Fuller Center for Greater Atlanta: Homes for Working Families

Narrator: Broadcasting from the studios of Business Radio X, it's time for the Good to Give podcast. This show is underwritten by the Community foundation for Northeast Georgia, connecting people who care with causes that matter. Now, here is your host.

Dupreese Wadi: Good day, everybody. My name is Dupreese Wadi, president and CEO of the Community foundation for Northeast Georgia. And today we are joined by Mark Murphy, president of the Fuller center for Housing of Greater Atlanta. The Fuller center is dedicated to helping families achieve safe, affordable home ownership and strengthening communities through housing solutions. So, Mark, thank you for joining us today. I've been looking forward to this interview. We also have with us our director of development, Norma Marquez, who is my partner in crime with the Community foundation and. And all things we do to connect us to great organizations like Fuller Center. Mark, what, what is a misconception around homelessness and home ownership in today's environment?

Mark Murphy: Hey, it's great to be here with you both. So thank you so much for having us. I think I was recently at a zoning meeting in another county where they were trying to make, they were trying to create a category of housing for attainable or affordable housing. And a lot of the NIMBYs, which are not in my backyard, people that were at the meeting were focused on, hey, when I was a kid, it was tough too. But I drove a long way to my job and I bought a house way out and I made it work. So today's people, first time home buyers really need to suck it up and try harder. And that was seemed to be the general impression in the room that, that people just needed to try harder. And so I thought the facts that I have that I've been able to look at is since 1985. And I bought my first house in 1985 for $75,000 in east Cobb County. Wow. So I did it. I went back to 1985 and looked at what happened to housing since then. Now in 1985 I also paid 12% interest. But what, what has happened is between 1985 and now, the house, the housing pricing, even with the inflation factored in, has doubled. So the load factor on people trying to buy a home today is almost double what it used to be. And so it's not for a matter of trying. It's just a deck is stacked the wrong and against people trying to get into home ownership.

Dupreese Wadi: What's so interesting, I moved here in 1985. Um, um, I moved from Birmingham, Alabama to Atlanta and I also moved to East Cob and I got sticker shocked because houses in East Cob were going at about 150,000 to $200,000. And that was just for your basic three bedroom, three bath. And then five years later houses were going for a half million dollars, same generally general type house. And then five years after that they were at a million and now they're in multi millions. And so I think in terms of young people now who are really trying to get started with young families, their incomes are not keeping up with the appreciation in home ownership.

Mark Murphy: Yeah, absolutely. Matter of fact, it's even difficult for young families today to afford apartment rent. With the average apartment rent in Atlanta for a one bedroom, which a family hopefully would not have to live in, it's fifteen hundred dollars a month.

Dupreese Wadi: Wow.

Mark Murphy: So it's a very difficult environment. And especially for the people that we at the Fuller center cater to. We are a lot of people say, oh, you're a first time buyer program. I have, my daughter and her son would like to buy a house. I. We are not a first time buyers program. We are a never time buyers program. What do I mean by that? We are searching for people who would not be able to afford a home ever with the interest rates at the way they are. So we're looking for what we call the hidden heroes of the communities. The janitors at the high school, the lunch ladies, the school bus drivers, the teacher's aides, the nurses aides, the people that are really the backbone of our community, that make these communities livable. We're trying to provide a place for them to live. So this is, this is not a first time buyer's program for someone who might be able to earn themselves into a house in five years. These are for people that are uh, that, that would not be able to do that.

Dupreese Wadi: So is the typical client someone who has been renting for a very long time and now they're looking for a permanent housing solution?

Mark Murphy: They certainly could be. Although we also prefer to take our clients from transitional housing agencies such as Homestretch or Drinkhouse or Serenade Heights over in Cherokee County. The couple paths to our house. One is they can be just a renter and ready to make a chance, uh, make a change. But uh, the other thing we look for is people that are at between 50% and 80% of the area mean income. And the area mean income in north Fulton, cherokee, is about $110,000. So we're looking for families that are making between probably 60 and $85,000 a year.

Dupreese Wadi: Gotcha.

