01:02:56,600 --> 01:02:59,960
Speaker 1: two generational program. We're serving the mom and we're trying

1076
01:03:00,160 --> 01:03:04,480
Speaker 1: to help their kids. And sometimes it's difficult, you know,

1077
01:03:04,680 --> 01:03:08,480
Speaker 1: if a mom. And I'll tell you another thing that's

1078
01:03:08,640 --> 01:03:11,960
Speaker 1: a delicate topic, but it's an important one, is the

1079
01:03:12,000 --> 01:03:16,480
Speaker 1: whole family planning thing. I don't care what race or

1080
01:03:16,600 --> 01:03:19,600
Speaker 1: nationality you are. If you get pregnant at fifteen and

1081
01:03:19,800 --> 01:03:23,240
Speaker 1: pregnant again at seventeen, your chances of living in poverty,

1082
01:03:23,320 --> 01:03:26,720
Speaker 1: the rest of your life go up astronomically. Then if

1083
01:03:26,760 --> 01:03:30,080
Speaker 1: you wait until you're married to have children, that's a fact.

1084
01:03:30,240 --> 01:03:32,720
Speaker 1: So if you've got a single mom that's got three kids,

1085
01:03:33,800 --> 01:03:36,920
Speaker 1: we're going to do everything we can to She probably

1086
01:03:36,960 --> 01:03:40,280
Speaker 1: hasn't finished high school, or maybe maybe she's got a ged,

1087
01:03:40,520 --> 01:03:44,360
Speaker 1: but she doesn't qualify for some high paying job, so

1088
01:03:44,480 --> 01:03:46,200
Speaker 1: we try to give her the skills to get to

1089
01:03:46,640 --> 01:03:50,240
Speaker 1: a slightly higher paying job. We go through lots of

1090
01:03:50,480 --> 01:03:54,400
Speaker 1: other training for her, and we're going to do everything

1091
01:03:54,440 --> 01:03:57,720
Speaker 1: we can for her. And we're investing in that next

1092
01:03:57,800 --> 01:04:00,520
Speaker 1: generation to try to break the cycle so that that

1093
01:04:00,720 --> 01:04:05,520
Speaker 1: next generation can learn some of the potholes to navigate around.

1094
01:04:06,080 --> 01:04:09,360
Speaker 1: Don't get pregnant when you're fifteen or thirteen or sixteen,

1095
01:04:10,040 --> 01:04:12,840
Speaker 1: stay in school, finish your education, learn how to read,

1096
01:04:12,920 --> 01:04:17,240
Speaker 1: do your homework, and see you know how reading to

1097
01:04:17,360 --> 01:04:19,920
Speaker 1: kids gets modeled so that you can repeat that the

1098
01:04:20,000 --> 01:04:23,560
Speaker 1: next generation and so on. And it's generational work that

1099
01:04:23,640 --> 01:04:26,840
Speaker 1: we're involved with. But if we can break that cycle

1100
01:04:26,920 --> 01:04:32,680
Speaker 1: for the next generation, it's hard to, you know, financially

1101
01:04:32,800 --> 01:04:36,880
Speaker 1: evaluate that contribution. It's expensive, it takes a lot of time.

1102
01:04:37,240 --> 01:04:39,600
Speaker 1: But if we can break that cycle for the next generation.

1103
01:04:40,320 --> 01:04:43,120
Speaker 1: I think the return on investment is huge.

1104
01:04:44,160 --> 01:04:47,120
Speaker 2: So the first project was one hundred and eighty units

1105
01:04:47,160 --> 01:04:49,440
Speaker 2: opened in twenty twenty, the second one hundred and fifty

1106
01:04:49,520 --> 01:04:52,760
Speaker 2: six open in twenty twenty one. To date, you've built

1107
01:04:52,840 --> 01:04:56,080
Speaker 2: five hundred and four units. You've got another five hundred

1108
01:04:56,200 --> 01:04:59,720
Speaker 2: units under construction. By my math, we'll call that a thousand.

1109
01:05:00,800 --> 01:05:05,120
Speaker 2: You've also told us that most mothers have three kids.

1110
01:05:06,600 --> 01:05:10,920
Speaker 2: So if you count an average of four times the

1111
01:05:11,080 --> 01:05:14,240
Speaker 2: thousand units, you're talking about changing the lives of four

1112
01:05:14,800 --> 01:05:19,920
Speaker 2: thousand people, three thousand of which are children. How does

1113
01:05:19,960 --> 01:05:20,560
Speaker 2: that make you feel?

1114
01:05:29,280 --> 01:05:32,680
Speaker 3: Never really thought about it that way, Sorry, never thought

1115
01:05:32,680 --> 01:05:35,680
Speaker 3: about it that way. We take it, you know, one

1116
01:05:35,800 --> 01:05:42,120
Speaker 3: project at a time, one family at a time, and hopefully,

1117
01:05:43,560 --> 01:05:46,840
Speaker 3: you know, we do our job and the results speak

1118
01:05:46,880 --> 01:05:47,400
Speaker 3: for themselves.

1119
01:05:52,960 --> 01:05:57,560
Speaker 2: Guys, you can hear just how emotional Tim got there,

1120
01:05:58,720 --> 01:06:02,640
Speaker 2: and y'all it's just the part of the payoff of

1121
01:06:02,880 --> 01:06:06,040
Speaker 2: living a life of service of others. And I've said

1122
01:06:06,080 --> 01:06:11,480
Speaker 2: it a hundred times. The secret payoff pitch to get

1123
01:06:11,640 --> 01:06:15,640
Speaker 2: involved in serving in our communities and living a life

1124
01:06:15,760 --> 01:06:19,760
Speaker 2: of servant leadership is you really do get a thousand

1125
01:06:20,040 --> 01:06:22,600
Speaker 2: times more out of it then you put into it.

1126
01:06:23,360 --> 01:06:26,640
Speaker 2: And the emotion Tim just shared with us is his

1127
01:06:26,800 --> 01:06:31,320
Speaker 2: realization of not only what his work is done, but

1128
01:06:31,440 --> 01:06:35,320
Speaker 2: what it's meant to him. That concludes Part one of

1129
01:06:35,440 --> 01:06:37,920
Speaker 2: my conversation with Tim, and I hope you'll join us

1130
01:06:37,960 --> 01:06:41,040
Speaker 2: for part two that's now available. But if for some

1131
01:06:41,240 --> 01:06:44,640
Speaker 2: strange reason you don't, make sure to join the Army

1132
01:06:44,760 --> 01:06:47,439
Speaker 2: of Normal Folks at normal Folks dot us and sign

1133
01:06:47,600 --> 01:06:50,800
Speaker 2: up to become a member of the movement. By signing up,

1134
01:06:50,840 --> 01:06:54,760
Speaker 2: you also receive a weekly email and short episode Summariason

1135
01:06:54,800 --> 01:06:57,240
Speaker 2: in case you happen to miss an episode or you

1136
01:06:57,400 --> 01:07:02,320
Speaker 2: prefer reading about our incredible guests liked him. Together, we

1137
01:07:02,520 --> 01:07:06,160
Speaker 2: can change this country, and guys, it starts with you.

1138
01:07:07,000 --> 01:07:08,040
Speaker 2: I'll see you in part two.