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Speaker 1: You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and

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Speaker 1: Bloomberg Quick Takes Tim Stinovic on Bloomberg Radio. Well, for years,

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Speaker 1: Bloomberg News has been reporting on housing an equality Fannie

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Speaker 1: May is highlighted as well. They recently noted that how

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Speaker 1: over the years, the inventory of affordable US homes has

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Speaker 1: declined sharply as home prices have dramatically risen, and as

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Speaker 1: housing has become increasingly unaffordable. The shortage of safe and

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Speaker 1: affordable homes is affecting more and more prospective home buyers

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Speaker 1: every day. People keep getting squeezed out. Yeah. One company

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Speaker 1: trying to do what it can do to help fix

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Speaker 1: that is Trident Builders. We got the company's president with us,

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Speaker 1: Brendan McCluskey. He's the president Trident Builders, joining us on

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Speaker 1: zoom from Baltimore. Bloomberg Philanthropies we should notice providing support

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Speaker 1: for Trident's efforts. Bloomberg Philanthropies is the philanthropic arm of

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Speaker 1: Bloomberg LP and the parent company of Bloomberg Radio. Brendan,

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Speaker 1: it's great to have you. How are you. Yeah, I'm

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Speaker 1: doing great. Thanks for having me on. Okay, so you

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Speaker 1: create homes that are energy efficient but also affordable. How

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Speaker 1: do you do it in a face like Baltimore. Yeah, well,

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Speaker 1: so it's it's it's interesting. So right now we're actually

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Speaker 1: building a project for the Smithsonian Institute that is passive

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Speaker 1: House certified, So basically you've got highly energy efficient homes that,

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Speaker 1: with the addition of solar, are actually a net benefits

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Speaker 1: of the climate that they actually produce more energy over

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Speaker 1: the course of the year than um they actually consume.

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Speaker 1: And um our ambitions in Baltimore is to remove really

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Speaker 1: the the very worst of housing stock in these urban centers,

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Speaker 1: these vacant properties that you know, we're falling apart. They're

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Speaker 1: just laden with lead and asbestos and all sorts of

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Speaker 1: other harmful chemicals and basically just wipe that stuff out

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Speaker 1: and build new housing stock for the twenty one century

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Speaker 1: and to focus on the communities that need the most

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Speaker 1: bright and I love what you said about, you know,

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Speaker 1: focusing on how to build housing for the century. We

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Speaker 1: have to rethink the model that currently exists that really

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Speaker 1: kind of um puts home ownership out of the range

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Speaker 1: of so many Americans. Yeah. Absolutely, and that's what our

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Speaker 1: missions are Athletes. So the program that we're looking to

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Speaker 1: employ is something that was actually perfected over the last

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Speaker 1: four decades in Cleveland. It's called the Cleveland Housing Network,

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Speaker 1: and we're able to leverage, you know, the four percent

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Speaker 1: lie Tech UH tax credit basically put these people into

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Speaker 1: a fifteen year program where they get the peripheral supports

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Speaker 1: from the Bloomberg philanthropies and the living classrooms, all these

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Speaker 1: great philanthropic organizations that kind of round out the soft

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Speaker 1: skills and to help stabilize these communities and the challenges

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Speaker 1: that they have. And what we do is we find

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Speaker 1: a market driven solution, like a market solution for the

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Speaker 1: housing problem. Um. You know that itself is stabilized, but then,

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Speaker 1: like you we lean on philanthropic organizations to kind of

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Speaker 1: round out the balance of workforce development, food security, housing, um.

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Speaker 1: You know, like trauma and therapy, mental health, all all

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Speaker 1: the various things that are that are afflicting these challenge communities.

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Speaker 1: You mentioned lie tech and for those not familiar with

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Speaker 1: that acronym, it's the Low Income Housing Tax Credit program,

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Speaker 1: And so we're talking about how that subsidizes right acquisition, construction,

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Speaker 1: and rehabilitation of affordable renting housing, especially for I guess

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Speaker 1: lower income individuals. What what is the smart public private

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Speaker 1: partnership in terms of tackling what is really a pandemic,

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Speaker 1: if you will, are endemic part of our society When

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Speaker 1: it comes to again going back to housing not being

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Speaker 1: affordable for so many, Yeah, it's crazy. I mean, like

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Speaker 1: there's you know, there's fourteen million people living in poverty.

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Speaker 1: They don't have access to affordable housing. I mean that's

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Speaker 1: bigger than the population of forty six out of fifty states.

