After eight years of leading a big-city public housing agency, Carl Greene knows what it's like to walk down the long, dark halls of a public housing project. He knows how far living conditions can deteriorate and how unbelievably long it can take to get a window or a toilet fixed. Most of all, he knows how children in public housing can long for something as simple as a yard where they can play outside with their friends.
This hasn't all come from on-the-job training. Greene, now executive director of the Philadelphia Housing Authority, spent his childhood in Washington, D.C., public housing. Today, such memories still drive the 49-year-old, who is on a mission to change the look and feel of public housing. "Growing up as a kid and seeing the system from the inside out as a customer and seeing how bad, bad it really can be, and then coming in as an employee [at a housing authority] with a lot of energy, a lot of drive, and finding out that people were just stealing the place blind by not earning the hours they were being paid for" is a powerful motivator, Greene says. "When I became an executive, I was determined that would not happen on my watch."
It hasn't. Since coming on board in March 1998, Greene has transformed a slow-moving, highly troubled government agency into one of the most successful and respected housing authorities in the country. The secret to PHA's success: an infusion of private sector business practices, with a heavy emphasis on accountability and compliance in all aspects of the agency, from operations to finance and development. As a result, Greene has been able to dramatically improve the productivity and cost-effectiveness of the agency's daily operations, allowing the agency to gain public confidence and attract public and private investors.
"He is a force to be reckoned with," says Steve Rudman, executive director of the Housing Authority of Portland. "Carl has taken a really comprehensive approach to bring the housing authority into this century in a very forward-thinking way. I am very impressed with his ability to make changes."
Drive down the streets of Philadelphia, and you'll see the proof. As executive director, Greene has invested more than $1 billion to replace barrack-style high-rise towers with new low-rise communities with the simple, neighborly appeal of market-rate apartment and townhouse properties.
Operations have also changed. "If you come and spend a day here with us, you will see this is run nothing like any public agency," says Greg Hampson, general manager of PHA's development/construction division. "We had tons of public employees run out of here [when Greene came on board] like their hair was on fire. They wanted to work from 8 to 4 ... and collect a paycheck. That is not how we operate. It is never business as usual here; we are always trying to do something better."
Change Agent
Such drastic transformations don't happen overnight, particularly at an agency with such severe problems. After all, here's what it was like at PHA in 1998: Fulfilling a resident's work order request could take nearly a year. The number of phone lines were limited at PHA offices (don't even think about e-mail; each department had just a handful of computers). Many employees failed to work an eight-hour day, and different departments rarely communicated with each other.
Greene quickly learned just that when he arrived in 1998, recruited by then-Mayor Ed Rendell and then-City Council President John F. Street. (Rendell is now governor of Pennsylvania; Street is now Philly's mayor.)
"The first day I got to work [at PHA], it was 6:30 a.m. and no one showed up until 9:30 a.m.," Greene recalls. "The next day, I got to work at 7:30 a.m. and nobody showed up until 10 a.m. I had a meeting at 7:30 a.m. every day for the next six months in order to change the organizational values."
Greene's hiring represented a change of values itself. In the past, the top PHA spot tended to go to political power brokers; in contrast, Greene brought both public and private real estate experience to the job. (A former executive director of the Detroit Housing Commission, Greene has also worked at the Atlanta and D.C. housing authorities and as a real estate agent.)
"The organization was made up of mostly patronage employees who didn't really have the right work ethic or the right education or the right training," says the executive director, who's known as "Mr. Greene" to his employees. "It was a matter of flushing out the old organizational values and work ethics. The biggest challenge was for the staff and the people in the community to understand that the rules had changed."
Greene promptly implemented a nine-goal strategic plan, which is posted in all offices and frequently discussed at training and other agency meetings. "Carl expects a lot from his employees," says Bernie Husser, managing director of acquisitions for Boston-based MMA Financial, an affordable housing debt and equity provider which works with PHA. "He is very demanding, and that is because he has a place that he wants the organization to get to, and he wants to get there as quick as he can."
His employees don't disagree. "Mr. Greene is a performance-driven person," says Faisal Hassan, the chief information technology officer at PHA. "He is a workaholic, and he doesn't expect anything less than that from anybody else. But he doesn't demand things that aren't available or not within your reach."
