Annual Report
2019 - 2020
Home HeadQuarters, Inc.
Letter from the Director
Kerry P. Quaglia
CEO, Home HeadQuarters
It is often said that truly great organizations really prove their mettle during times of crisis. I can say, unequivocally, that Home HeadQuarters met the challenge of COVID-19 head-on, and I have never been more proud of our staff and board members for their dedicated work throughout the crisis. Determined early on to be an “essential service provider,” HHQ remained open to the public, providing much-needed emergency services throughout the pandemic.
In near-record time, we needed to create the capacity for many staff members to work productively from home and to be able to communicate and collaborate with each other so that we could move cases from intake to closure while creating a seamless process for our customers. Moreover, while deploying our normal programming expeditiously to meet urgent needs in our community, we also were tasked with implementing new programs that were created to respond to the crisis. We are grateful to the Community Foundation of CNY, The Allyn Family Foundation, Bank of America, City of Syracuse, Onondaga County, NeighborWorks America, and many others who provided HHQ with supplemental assistance throughout the COVID-19 crisis so that we could respond to the needs of our community.
Responding to a crisis has taught us a lot about ourselves and about our community. Our housing and economic ecosystem is much more fragile than we ever imagined. At a moment’s notice, owners, tenants, investors, small businesses and other not-for-profits may have a desperate need for capital or for services. We have learned that HHQ can respond to these calls for action by being nimble, creative, and resolute. Having discovered this, we know there will be no going back. Our staff and board will be ready and well-equipped to deal with whatever challenges may lie ahead.
COVID-19: We Won't Stop!
While Home HeadQuarters closed its doors to walk-in appointments and the general public in March, HHQ staff never stopped working and in fact, most found themselves busier than ever before. People found time during furloughs, layoffs and just working from home to help set a record-breaking year for homeownership class attendance. Onondaga County, the City of Syracuse, NeighborWorks America, the CNY Community Foundation, Bank of America and others asked Home HeadQuarters to help administer COVID Emergency Grants to homeowners and landlords throughout the community. Deemed essential, our affordable housing development efforts never came to a halt and HHQ’s Opportunity Headquarters construction crews found themselves building new 2-family rental properties, rehabbing homes for sale and getting foundations ready for the Mayor’s Resurgent Neighborhood Initiative. For many, spending more time at home than ever before meant a heightened awareness of needed home repairs, or even of much needed space, so more than $6 million dollars in home improvement loans and first mortgages flew unexpectedly out the door. As this challenging time seemingly continues, HHQ staff continues to make adjustments, get more programs and services online and work to get more funding out the door for those in need.
COVID Emergency Grants – In the Nick of Time
“I hate to think about what would have happened if I hadn’t called,” said Tyra. “I really don’t know what I would have done without these grants. I am just so thankful.”
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Tyra Briggs was having a problem with her Valley neighborhood home’s roof. She initially thought the roof could be patched and had reached out to a contractor to give her a quote. In June, she had arranged for the roof to be fixed, but Tyra’s position as a truancy office was eliminated due to COVID.
“I didn’t want to keep putting the roof off,” said Tyra. “I didn’t think it was safe and I didn’t want anyone on the back porch.”
She had seen something about the COVID Emergency Grants in the newspaper and called Home HeadQuarters thinking a small grant would cover the patching job. Another local contractor came to the home and upon inspection, the entire ceiling at the back of Tyra’s house collapsed. Home HeadQuarters’ staff quickly assigned Tyra additional COVID emergency repair funding through its HHQ’s Urgent Care Program made possible by the City of Syracuse.
“I hate to think about what would have happened if I hadn’t called,” said Tyra. “I really don’t know what I would have done without these grants. I am just so thankful.”
Lending
Early on in our almost 25-year lending history, Home HeadQuarters was known as the “Lender of last resort.” Homeowners who had no where else to turn, would look to HHQ for grants and loans for their emergency repairs that would otherwise go on a credit card or worse, sit unrepaired for years. Home HeadQuarters’ lending programs have grown since those early days, but our lending always remains most informed by the underserved in our community.
Last year, Home HeadQuarters deployed almost $23 million in community development lending to the people, neighborhoods and projects that needed those dollars most. We launched new loan programs like affordable mortgage financing for mobile home purchases and expanded existing programs such as interim financing for unique, non-profit projects and loans and grants to address lead in rental properties.