Mark Murphy: And they must have, they must have children, minor children at home.

Dupreese Wadi: Um, so walk us through a typical Engagement from start to finish of someone who comes to Fuller center looking for support. What they have to go through in the timeline on getting them into a home.

Mark Murphy: First of all, we have two service lines. So the ones, the service line we like to talk about the most is the brand new homes because that's the most exciting, that's the most life altering.

Dupreese Wadi: Okay.

Mark Murphy: But a big service line that we have is what we call greater blessings, which are home repair projects. And we typically do those for senior citizens, typically widows or widowers that are having difficulty aging in place.

Dupreese Wadi: I commend you on that.

Mark Murphy: And so we put in wheelchair ramps, we put in grab bars, we can modify bathrooms so they can get in there with a wheelchair. So that's a big part of our, that's our bread and butter because that's something we do every month. Whereas you might imagine it requires a lot of capital to acquire land, develop the land and put a house on it. But from the housing perspective, typically we will interview candidates that meet our criteria of family of income range and they cannot be able to afford, qualify for mortgage on their own.

Dupreese Wadi: Okay.

Mark Murphy: But at the same time, they also can't have horrible credit because yours truly has to do all the fundraising. And I, it doesn't work too well for me to, uh, raise funds and not get paid back. So there's a fine line. We really want to help people that really need that help, but we also need to be pretty sure we're going to get paid back. So we'll interview. We have a family team that interviews the family, the collection of families, and picks the, the best candidate for the house out of that collect of people. And the clients sign a contract with us. And part of the contract is they agree to do 3, 350 hours of what we call sweat equity. Typically these people don't have down payments, down payment money, unless they're some sort of assistance program, which we'd love, but typically they don't. So their form of down payment is 350 hours of sweat equity. And that could, that could include them actually working on their own house. If their house isn't quite ready for that stage, they can work on someone else's house in our program or if they need to brush up on their financial skills or their homeownership skills, we'll put them through classes and those classes qualify. So when the house is built, they're part of the house. Typically takes us three to six months to build a house, depending on volunteer labor and access to land. They're part of building the House and then they move in and they get it interest free loan. We project our houses will cost about $350,000 per house.

Dupreese Wadi: Wonderful.

Mark Murphy: Of that $100,000, uh, forgivable second mortgage that we will throw, that will rip up if the loan is paid. So they're getting a three, a three bedroom, two bath home for about $250,000 with a zero percent interest.

Dupreese Wadi: Wow.

Mark Murphy: You can't rent that cheaply. So we really think that our homeowners have won the lottery, if you will, when they get a Fuller center house.

Dupreese Wadi: That's a generational wealth game changer.

Mark Murphy: And that's what it's all about. Because one of the things, there's nothing, absolutely nothing wrong with renting. Lord knows I read it early in my life and some um, people, it's a lifestyle decision. I don't want to mow the lawn, I don't want to be responsible for repairs. I want to live a place that's nicer than I could. Whatever the reason, there's nothing wrong with renting. The issue that we have is we look a lot of the equity and lack of equity in the communities that we're trying to serve. And these parents want to help their kids. They want to help their kids go to a trade school or go and get into college, but without any collateral they're not unable to help their children. So we want to help those parents establish equity, build equity in a house and be able to help the kids down, down the road.

Dupreese Wadi: So what's the, what's the average credit score of these individuals that are coming to Fuller Center?

Mark Murphy: Probably 500 to 600.

Dupreese Wadi: Okay, so that's another game changer because you typically can't even get a mortgage with a 500 to 600 credit score.

Mark Murphy: As I, because I'm a landlord as well. So I, I talk out of both sides of my mouth. Uh, but as I told my clients on uh, my landlord side, I can accept a bad patch. What I can't accept is a continued bad patch because that's uh, there's a trend line here. So typically the people that we are serving don't necessarily have bad credit. They just have, they don't have high income and so therefore they're probably graded down because of income.

Dupreese Wadi: I see, I see. Now where are these houses geographically?

