It seems almost everyone in the housing industry can relate to, in some way, shifting one’s strategy over the last several years. What many of us found so fascinating with respect to the “Strategic Shift” panel at Ballard Spahr’s Western Housing Conference is that there are so many different levels on which strategic shifts are occurring among housing industry members. The panelists included Dan Watson, Deputy Executive Director/Chief Development Officer, King County Housing Authority; Cynthia Parker, President and CEO, BRIDGE Housing; and Teresa Yanga, Director of Housing Development, San Francisco Mayor’s Office of Housing and Community Development.
Dan Watson discussed his agency’s shift away from public housing management to a market rate asset management model. This model seemed to have many themes in common with HUD’s new RAD model, which has a private market rate model at its core. As a result of this shift, the agency has developed a focus on the long-term optimization of housing. Dan shared a few of the lessons that the agency learned as a result of the process. The top three were:
- The importance of creating and communicating clean objectives through all levels of the organization when undertaking a shift in strategy. People need to understand the vision to be able to adapt.
- Learning and adapting methods and processes from private managers. For instance, Dan cited that little things like having weekend hours during which applicants could view apartments was a shift in their thinking.
- The importance of educating staff on new objectives and market management functions. Essentially, the staff had to be taught to think and manage differently.
Cynthia Parker of BRIDGE Housing discussed a different aspect of strategic shift, which she referred to as organizational change. Her organization achieved this by looking at the organization more holistically and creating opportunities throughout various segments of the organization. As a result of this organizational shift, the organization has become more aligned with its funding sources by becoming more outcome focused with respect to the services they provide. The organizational change included an expansion of its footprint through the creation of market area focused teams and the creation of an equity fund. Cynthia also discussed the importance of clearly communicating change and clear objectives to staff. Interestingly, many of these changes, similar to those at the King County Housing Authority, seem to be moving the organization towards a diversified market approach to affordable housing.
Teresa Yanga noted that the strategic shifts within her agency occurred more organically as a response to market shifts. An urgent need for affordable housing in the Bay area required her organization to look at housing and their processes and find a way to do things differently to achieve broader results. These shifts were essentially imposed on her agency as the City adopted a goal to construct or rehabilitate 30,000 units of affordable housing to stem the loss of the middle class residents. Teresa’s organization had to learn to do more with less, as they are charged with creating these units while also assuming the obligations of the local redevelopment authority, which was abolished by the State. It seemed everyone could relate to lessons learned by her organization as a result of her agency’s shift, which included focusing resources and people on priority projects; hiring staff with the skill set necessary to get the job done and those that are similarly dedicated to the agency’s mission.
What struck me as a result of listening to all of the panelists was the common chord that carried through the presentations despite their very different objectives. They all seemed to hone in on how important it was to set objectives, and clearly communicate those objectives on all levels throughout an organization so as to align resources and people around goals throughout the process. Another common theme was the importance of maximizing resources, whether they be human, capital or an organization’s infrastructure. One thing that was clear as a result of the panel discussion is that strategic shifts are not easily accomplished within an organization, and the process can be full of trial and error and lessons learned. However, I believe our panelists would agree that at the end of the day the organization that evolves, is a stronger, more efficient, focused, nimble housing machine!