Did you know?
- HHQ provides 9% of all purchase mortgages in Syracuse and 15% of all first mortgages for African American families.
- If you surveyed all the African American households that received home improvement assistance in Syracuse, you would discover that 90% of those households received their home improvement assistance through HHQ.
Bridging the Gap: The Barnes Mansion
In 1853, George and Rebecca Barnes built their Italianate villa on James Street Hill in Syracuse. The house, one of many mansions to once line the main thoroughfare, is also assumed to have played some role in the underground railroad. George Barnes was a committed abolitionist, an active participant in the railroad and helped form the City Anti-Slavery Society. The property later became the home of Frank Hiscock, the chief justice of the New York State Court of Appeals, and in the early 1940’s, was purchased by LeMoyne College to provide student classrooms and housing for the school’s monks. The Corinthian Club, a social destination for wives who could not join their husbands at the men’s only Century Club a few blocks away, owned it for decades. In 2009, facing dwindling enrollment and increasing tax burdens, The Corinthian Club gifted the mansion to The George and Rebecca Barnes Foundation.
“We couldn’t find bridge financing anywhere.”
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When board members of The George and Rebecca Barnes Foundation discovered they were being awarded two large New York State grants to repair the roof and signature columns of the beloved 167-year-old Barnes Mansion in Syracuse, they were ecstatic. The Barnes Foundation and its board had raised the funds needed to make the costly repairs helping to ensure the historic mansion remains in use and in demand. Unfortunately, as the board discovered, most public grant programs, especially those through the state, do not provide awarded funding until a project is complete. To make matters even more challenging, non-profit organizations often do not have the financial structure to pass the stringent underwriting standards traditional financial institutions require to secure bridge financing and rarely have the available capital to cover costs before a project is done. “To replace just the roof was almost $400,000,” says Barnes Mansion Board member Cathy Comer. “We couldn’t find bridge financing anywhere.”
Enter Home HeadQuarters with gap financing built especially for unique non-profit projects such as the Barnes Mansion renovation. As a non-profit housing and community development organization, Home HeadQuarters relies on a wide range of funding sources for its own single-family, mixed-use and commercial property redevelopment, and almost always must complete a project before it is funded. Seeing this lack of flexible capital for other non-profits as another opportunity to help fill gaps and build capacity in the community, Home HeadQuarters worked with local lenders to develop a workable solution with accessible capital. The success of Home HeadQuarters’ gap financing can be seen in such unique project like The Gear Factory and The Gustav Stickley House . Now, the Barnes Mansion can get its new roof and repaired columns and the board can focus on the next big thing.
“We are already starting to look for the next grant to fix the back portico, make the 2nd floor bathroom handicap accessible, make the side entrance handicap accessible, repair the side porch and fix or replace the fire escapes,” says Cathy. “The structure of the building is most important--we want this building to last another 150 years.”
HomeOwnership, Financial Empowerment & Foreclosure Prevention
An unprecedented number of people walked through Home HeadQuarters’ doors, either in person or virtually, last year to attend homeownership classes, crunch the numbers with a housing or financial counselor or learn about their available options to save their home. People took charge and decided that they wanted to become first-time homebuyers, get out of debt once and for all, or finally, ask for the help they really needed.
By the Numbers
- More than 330 people purchased their first home after graduating from HHQ classes, receiving Nationally-certified counseling and at least half taking advantage of down payment and closing cost assistance.
- Almost 750 individuals graduated from Home HeadQuarters 8-hour HomeBuyer Education Course—almost 70% of which coming from a low or moderate-income household.
- More than 1100 counseling sessions were held by Syracuse Financial Empowerment Center Counselors helping to spur outcomes 564 outcomes putting Syracuse on the map for outperforming all other Financial Empowerment Centers across the country.
- More than $600,000 in debt was reduced for Syracuse residents receiving counseling through the Syracuse FEC.
- Foreclosure prevention programming helped almost 60% of homeowners seeking help avoid foreclosure.
Risking Success: First-time Home Ownership
“Don’t sell yourself short, it can be done.”
