Speaker 1: You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Quick Takes Tim Stinovic on Bloomberg Radio. Well, for years,
Speaker 1: Bloomberg News has been reporting on housing an equality Fannie
Speaker 1: May is highlighted as well. They recently noted that how
Speaker 1: over the years, the inventory of affordable US homes has
Speaker 1: declined sharply as home prices have dramatically risen, and as
Speaker 1: housing has become increasingly unaffordable. The shortage of safe and
Speaker 1: affordable homes is affecting more and more prospective home buyers
Speaker 1: every day. People keep getting squeezed out. Yeah. One company
Speaker 1: trying to do what it can do to help fix
Speaker 1: that is Trident Builders. We got the company's president with us,
Speaker 1: Brendan McCluskey. He's the president Trident Builders, joining us on
Speaker 1: zoom from Baltimore. Bloomberg Philanthropies we should notice providing support
Speaker 1: for Trident's efforts. Bloomberg Philanthropies is the philanthropic arm of
Speaker 1: Bloomberg LP and the parent company of Bloomberg Radio. Brendan,
Speaker 1: it's great to have you. How are you. Yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: doing great. Thanks for having me on. Okay, so you
Speaker 1: create homes that are energy efficient but also affordable. How
Speaker 1: do you do it in a face like Baltimore. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: so it's it's it's interesting. So right now we're actually
Speaker 1: building a project for the Smithsonian Institute that is passive
Speaker 1: House certified, So basically you've got highly energy efficient homes that,
Speaker 1: with the addition of solar, are actually a net benefits
Speaker 1: of the climate that they actually produce more energy over
Speaker 1: the course of the year than um they actually consume.
Speaker 1: And um our ambitions in Baltimore is to remove really
Speaker 1: the the very worst of housing stock in these urban centers,
Speaker 1: these vacant properties that you know, we're falling apart. They're
Speaker 1: just laden with lead and asbestos and all sorts of
Speaker 1: other harmful chemicals and basically just wipe that stuff out
Speaker 1: and build new housing stock for the twenty one century
Speaker 1: and to focus on the communities that need the most
Speaker 1: bright and I love what you said about, you know,
Speaker 1: focusing on how to build housing for the century. We
Speaker 1: have to rethink the model that currently exists that really
Speaker 1: kind of um puts home ownership out of the range
Speaker 1: of so many Americans. Yeah. Absolutely, and that's what our
Speaker 1: missions are Athletes. So the program that we're looking to
Speaker 1: employ is something that was actually perfected over the last
Speaker 1: four decades in Cleveland. It's called the Cleveland Housing Network,
Speaker 1: and we're able to leverage, you know, the four percent
Speaker 1: lie Tech UH tax credit basically put these people into
Speaker 1: a fifteen year program where they get the peripheral supports
Speaker 1: from the Bloomberg philanthropies and the living classrooms, all these
Speaker 1: great philanthropic organizations that kind of round out the soft
Speaker 1: skills and to help stabilize these communities and the challenges
Speaker 1: that they have. And what we do is we find
Speaker 1: a market driven solution, like a market solution for the
Speaker 1: housing problem. Um. You know that itself is stabilized, but then,
Speaker 1: like you we lean on philanthropic organizations to kind of
Speaker 1: round out the balance of workforce development, food security, housing, um.
Speaker 1: You know, like trauma and therapy, mental health, all all
Speaker 1: the various things that are that are afflicting these challenge communities.
Speaker 1: You mentioned lie tech and for those not familiar with
Speaker 1: that acronym, it's the Low Income Housing Tax Credit program,
Speaker 1: And so we're talking about how that subsidizes right acquisition, construction,
Speaker 1: and rehabilitation of affordable renting housing, especially for I guess
Speaker 1: lower income individuals. What what is the smart public private
Speaker 1: partnership in terms of tackling what is really a pandemic,
Speaker 1: if you will, are endemic part of our society When
Speaker 1: it comes to again going back to housing not being
Speaker 1: affordable for so many, Yeah, it's crazy. I mean, like
Speaker 1: there's you know, there's fourteen million people living in poverty.
Speaker 1: They don't have access to affordable housing. I mean that's
Speaker 1: bigger than the population of forty six out of fifty states.