Mark Murphy: The Fuller Centers of uh, Atlanta started in 2007 and we built houses all over Atlanta. I came to the ministry in late 2223 and the ministry had gone dark because the volunteers had just run out of gas and uh, they Found that I was riding my bicycle with the Fuller Center Ministry. They have a, they have a bike adventure, which I was part of. And they thought, hey, we got an active guy in Atlanta that rides bike with the Fuller Center. He needs to be our next president. So that's exactly the phone call I got. And I said, you know, why would I want to do this? I just retired. I don't even work on my own home. Why would I build homes for other people? But, but Fuller center had built houses all over Atlanta. Our focus now is I'm trying to build a really strong corporate chassis, if you will, expertise and knowledge in, in my board team. And so I live in Mountain Park. So I drove a 15 mile circle around mountain park. And we've agreed that's where we're going to get really good. We'll go to College park, we'll go to, we'll go to other parts of Atlanta. But we want to establish expertise. So our house, we're focused right now on home repairs and brand new houses within a 15 mile circle of mountain Park. Specifically, we are in the process of zoning a 6.2 acre parcel of land that's just over the line in Cherokee county, which will be our first new home build for 18 homes that we're going to be putting over there. So we're still going through the zoning process on that.

Dupreese Wadi: That's phenomenal. That's a great concentration as well. When you're looking at making lives different for 18 families and children, that, that really is a significant impact. Thank you very much.

Mark Murphy: Sure. And what we love about it is typically a Fuller center would do one house here, one house there. And we're excited about the ability to put 18 houses in the same community because it'll make it easier for our partner service providers also to work with the families and it'll make it easier for the families to support each other. So we're excited about what it's going to look like when we're done.

Dupreese Wadi: So, uh, let's explore something that you said earlier. The whole perception with community citizens saying, not in my backyard. What is the fear of that?

Mark Murphy: The fear is air quote those people, whoever those people, whatever conjures fear in their back. It's typically. I was at a. I, uh, bushwhacked. I was at a cycling meeting in Roswell and I, uh, bushwhacked. And this is an administration ago. I, uh, bushwhacked the mayor's aide who was there. He thought I was going to ask him a cycling question. And I asked my housing Question. I said, there's a park right across from Super Target that Roswell just acquired and actually it's a parcel, uh, of land they just acquired. And I asked, what is the, what are the options about putting affordable housing on this found piece of land? And he goes, yeah, like we need a rundown apartment complex with drug dealers. I go, what? So it just depends on where your state of mind is. What do you view affordable housing? And that's why we try to talk more about hidden heroes. Everybody love their school lunch lady and bus drivers and the guys that are really the lady that took care of your mom in a nursing home. You can see those are good people. And it's not value judgments, but it's. People get scared about who might move into the community. But if we can say these are the community heroes, these are the guys that are already in the community already giving back, probably taking care maybe of someone in your family, whether it's helping your kid, uh, go to school or a nurse's aide. So I think that's why we try to really focus. These are good people that maybe have a, not as good a credit rating as you might have, but they're good people and they're worth the chance.

Dupreese Wadi: They're people like her, uh, in all of our families or our workplaces. I do think that there's an opportunity for us to change the narrative as to how we describe the housing deficits and to really talk about not necessarily affordable housing, but entry level housing. Because it's some huge sticker shock out here when you look at housing that just basically satisfies getting kids to school, having reasonable distance from work and providing access to food and reasonable shopping to that point.

Mark Murphy: As part of the research I did, when I went to that, as that zoning meeting, I did a research, did some research on what is the average age of a first, first time home buyer. And the average age of a first time home buyer back in the mid-80s was 27 years old, which I was a poster child for that because bought my house for the same amount. I was about 27. I was.

Dupreese Wadi: Me too.

Mark Murphy: But now the average age for a first time homebuyer is 41. So when you think about it, the uh, the children they have will not grow up in their home. And if they have kids and daycare and all the, all the expenses that go with kids that we understand, they may not ever be able to afford a home. So the home availability of home had been pushed up into the high 40s. So it's just, it's Shocking. The other stat that I looked at was back in 1980. 85, 40% of all home purchases were for first time buyers.

Dupreese Wadi: Wow.