Pictured: The Mayes family: A’Keima 5, Jahmel 10, Jahnye 12, Ty’wain 15, Ti-nyece 14 & Jahnica 19, and mom, Monica
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Monica Mayes watches as her kids squeeze around the new refrigerator, opening and closing the door three and then four times in a row. The refrigerator, one of many new, shiny appliances the kids were joyfully admiring, was a first for the whole family—the first new appliance and the first that they had ever owned. The kids, still in a state of disbelief, had found out earlier that day that the house with all the new appliances was their new home.
“I saw this house being worked on, knew it was a Home HeadQuarters’ house, and actually walked through it while it was being renovated,” says Mom while laughing. “My eldest saw the property before being stationed out of state and knew what I was trying to do, but we both kept it a secret so we could surprise the rest of the kids.”
Being a single mom to six kids, aged five to 19 years, hasn’t been easy, but Monica did not let that diminish her determination to get her family into a home of their own. While working as a certified nursing assistant at a local nursing home, she started saving and watching her credit even before she signed up for the Home HeadQuarters’ HomeBuyer Education Course and was in such good shape, that midway through the eight-hour class, Monica reached out to a HHQ housing counselor.
“I realized that I was farther along than where the class was taking me,” says Monica. “When I mentioned to my counselor that I was already looking at and interested in a Home HeadQuarters’ renovated house, she immediately put me in touch with the mortgage manager to see if I qualified and asked the realtor to reach out to me.”
Not too long after that initial conversation, Monica was picking out paint colors and deciding on light fixtures for the Syracuse Southside home that was soon to be her own. Along with the affordable, fully-renovated, move-in ready house, the family also secured a first mortgage that required very little down and worked with all the funding requirements of the rehabbed property; a grant for closing cost assistance, and the nationally-certified education and counseling certificate all from Home HeadQuarters. Mom is now looking at furniture while the younger kids are organizing the playroom.
“Don’t sell yourself short, it can be done,” says Monica Mayes with conviction. “You might not know how to start, and you know it’s going to be hard, but you can do it for you and your family.”
Real Estate & Development
Home HeadQuarters grappled with many of the same challenges Central New York homebuyers faced this past year: lack of inventory, aging housing stock, supply chain issues and out-dated housing designs. As always, but more so now, funding for development efforts, especially in this region, remained insufficient to tackle most large-scale single-family housing projects. Still, the organization helped kick off Syracuse Mayor Walsh’s Resurgent Neighborhood Initiative with the plan to build 25 new single-family homes on infill sites throughout the city. Home HeadQuarters’ staff also concentrated on improving existing housing designs to make homes more energy-efficient and flexible for growing and working families. Home HeadQuarters houses sold before they were completed, not quite ready buyers clamored for more lease-purchase properties and the record-breaking number of homebuyer education enrollees called our real estate affiliate, CNY Affordable Realty, looking for new construction and rehab homes after their first classes.
Gwenique Blake – Determined to be the First
“Everyone at HHQ reassured me and said they would make it work no matter what.”
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Gwenique Blake knows Syracuse’s Westside. So, when she saw new 2-family construction on Otisco Street, Gwenique did two things: she assumed it was a Home HeadQuarters’ project and she pulled her car right over to the curb for a tour of the construction site. The very next day, the Loretto nursing assistant went to Home HeadQuarters to see what it would take to get into one of the new apartments.
“I was worried about my credit, my kids, when the apartment would be ready,” says the Mom of three. “But everyone at HHQ reassured me and said they would make it work no matter what.”
A month and a half later, Gwenique was the first to rent a unit in Home HeadQuarters’ Westside Apartments, a 14-unit project featuring both new construction and substantial rehabilitation, all in energy-efficient, 2-family buildings. The unique rental project is funded through the Small Rental Development Initiative of NYS Homes and Community Renewal and is primarily targeted to those families making less than 80% of the area median household income and to some making less than 50% of the area median.
While Gwenique’s apartment looks like home, with Fall decorations at her door and on her porch and the smell of fresh baked cakes coming from the kitchen, she plans on enrolling in Home HeadQuarters’ Homebuyer Education Course next year with sights on becoming a first-time homebuyer. She is proud to be a part of this particular Home HeadQuarters’ project and all the new activity on the city’s Westside. When asked what her favorite aspect is of the new apartment, she doesn’t hesitate, “It’s the new grass, my kids take their shoes off and tell me it’s the softest grass they’ve ever walked on.”
