The following is the transcript for the documentary *Breaking Barriers: The Future of Housing* by *Navigate Affordable Housing Partners*:

(0:17) "Yeah, we are our brother's keepers and that plays out for everyone differently, but we are brothers keepers and so this is my way of yeah okay I can have I can be a part of making sure that at least whatever we got whatever navigates touching that yeah we're doing right by people. Lisa McCarroll and I'm president and CEO of Navigate Affordable Housing Partners. Um, when I first took the position of CEO, my board chairman gave one phrase. I want to do good right there. Full stop. It's like, okay, I got this."

(1:05) "the the core mission of Navigate is fair and equal access to housing. Um, and for us it plays out in a in a couple of different ways, but for me personally, it means having a part and giving people in our community, wherever they are, uh, that security of a home. And it's one of those core tenants. If if I've got a home, if I've got a safe place, I can kind of deal with everything else. it it it kind of gives you a landing spot and that's important um just to being a human."

(1:41) "What inspired Navigate uh was that uh many years ago uh HUD encouraged housing authorities to establish nonprofits to sort of advance that housing mission and but in terms of the mission of the organization it has always been the same about providing housing for families. What has changed is how that's played out in the community and the organization has continued to try to be responsive to the needs of the community."

(2:10) "The mission at Navigate is really to provide safe and decent housing for those who need it most. That's critically important in a lot of the communities we're working with where quality housing is in short supply and part of our mission is to to increase that supply um throughout the communities. Navigate has really positioned itself to be a thought leader in the affordable housing space, not only on the contract administration side, but also on the community development side. So, we're able to go into neighborhoods and really solve the critical needs um that is is pressing in that community, whether it be housing or education or catalytic development. Navigate really has the resources that we can invest deeply into communities uh that that need our services."

(2:51) "So when Nate first came into the Tittisville community, we really did an assessment of what were those critical needs that the community had. Initially it was blight elimination. There was years and years of neglect and disinvestment. Um so by acquiring key properties um really gave us the framework where we could start making positive change in the community. And it wasn't until many years later where we actually started rebuilding a lot of that housing infrastructure back in the community."

(3:18) "So, one of the key elements that we've really been focusing on is that affordable housing does not necessarily mean cheap housing that we need to put our tenants and residents in positions of success and that requires a thoughtful approach to how we develop housing in these communities. So, at Navigate, we've had the ability to test different models of housing construction knowing that affordable housing is a problem that has a a tremendous scale to it. um they they anticipate it's a deficit of 7 million units across the United States. So building one and two houses isn't really going to make a meaningful impact. So we got to give a better toolbox for how we deploy housing in recovering neighborhoods."

(3:58) "Um part of that is how do we effectively and efficiently build housing at Navigate our approach is really to build a scalable model that NAT can use but also other agencies can use to fulfill their housing needs. For us, we don't see these techniques and these methods as innovation. It is more about taking a look back um to things that have always been in play but not necessarily applied to an affordable housing community and saying what can we take from here and there to sort of create a model that folks can use."

(4:34) "There were a number of trades that just added to not only the expense and complexity of the project, but added to the time. And so, uh, our projects would cost us more than we expected and take longer than we expected just because we were trying to coordinate between so many different trades. Uh, and SIPs, structural insulated panels, began to be one of those systems that we explored because we have an interest in modular. And modular is this big umbrella that just means that there are components that are built offsite that then get assembled on site."

(5:08) "Uh so we began to explore those ideas like I say 10 12 years ago. Um and it's led us to this conversation with Navigate now around what are the different ways modular can be applied. Uh the advantages of SIPs has to do with one the rate at which they can be assembled. We can put a shell together, meaning the floor, walls, and roof uh in less than a week. We can put the walls and roofs in a matter of 2 days uh for a single unit of housing. Uh which when we compare that to conventional framing that it would usually take us about 2 weeks to do the same thing."

(5:40) "So there's a speed advantage, but the real benefit has to do with the home ownership. Because with the SIP panel, it has a skin of plywood, a skin of plywood sandwiched around um an insulated core. And what that provides is not only a structural integrity, a structural system, but it also creates a great uh degree of efficiency, thermal efficiency. Um, and so what that means is my HVAC equipment, my heating and cooling equipment for the homes can be much more efficient. Uh, and that translates into less cost of ownership that a resident pays half or less their electricity bill."

(6:22) "One of the things to me personally that really is an indicator of success is seeing the whole neighborhood as a whole, you know, become more active. Seeing people back out in the streets, families out using the sidewalks, the parks and everything, using the amenities, seeing kids walking to school. that really is an indicator of success to me is just seeing what was once the dilapidated corridor back active, you know, with, you know, active rooftops, um, people congregating on their porches, people out, you know, uh, fellowshipping. And, you know, when you come down Fifth Court, Fifth Avenue, you see just that."

(7:04) "One of the things that I think we do well is that we are a team that you know just as a community rises and you know together uh we have an amazing team at Navigate and we work well together and we rely on each other's strengths and so when someone you know when we see that oh maybe this is not going to go well or it won't get the the right outcome for the community we are all very good at locking arms and making the pivot to do right to fix it or to to make right on on something. So, we've been we've been lucky, knock on wood, for that and and hopefully we will continue to to to sort of carry that through all of our other work."

(7:48) "So, I think the emotional journey is is one of those aspects that I wasn't necessarily prepared for um when we started on this. Um the amount of mountains we had to climb uh and just hoops we had to jump through was a daily grind on are we really doing the right thing. This is hard work what we're doing and there's a reason why not many people do what we do um because of the challenges both systematically economically all the pressures that keep people from investing in community. So when we're able to kind of come up for air and look around and say this is the impact that we've made in the last three, four, five, seven years in this community, that's when you can really see the the fruits of the labor and kind of get you over that next hump of how do we work in in these communities that that really need our help."

(8:39) "It really comes down to doing right by people and customer service. it it you know and it sometimes can feel like a lost art but I hope that that is the experience that if you know if we're out running your critical repair program that the way you work with navigate and the experience with any of us this top down bottom up your experience is going to be the exact same. We're going to pay attention. We're going to listen. We're going to respond. We're going to tell you what we can do. We're going to tell you what we can't do. We're going to follow through. Just that simple."