Mark Murphy: And now it's 21%.

Narrator: Wow.

Mark Murphy: So it's about a fifth of all the homes bought. So there's a problem. And the metrics pointed out, the question is, what can we do to solve that? The Fuller center, we're plinking away, but we're one data point in a large market.

Norma Marquez: And I would assume that those 18 houses that you're building, that generates economic impact for the communities. Right. So you have more families coming in, more consuming and using the services and the products that perhaps the government doesn't see impact to the local economies.

Mark Murphy: And they're paying taxes and because they're young families, they actually pay full school taxes, which I'm sure Cherokee county is going to be delighted about. So. Yeah.

Dupreese Wadi: Uh, one of the things that I would be remiss if I did not call attention to is the fact that you are a 501c3 nonprofit.

Mark Murphy: Absolutely.

Dupreese Wadi: You're not a commercial builder. You don't get big dollars from government, I would presume. And let's talk about how you raise your money in order to make these great things happen for families.

Mark Murphy: So the way we do it is first of all, everybody on the board. Part of the requirement of being on our board is that you will not only work, it's a working board, but it's also a board where we expect contributions from our board members.

Norma Marquez: Okay.

Mark Murphy: So our board members have been very generous to give us the table stakes necessary to buy the land that we're looking at in Cherokee and probably put our first five houses on it that came entirely from our board. So. But that's, I've tapped them pretty dry. The other focus is working on, uh, finding foundations. Foundations are really important resource of asset donations for us. Corporations in Atlanta are important for us because a lot of people care about the housing, housing issues in Atlanta. And our church partners, we're so, we're a Christian based 501C3. So we work with church churches that partner with us. They give us money, they give us volunteers. And importantly they also find families that we can help. Whether it's repair, doing home, um, repairs for seniors or maybe candidates for our new houses.

Dupreese Wadi: Wonderful. Do you ever have individuals or families sitting on property that they want to donate to you to develop?

Mark Murphy: We wish. That's, that's when I first started and we pulled the board together, I had two realtors on the board and I said, okay guys, now that we have some money put together. It's time for you to get to work and find our land. Find cheap dirt. And they just looked at me like I had a third eye. I go, what? What? And they go, you're really an idiot. I said, why? They said, because by the time land gets to market, it's so. Imagine Aunt Martha dies and leaves you with a parcel. So that is the time to say, hey. Actually, the time is to talk to Aunt Martha and have Aunt Martha donate it. But by the time the people that inherited the property get the property, they have visions of sugar plums dancing in their heads about how much they're going to get and what they're going to buy with the proceeds of the land. So we need to find land before it gets on the market. And that's why cities and counties are so critical to us, because they have what we call scrap land that we could build on. It may not be the prettiest neighborhood, but that's not our market. Our market is taking okay neighborhoods and making them better with our houses. So getting the land, that's the critical point. Donations. I always thought money would be the hard part, and money's not easy. But the hard part is actually finding land that's cost effective. Because if the land doesn't. If the land isn't purchased at the right price, nothing else.

Dupreese Wadi: Pencils, tell us about your waiting list. I'm sure you've got a waiting list of folks that are waiting for a home or who are building up their 350 hours to become eligible. What does that look like?

Mark Murphy: We have actually disincentivized a waiting list until we own the property, because we don't want to get anybody excited about owning a home until that property is secured. So we have actually tried to tamp that down a little bit. And we've also limited the amount of church partners we have, because when the church partners come on board, their ministries want to go out and swing hammers and cut boards, and we're not ready to quite do that. We think we're going to break ground in Cherokee and in early. Early 27.

Dupreese Wadi: Early 27. Okay, nice. And will that take you from early 27, maybe for two or three years out to get all 18 built?

Mark Murphy: So, as I said, we probably have enough money to build our first four or five houses.

Dupreese Wadi: Gotcha.

Mark Murphy: After that, it's all in how much money we can generate and how much interest we can generate. We think that once. Once construction starts, the excitement will be there. People will drive by and say, wow, I want to be part of that. It looks really cool right now. It's just a, uh, twinkle in my eye when I come and visit people. So I think it'll be a lot. Not that my eyes aren't attractive, but I think it'll be a lot, a lot better when we have some real land and families there that people say, wow, look at the impact in their lives.