New Directions
With new people and attitudes in place, Greene focused the agency on real estate management basics. His first initiatives included improving the maintenance system and adding curb appeal to PHA properties. Since then, "Mr. Greene" has implemented a host of other operational improvements that enforce compliance, accountability, and reporting. One of the largest: the adoption of PeopleSoft, a powerful software program that tracks everything from financial and human resources information to project-based performance measures.
Another major operational initiative has been an overhaul of the agency's Section 8 housing voucher program. Seeking greater flexibility from the government, PHA joined HUD's Moving to Work initiative, becoming the first major urban housing authority to impose a seven-year time limit on the benefit. But the agency isn't abandoning its residents. PHA has also launched the Community Partners Program, where 14 agencies citywide offer education, life skills, and job counseling to voucher holders to help them become self-sufficient before their housing benefits expire.
PHA also implemented new quality-control initiatives for the program and now redirects the funds for approximately 2,000 vouchers a year toward other areas such as the construction of new housing units and residential training programs. "Before, everyone was blaming problems [with housing vouchers] on another branch of the government," says Greene. "We came in and took accountability for making some changes and reforms."
HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson applauds Greene's private sector approach to enforce accountability. "He is carrying the principle that I believe in," says Jackson, who hired Greene to work in Washington, D.C. "Housing authorities are a business. They are not social agencies. They might house people, but the important thing is that you house people in decent, safe, and sanitary housing, and you begin to make a profit out of what you do."
Thanks to Greene's determination and seven-day workweek, PHA's image has done a 180-degree turnaround. "I remember when I first started working here [in 1992], if someone asked you if you worked for the Philadelphia Housing Authority, you looked the other way," says tech exec Hassan. "Today I see people with [PHA] uniforms in the stores, and if somebody asks you, 'Do you work for the housing authority?', you will smile and say, 'Yes.'"
Proven Investments
Under Greene's leadership, PHA's capital strategy has changed as significantly as its operations. Through the innovative use of mixed financing, which allows housing authorities to combine capital grants with other public or private money, the agency has been able to overhaul the city's most distressed projects. (For more information on mixed financing, see "Joint Forces," Multifamily Executive, September 2005, page 98.)
"Our traditional budget might have been $300 million in capital [over a five-year period], but we have done well over $1 billion in capital development because we have managed to leverage what we raise and raise additional dollars through the low-income housing tax credit program, capital revenue bonds, the historic tax credit program, city capital, and state capital," says Greene, who has landed more than $155 million in private investment for the PHA since 1999.
Take Greater Grays Ferry Estates, the $162 million redevelopment of Tasker Homes, a 1,077-unit, barrack-style, pre-World War II community that was demolished and now features 554 modern low-rise homes and apartments. The complex financial package included $95 million in general purpose government bonds; $55 million in private activity bonds with 4 percent low-income housing tax credits; and bonds secured by future allocation of capital funds ($12 million annually for 20 years, coming from HUD).
The strategy worked so well that the agency raised more money than it needed for Greater Grays Ferry Estates, giving it the opportunity to build an additional 211 units of affordable housing in other locations.
Greene's cooperative financial approach scores high remarks from his peers. "As we look at an environment with very significant budget pressures and federal resource pressures, the need to develop these partnerships and look for ways of leveraging what you have with other resources is critical. Carl has done a terrific job," says Sunia Zaterman, executive director of the Washington, D.C.-based Council of Large Public Housing Authorities.
Just as importantly in public housing, Greene also knows how to work with elected officials and local leaders. "I have been in this business a long time, and I know the people in charge of these agencies at the state and federal level," says Greene. "People have trusted in me and invested in me because I have delivered over time."
Neighborhood Rebirth
Nowhere is this more visible than in Philadelphia neighborhoods. Over the last seven years, PHA has invested about $1.2 billion to transform some of the most notorious addresses into properties that look and feel like market-rate housing. "Carl has done a phenomenal job of taking what were some of the most blighted areas of the city and turning them into some of the best and brightest neighborhoods in the city," says John Westrum, CEO of Westrum Development Co., a private developer based in Fort Washington, Pa.
