“We started
as an organization that provides housing. Now we’re an organization
that serves families and communities that knows how to do housing.”
That’s how Chris Krehmeyer, executive director of Beyond Housing,
explains the evolution of the 20-year-old non-profit corporation
that provides homes and support services to low-income families.
Formerly known as the Ecumenical Housing Production Corporation,
Beyond Housing owns and manages 215 single-family rental homes
in 22 municipalities in St. Louis County. It’s also rebuilding
communities in Castle Point in north St. Louis County, and in
University City and Pagedale.
Beyond Housing was founded by people from the lay and faith
communities who saw a need for affordable housing for large
families in St. Louis County, Krehmeyer says. Now Beyond Housing
has evolved into a unique organization that provides not just
a house, but job training and placement, parenting and money-management
skills, post-secondary education, child care and more. “We send
the kids to camp and provide school supplies and holiday gifts,”
Krehmeyer says. “We take a holistic approach to helping a family
succeed on its own terms.”
With a $3
million annual budget, Beyond Housing has to be run like a business.
“We have to be able to read a balance sheet and understand a
profit and loss statement, while focusing on the fact that we’re
only as good as the last family we served,” Krehmeyer says.
“It’s a constant balancing act.”
That’s where
Beyond Housing’s board of directors comes in, led by president
S. Jerome Pratter, an attorney with The Stolar Partnership.
Like the organization itself, its board has evolved over the
past two decades, Pratter explains. “In the early years we had
a working board. An architect helped us design the homes we
built. Accountants helped us keep the books. Social service
professionals counseled families. Now board members are less
hands-on and more like technical advisers, helping the staff
improve their skills.”
The seven-member executive committee and 25-person board of
directors includes “bankers, investors, community volunteers,
folks from the big corporations,” Krehmeyer says. “We look at
skill sets, too, based on what we need in finance, marketing,
property management, community development, human resources
and fundraising.” Currently the board is engaged in long-range
planning, “looking at where we’ll be 10 years from now and charting
a course,” Krehmeyer says. The board is debating whether to
expand its services into the City, St. Charles County or East
St. Louis.
Also, the
board is re-evaluating Beyond Housing’s mission, which has been
to help families achieve self-sufficiency. “That phrase, which
we’ve used for years, doesn’t exactly describe what we do now,”
Pratter says. “Some board members feel we ought to help each
family reach its own goals. We’re proactively looking at that
and asking people we serve how we can help them.”
Fundraising
is also an ongoing issue, particularly with an $800,000 annual
gap between revenue and reality. Rental fees provide some income,
and Beyond Housing has an outstanding track record in corporate
donations. However, Pratter notes, “many of those corporations
recently have merged or were bought up, or they’ve gone international,
and it’s hard to get them to focus on the St. Louis community.”
As a result, the Beyond Housing board is shifting its focus
from large donations from a few corporations to small donations
from a larger number of businesses and individuals. “I can’t
see our board planning a gala. They’re just not gala types,
nor are they people who can ask a corporate officer on the golf
course for a check,” Pratter says. “Our approach is, here’s
the mission, here’s how we do it, we’re fiscally sound, we get
results. That’s a corporate approach and it works for us.”
It works, Krehmeyer adds, because behind Beyond Housing’s successes
are real human stories. “It’s the story of a single mom raising
three kids with no support system. Maybe she has a high school
education. Maybe she started having kids when she was young.
Maybe she has no transportation or daycare. She’s facing all
the dilemmas that low-income families face to become economically
independent.”
|
BEYOND
HOUSING: FAST FACTS
|
• Owns and manages 215 single-family rental homes in 22
St. Louis County communities, which house more than 800
individuals including more than 500 children.
• Besides shelter, Beyond Housing provides householder and
parenting skills, employment counseling, daycare, home buyer/owner
assistance, money management training; vocational assistance,
post-secondary education tuition; welfare-to-work program,
job readiness training; children’s summer camp; back-to-school
and holiday program.
• Since 1996, 42 families have moved on to first-time home-ownership;
10 to 12 families move on to home ownership annually.
• 80 percent of adults in the program are employed; 96 percent
of children attend school regularly.
• Staff of 22 full time, six part time; annual budget of
$3 million. |
Recently, the board started the Young Friends of Beyond Housing,
Pratter says. “These are young professionals who we want to
groom and nurture until they reach the point in their lives
when they can make the transition to the full board.” It’s a
board people like to serve on, he adds. Why? Because of the
“head on the pillow,” Pratter explains. “No matter what I do
from 7:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. each day, if I’ve done something on
behalf of Beyond Housing, I can say to myself, ‘There are now
more than 500 kids living in good homes, going to school, their
mothers are being helped and they have a future.’ Then I can
fall asleep.”
Pam Droog is a St. Louis-based free-lance writer.