Dupreese Wadi: Wonderful. So Mark, you recently opened an agency fund with the Community foundation for North Northeast Georgia. And we want to thank you for partnering with us in doing that. Tell us what motivated you to partner with cfneg.

Mark Murphy: First of all, you guys attend a lot of the meetings that I attend, so that's the comfort factor. Was there, is it? Also, you educated me. I had never heard of a community fund in my life before I met you guys. And so part of it was the education process about what you're in business to do and to help people like me. And Lord knows I can use all the help I can get. It was just, it was really. I told my board because they were like, what's a community foundation and why are we putting money over there? And I said, guys, this is the, this is the biggest, reddest, easy button that I have ever found. They offer competitive returns, they help us in areas we need to have help. They can give us access to fundraising and they're at the same meetings we're at. We care about a lot of the same things we do about helping people. And so it was really, uh, an easy decision.

Dupreese Wadi: We have close to 200, 501C3 organizations. And you're right, we manage their long term reserves. We've got a great partnership with Capital Group. They've been our investment Advisor for since 2017. We've been averaging close to 10% a year on our returns. And the money is very fluid. Put it in today, get it out tomorrow. Because we understand that nonprofits need what they need. And instead of locking their assets down, we want to make it as available to them as possible. And we occasionally have fund holders who hold donor advised funds with us. They will donate parcels of land or houses to their funds. And so this is an opportunity for us to share with organizations like yours if there is an asset that we might hold on the books that could be mutually beneficial.

Mark Murphy: Plus the other cool thing that I found out about you guys is at one of the meetings you and I were at, another non profit was Don, somebody donated a burial crypt to them. And I thought, what are you going to do with that? And Community foundation can Help small non profits like we are liquidate assets that. Like cars or pieces of land or funeral crips. So that's just one of the. One of the value adds that you guys bring.

Dupreese Wadi: Exactly. So tell us, since we've got this audience of thousands of people who are listening to us today, tell them how they can help you.

Mark Murphy: So the Fuller center for Greater Atlanta is really, uh, one. One of a hundred, uh, a little history lesson. The Fuller center was started by Millard and Linda fuller back in 2005. And Millard and Linda Fuller were the founders of Habitat for Humanity. So they left Habitat and started the Fuller center in 2000. Uh, started the Fuller center, and we started in 2007 in Atlanta. So there's a hundred of me in the United states and there's 24 of me internationally. So we've together, we built over 10,000 houses. Wow, thanks. So we're an affiliate of Fuller center, which is headquartered in America, which is also where Habitat was headquartered. So people can help us either by, um, volunteering to work on our projects when we, when we actually start building houses in Cherokee county, they can donate. There's a variety of ways they can go on international trips. Last year I was in Portugal building, celebrating our 20th anniversary, uh, in Portugal, and then building 20 houses in Peru. So there's an opportunity to do international travel and still be able to help out people. So charitable tourism, there's probably a name for it, but it's really fun to be able to go do that. So there's a variety of way people can help us.

Dupreese Wadi: Wonderful. And tell our audience how they can reach you.

Mark Murphy: I can be reached at Mark M. M at Fuller Center Atlanta.org say that again. Mark M at Fuller Center Atlanta.org okay,

Dupreese Wadi: you heard it, everybody. Mark Murphy, president of the Fuller center for Housing of Greater Atlanta. We have now been blessed with some new information on how we can bless others. And we look forward, Mark, to looking at the progress that you. As you plant your flag in Cherokee. And we look forward to having you back to tell us how things went.

Mark Murphy: And we look forward to expanding our relationship with you guys and looking at some of the different investment portfolios you provide.

Dupreese Wadi: Thank you so much for joining our family. We appreciate it.

Narrator: Thank you for joining us on the Good to Give podcast. This show is underwritten by the Community foundation for Northeast Georgia. Working with donors and nonprofits, improving our world through the power of philanthropy. For more information, go to cfneg.org.