Speaker 1: You know that there's a lot of Americans that just
Speaker 1: don't have access to housing. And I think the best
Speaker 1: benefit is for you know, states municipalities that have all
Speaker 1: this you know, decrepit housing stock to turn it over
Speaker 1: to you know, private sector developers, nimble entrepreneurs like myself, um,
Speaker 1: and allow us to you know, lock into and commit
Speaker 1: to low income housing for the long term. You know,
Speaker 1: what we really like about our model is that the
Speaker 1: idea is to graduate these people out of the cycle poverty, right. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, people aren't supposed to be in public assistance
Speaker 1: and for housing forever. And I think what we're endeavoring
Speaker 1: to do is to close the wealth gap within these
Speaker 1: communities that you know, people are able to capture the
Speaker 1: rise and equity of the property values over a fifteen
Speaker 1: year period, and by doing it at large enough scale,
Speaker 1: you know, um, it's not like a drop of not
Speaker 1: like a rain drop on the ocean. You know, by
Speaker 1: knocking out a hundred and fifty to two hundred fifty
Speaker 1: of these units at a time, were transforming entire neighborhoods
Speaker 1: and so that entire neighborhood will be poised for great
Speaker 1: growth and stability for the next decade and a half.
Speaker 1: And you know, the fact of the matter is, you know,
Speaker 1: these houses were built a hundred years ago and they
Speaker 1: don't have any installation in them. I mean, these things
Speaker 1: are not built for climate change. And you know, you know,
Speaker 1: so we're more or less you know, basically we're given
Speaker 1: the best of the people that are the worst off. Brendan,
Speaker 1: how do you balance this type of work with the
Speaker 1: other work that you do at Tried and Builders, Because
Speaker 1: you guys also work on spaces like you know, the
Speaker 1: Ritz Carlton for example, commercial and private residences and rous
Speaker 1: Chris stake House as well. Yeah. Yeah, so like we
Speaker 1: we tend to faston ourselves as like a best in
Speaker 1: class service provider. So you know, we don't. We don't
Speaker 1: do hotels we do with Carlson. We don't do restaurants,
Speaker 1: we do Ruth Crest. Um. You know, we do some
Speaker 1: work with the federal government. It's like for the the
Speaker 1: likes of the Smithsonian, right. Um, we really enjoy having
Speaker 1: smart sophisticated clients because frankly they get it. Um. You know,
Speaker 1: like sometimes our commitment to quality and customer service con
Speaker 1: suf used by the ones that don't necessarily understand the
Speaker 1: difference and the value add that we're bringing. Um. This
Speaker 1: does require me to wear a different hat though, UM,
Speaker 1: But I still believe that the same sort of tenacity
Speaker 1: and entrepreneurial spirit that we bring to bear for like
Speaker 1: our you know, high end customers, I think requires the
Speaker 1: same level sophistication to really think through some of these
Speaker 1: like more embedded challenges. But it is it a model
Speaker 1: that can can exist on its own without subsidies, without
Speaker 1: outside support right now? The model shows that yeah. Um.
Speaker 1: And in fact, we're trying to work with Johns Hopkins
Speaker 1: University and Morgan State UM, which is a great HCBU
Speaker 1: here in Baltimore for them to build. Let's develop a
Speaker 1: Harvard Business School like case study. So not only can
Speaker 1: this be studied, they can be replicated and and basically
Speaker 1: exported throughout the region. UM. Important to note we're going
Speaker 1: off to the four percent, not the competitive nine percent,
Speaker 1: so we don't necessarily need to have friends in the
Speaker 1: state house where you can actually just go right for
Speaker 1: the four percenters and it balances out. You know. It's
Speaker 1: it's it's we can make good money by doing well.
Speaker 1: I love it. I love it. It's certainly something we
Speaker 1: talked about a lot here, and it's not always so
Speaker 1: easy to do, but it sounds like you are. Um, Brendan,
Speaker 1: come back and let us know how things are progressing.
Speaker 1: Brendan McCluskey. He is president of Tried and Builders. Joining
Speaker 1: us via zoom from Baltimore. As we mentioned, Bloomberg Philanthropies
Speaker 1: is providing support for Trident efforts. Bloomberg Philanthropies, of course,
Speaker 1: the philanthropic arm of Bloomberg LP, the parent company of
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Radio. Bloomberg broadcast in Bloomberg LP