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Nikki, thank you for joining us today.

It's really nice to spend some time with you.

Well, thanks for the invite.

I'm very impressed with what you do and, uh, and we're gonna spend a little time educating some people about this enormous issue that you and your organization are tackling.

And people in California are well aware of this.

I don't know if people elsewhere in the country are well aware, but, um, the absolute biggest problem in California is affordable housing.

So I'm eager to dig into that issue with you and how you're working the problem.

Uh, it's...

You've shown some impressive results and, uh, boy, is that not an easy thing to go after.

So let's start with, um, Richmond Neighborhood Housing Services.

What, what does Richmond Neighborhood Housing Services do?

So our organization was founded back in 1981 by local residents that were addressing the redlining issues of the day.

It has transitioned to be an affordable housing organization where we're property managers, owners of real estate between the cities of Richmond and Oakland, keeping, uh, low-income families housed with our, um, affordable housing units.

We are a program manager, a HUD, uh, certified counseling agency which supports individuals that are looking to become homeowners, those are at risk of losing their homes, or individuals that just need support in, you know, the day-to-day management of money and credit.

We also run an emerging developers program that was founded in 2019 supporting, uh, developers of color who have interest in the development, especially in infill small site spaces.

And we're also ourselves infill small site developers where we are acquiring, rehabbing property to make available to first-time homebuyers that are deemed affordable.

Um, that's an amazing mission.

So, um, my family always owned homes.

My father was a general contractor.

He built roads and bridges, parts of...

I'm new, from New Jersey, parts of the Garden State Parkway, schools, gas stations, um, and he built a house for my grandmother.

Um, and what happens when you own a home is you build generational wealth.

So the work that you're doing, I would imagine it transforms people's lives because they start to accrue generational wealth.

Well, that's the intent.

When I came on board in 2016, the organization, I would say, was dormant.