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Speaker 1: You know that there's a lot of Americans that just

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Speaker 1: don't have access to housing. And I think the best

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Speaker 1: benefit is for you know, states municipalities that have all

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Speaker 1: this you know, decrepit housing stock to turn it over

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Speaker 1: to you know, private sector developers, nimble entrepreneurs like myself, um,

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Speaker 1: and allow us to you know, lock into and commit

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Speaker 1: to low income housing for the long term. You know,

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Speaker 1: what we really like about our model is that the

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Speaker 1: idea is to graduate these people out of the cycle poverty, right. Um.

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Speaker 1: You know, people aren't supposed to be in public assistance

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Speaker 1: and for housing forever. And I think what we're endeavoring

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Speaker 1: to do is to close the wealth gap within these

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Speaker 1: communities that you know, people are able to capture the

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Speaker 1: rise and equity of the property values over a fifteen

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Speaker 1: year period, and by doing it at large enough scale,

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Speaker 1: you know, um, it's not like a drop of not

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Speaker 1: like a rain drop on the ocean. You know, by

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Speaker 1: knocking out a hundred and fifty to two hundred fifty

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Speaker 1: of these units at a time, were transforming entire neighborhoods

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Speaker 1: and so that entire neighborhood will be poised for great

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Speaker 1: growth and stability for the next decade and a half.

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Speaker 1: And you know, the fact of the matter is, you know,

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Speaker 1: these houses were built a hundred years ago and they

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Speaker 1: don't have any installation in them. I mean, these things

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Speaker 1: are not built for climate change. And you know, you know,

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Speaker 1: so we're more or less you know, basically we're given

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Speaker 1: the best of the people that are the worst off. Brendan,

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Speaker 1: how do you balance this type of work with the

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Speaker 1: other work that you do at Tried and Builders, Because

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Speaker 1: you guys also work on spaces like you know, the

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Speaker 1: Ritz Carlton for example, commercial and private residences and rous

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Speaker 1: Chris stake House as well. Yeah. Yeah, so like we

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Speaker 1: we tend to faston ourselves as like a best in

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Speaker 1: class service provider. So you know, we don't. We don't

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Speaker 1: do hotels we do with Carlson. We don't do restaurants,

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Speaker 1: we do Ruth Crest. Um. You know, we do some

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Speaker 1: work with the federal government. It's like for the the

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Speaker 1: likes of the Smithsonian, right. Um, we really enjoy having

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Speaker 1: smart sophisticated clients because frankly they get it. Um. You know,

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Speaker 1: like sometimes our commitment to quality and customer service con

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Speaker 1: suf used by the ones that don't necessarily understand the

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Speaker 1: difference and the value add that we're bringing. Um. This

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Speaker 1: does require me to wear a different hat though, UM,

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Speaker 1: But I still believe that the same sort of tenacity

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Speaker 1: and entrepreneurial spirit that we bring to bear for like

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Speaker 1: our you know, high end customers, I think requires the

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Speaker 1: same level sophistication to really think through some of these

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Speaker 1: like more embedded challenges. But it is it a model

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Speaker 1: that can can exist on its own without subsidies, without

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Speaker 1: outside support right now? The model shows that yeah. Um.

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Speaker 1: And in fact, we're trying to work with Johns Hopkins

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Speaker 1: University and Morgan State UM, which is a great HCBU

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Speaker 1: here in Baltimore for them to build. Let's develop a

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Speaker 1: Harvard Business School like case study. So not only can

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Speaker 1: this be studied, they can be replicated and and basically

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Speaker 1: exported throughout the region. UM. Important to note we're going

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Speaker 1: off to the four percent, not the competitive nine percent,

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Speaker 1: so we don't necessarily need to have friends in the

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Speaker 1: state house where you can actually just go right for

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Speaker 1: the four percenters and it balances out. You know. It's

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Speaker 1: it's it's we can make good money by doing well.

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Speaker 1: I love it. I love it. It's certainly something we

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Speaker 1: talked about a lot here, and it's not always so

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Speaker 1: easy to do, but it sounds like you are. Um, Brendan,

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Speaker 1: come back and let us know how things are progressing.

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Speaker 1: Brendan McCluskey. He is president of Tried and Builders. Joining

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Speaker 1: us via zoom from Baltimore. As we mentioned, Bloomberg Philanthropies

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Speaker 1: is providing support for Trident efforts. Bloomberg Philanthropies, of course,

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Speaker 1: the philanthropic arm of Bloomberg LP, the parent company of

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Speaker 1: Bloomberg Radio. Bloomberg broadcast in Bloomberg LP