Beyond Greater Grays Ferry Estates, other notable transformations include the Lucien E. Blackwell Homes, which replaced three dilapidated 17-story towers with 120 townhomes (80 rentals and 40 for-sale units), and Richard Allen Homes, the childhood home of comedian Bill Cosby and perhaps PHA's most infamous property, which now offers a mix of 408 two- and three-story townhouses, twins, and duplexes.
These garden-style developments each feature a different look: Richard Allen boasts a primarily brick façade, while just across the street Cambridge Plaza features a beige and yellow stucco exterior. But all of these low-rise, suburban-style PHA communities do adhere to several key design principles, such as traditional street grids, off-street parking, front and back yards, and clearly defined public and private spaces. These properties also offer a wide range of social programs to residents, from onsite health centers to job training and financial planning classes.
The city is certainly taking note of these projects. A recent study conducted by real estate research firm Applied Real Estate Analysis showed that neighborhoods surrounding PHA redeveloped sites grew in property value by 142 percent from 1999 to 2004, compared to a citywide average of 55 percent growth. "There used to be a time when nobody wanted public housing in their neighborhood," says Greene. "Now I have every district council person who wants me to build a project in their community."
Private firms are also lining up. Westrum Development plans to build a large for-sale multifamily property next to PHA's affordable Falls Ridge community in Philly's East Falls section. "The area is really going to be an example for the country of how to have mixed-income levels of housing sitting side by side," Westrum says.
And there is, of course, an extremely long list of people who want to move into PHA's newly redeveloped communities. Nearly 80,000 residents live in Philadelphia public housing, which has a waiting list of 100,000 people. While the agency's new lower-density housing model has its fans, the Philadelphia press criticized PHA for reducing the number of available public housing units and instituting new eligibility policies that potentially hurt the poorest families seeking housing. Over the last decade, the number of public housing units has fallen from 21,000 to fewer than 15,700, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer (which has also applauded the agency's efforts).
But PHA backs up its housing policies with a strong argument. "If we were to follow [our critics'] prescription, we would return to communities comprising high concentrations of poor people," says Greene. "We saw the results of that mentality in the old-style public housing projects, which were breeding grounds for crime and other anti-social behavior."
Instead, Greene has chosen a different approach, transforming his agency, the city's urban landscape, and just as importantly, the experience of thousands of Philadelphia public housing residents, whose children can now play outside, safely, in their new yards.
Philadelphia Housing Authority
- What: Public housing agency
- Founded: 1937
- Employees: 1,900
- 2005 Revenue: $350 million
- Units owned: 15,678 (2005)
- Units managed: 14,636 (2005)
- Future goals: Build more mixed-income and mixed-use communities, including the development of small-scale commercial and retail space
Leadership Lessons: Carl Greene
- Age: 49
- Job: Executive director, Philadelphia Housing Authority
- First job: Real estate sales agent
- Ideal leader: Vince Lombardi
- Greatest challenge: Balancing the public purpose objectives of our agency's mission with decisions that make good business sense
- Hobbies: Exploring new ideas and approaches to life and business through reading, attending sporting events, and jazz concerts
- Quotable: "Our goal is to create balanced communities: a mix of affordable, market-rate, rental, and homeownership. We don't want people to live in isolated, semi-institutional housing of the past. We want them to live in a really contemporary, integrated community designed by some of the best real estate professionals in the country."
Big Job
Public housing agencies deal with shrinking funding and aging properties.
Running a large public housing authority has never been easy, but in the past 10 years, such agencies have faced a number of challenges. At the top of the list: managing a housing stock that is both physically and socially obsolete.
Virtually all of the large metropolitan areas in the country are dealing with aging properties that are between 40 and 60 years old, says Sunia Zaterman, executive director of the Washington, D.C.-based Council of Large Public Housing Authorities.
Replacing such outdated housing is a monumental challenge, especially given significant budget pressures and dwindling federal resources for affordable housing programs. "One of the principal challenges facing housing authority directors is the unpredictability of federal funding," says Conrad Egan, president and CEO of the Washington, D.C.-based National Housing Conference.
In response to such limited funding, housing authorities such as PHA and others are learning how to creatively mix and match different capital sources to maximize the amount of money available to them.