Banking on Small, Local, Family-Run Businesses: BeeKind Syracuse
Jillian Barrett, Co-Owner BeeKind Syracuse
“I love that we are a part of this amazing community and that we now are a part of something even bigger”
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“I was always driving by this building that looked mostly vacant, but I could see it was being renovated,” says BeeKind Syracuse co-owner Jillian Barrett. “I thought about how cool it would be to see people coming to our store and how fun to be an even bigger part of my very own neighborhood.”
BeeKind Syracuse quickly signed on to join other local businesses Recess Coffee and KirkWorks on the first level of the 1950 mixed-use building, along with a handful of long-term residential rental units on the 2nd floor. The building, originally called the Dublin Arms, is part of Home HeadQuarters, Benevolent Development strategy of restoring commercial and mixed-use properties that are key assets in city neighborhoods, while providing affordable access to small, local businesses and renters.
The BeeKind sisters jumpstarted their business online in March just as the pandemic picked up speed and built a devoted following that has now found them in person and often, within walking distance. The busy retailer is even more local and sustainable with the addition of their newest stock and cashier assistants, recently Dad and weekend worker Mom.
“I love that we are a part of this amazing community and that we now are a part of something even bigger,” says Jillian with a smile. “We can partner with our building’s non-profit and community-minded owner and maybe we can even help to grow other local businesses—not just our own.”
Homsite
Home HeadQuarters affiliate, Homsite, remained open through COVID providing Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher programming as Cayuga County’s Local Program Administrator. The agency has continued to operate at 100% utilization with its vouchers – prioritizing homeless individuals and families in need of emergency housing and deploying thousands of dollars in security deposit assistance to those seeking affordable housing. Salato Gardens, its 24-unit senior housing complex located in the Village of Cayuga, finally closed on $1.4 million in rehab funding from NYS Homes and Community, that coupled with nearly $500,000 from the Federal Home Loan Bank of NY, the complex will see a monumental transformation with exterior improvements and the energy saving installation of heat pumps. Other partners include NYSERDA, contractor Two Plus Four Construction Company and Sustainable Comfort. Finally, collaborating with the City of Auburn and Cayuga County Health Department, Homsite and its partners expanded its lead initiative with an investment of $100,000 from the Emerson Foundation and funding commitments from the Allyn Family Foundation. The Health Department hired a Sanitarian to focus on lead issues in February and a Lead Care Level II testing machine was purchased for a rural health clinic. Homsite now has a pool of funds to help families with lead poisoned children address friction surfaces in the home.
Salato Apartments Under Construction
Financial Statement
Funders & Donors
Banking Partners
Bank of America
Community Bank
Cooperative Federal
Empower Federal Credit Union
Five Star Bank
Geddes Federal Savings & Loan
Generations Bank
KeyBank
M&T Bank
NBT Bank
Pathfinder Bank
Solvay Bank
Tompkins Trust
Funders & Donors
KeyBank Foundation
Lead Safe LLC
William LeBeau
Local Initiatives Support Corporation
M&T Bank
The Marrone Law Firm
Greg May
Mother Cabrini Health Foundation
National Green and Health Homes Initiative
NeighborWorks America
NBT Bank
NYSERDA
NYS Homes and Community Renewal
NYS Office of the Attorney General
NYS Affordable Housing Corporation
Onondaga County
Pathfinder Bank
Kerry Quaglia
Karen Schroeder
Solvay Bank
Syracuse Parks Conservancy
Tompkins Trust
United Way of Central New York
US Department of Housing and Urban Development
US Department of Treasury
Visions FCU
Graham Ambrose
Bank of America
Berkshire Bank
Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices CNY Realty
Bonadio Group
William Busch
Jan Caster
Cayuga Community Fund
Christopher Community
Cities for Financial Empowerment Fund
City of Auburn
City of Oswego
City of Syracuse
CNY Community Foundation
CNY COVID-19 Community Support Fund
Community Development Financial Institutions Fund
CORE Federal Credit Union
The Dorothy and Marshall M. Reisman Foundation
Kim Dupcak
Emerson Foundation
Empower Federal Credit Union
Erie County
Five Star Bank
Health Foundation of Western and Central New York
Home Depot Foundation
JP Morgan Chase
HHQ Board of Directors
Bob Vertucci | NBT Bank