Philanthropy as a Service: Rocket Community Fund’s National Housing Stability Model
Urban Issue(s) 5.4
Hi friends,
I am really excited to share a guest post today by Rob Lockett and Haven Simsar from the Housing Stability team at the Rocket Community Fund. Cities Reimagined has worked with the Community Fund for many years to develop and implement a plan to eradicate tax foreclosure and eviction while creating pathways to economic mobility for Detroiters. This work was born in Detroit, but is now spreading to cities throughout the country through the work of Rob and his National Housing team. Their approach is holistic and innovative, and one that I’m really proud to feature here. Enjoy!
-Alex
Housing stability has a rich and complex history, intertwined throughout the nation's social, economic, and political landscape. Various avenues for solving this problem have sought to address issues of homelessness, affordable housing, housing instability, and the disparity of wealth outcomes between white and black and brown communities; often in response to capital needs, affordable inventory shortages, and government policies contributing to an unsustainable housing environment for a significant number of American families. Safe and healthy housing is a universal right. Safe and healthy housing also costs money. It must be produced and protected, with the price often coming at the expense of those on the margins of economic prosperity. By design, the housing market most broadly serves those at the highest of the willingness to pay scale. This creates a deficit of options for those on the lower end left to be filled by government and philanthropic sector.
The National Housing Stability Team at Rocket Community Fund is looking at both ends of the spectrum to remedy this problem. We are mitigating risk and providing interim relief to households at immediate risk of eviction and displacement while simultaneously helping communities realize generational wealth homeownership. Our strategy is evolving from using capital as a primary problem-solving tool, to a platform delivery approach designed to meet communities on their journey to homeownership. In cities like Atlanta, Cleveland, Detroit, and Milwaukee, we do this through coupling our philanthropy with our Rocket Companies’ products and services to create a holistic, service-based methodology. Balancing such a proposition requires innovative thinking. It requires bringing comprehensive problem solving to a very dynamic issue. Deploying our model in this way allows us to stay ahead of the pace of change in the market, as well as the opportunity to better service the needs of families negatively affected by unstable housing in America.
Philanthropy as a Service
Coined Philanthropy as a Service, the platform is a coordinated effort between Rocket Community Fund and Rocket Companies to support communities within our ecosystem. It strategically fuses our for-more-than-profit business mission with our investment thesis as a philanthropic organization. It also mirrors the delivery system the tech industry employs. In tech, companies who provide multiple enterprise-wide solutions use a ‘platform approach’ to service customers which creates collaborative relationships. The foundation of the model starts with data collection. The highest quality data we can obtain comes directly from residents in our service footprint. For example, in Detroit, we started a community engagement program called Neighbor to Neighbor (N2N) designed to understand the nature of housing stability and conditions of communities at the resident level. The program explores legacy homeownership issues like property tax foreclosure risks, digital broadband access, and other issues related to residential health. We partner with community organizations working in specific neighborhoods to survey residents from the area. As a result, we can develop interventions centering resident voice which greatly enhances the quality of our investments and outcomes.
The data collected during the process informs some of our initial and follow-on investments in housing stability, which is the next step in the model. This also gives us the opportunity to understand opportunities where our business can organically service residents with targeted solutions or product and service offerings at a broader scale, the final step in the model. We have since scaled our outreach outside of Detroit into other metropolitan cities with similar market dynamics and needs for housing stability advocacy.
What does this ‘Philanthropy as a Service’ framework look like in service to RCF’s four issue areas? Starting with the issue of homelessness, we advocate by providing permanent supportive housing subsidies coupled with capacity building dollars for organizations working on behalf of unhoused individuals. Our homelessness work serves as the base foundation for housing stability, as we work alongside program partners to move individuals from extreme vulnerability into stability. Our recent support of Community Solutions serves as an example. As a funder and early supporter of the Built for Zero Movement, Community Solutions’ effort to measurably ending homelessness across the country, we understand the importance of using data to change how local homeless response systems work. A big issue for the organization was the availability of reliable resources for locating housing services for homeless individuals. Partnering with our Volunteer Engagement and Giving team internally, we were able to approach Rocket Companies’ technology teams to build an innovative new tool that would quickly and easily identify homeless resource providers anywhere in the United States. The result, The Homeless Resource Locator Tool, which is also available on the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs website.
Our Displacement Prevention work focuses on keeping residents in place with the ability to experience generational wealth outcomes. Most of our work both in Detroit, as well as our national markets resides in the displacement prevention portfolio, providing the first real opportunity for our model to be activated. Here, our philanthropic investments engage in deep systems change work targeted at the root of the problem. In looking at eviction as an example, the racial and socioeconomic injustice within the system prompts engagement for RCF based on our mission. According to the University of Michigan’s Poverty Solutions Data Center, landlords file nearly 200,000 eviction cases in Michigan alone each year, and around 40,000 Michigan households lose their homes as a result of court-ordered evictions. These eviction fillings majorly target communities of color, as landlords look to increase rents at the expense of those who often fall at low to moderate income levels relative to the rest of the country. There is also a growing body of national research documenting detrimental effects of eviction on individuals, households, and neighborhoods – research critical to informing our investments in this area. Using a data informed approach, RCF has prevented tens of thousands of evictions and displacement events through direct property tax payments for residents and providing legal representation to those who cannot afford it.
The need for internet access and connectivity is paramount to full participation in society. The COVID-19 pandemic shined a new light on the long-standing problem of the digital divide in Detroit; the gap between those who can afford reliable access to high-speed internet and updated hardware, and those who cannot. Taking some of the same data and research found during N2N, we understood not only the severity of the issue, but also the consequences of inaction. Together, with Rocket Mortgage, Microsoft, and the City of Detroit, and United Way of Southeast Michigan, we were able to invest in Connect313, the collective dedicated to establishing the means for all Detroiters to access appropriate devices, internet connections, technical support and digital resources for improved learning, employment and wellbeing.
The Connect 313 Fund was launched at the Rocket Mortgage Classic PGA Tour event in 2020 as part of the tournament’s “Changing the Course” initiative. Nationally, this work has translated to investments with the Atlanta BeltLine Partnership through the Atlanta BeltLine Smart Cities Initiative, an investment aimed at providing residents and businesses positioned within .5 miles of the project digital access and internet connectivity. These efforts show the importance of public/private partnerships to solve large problems at scale, using the power of enterprise to add value.
With our efforts to provide equitable access to homeownership, we took a look at our portfolio of investments and observed a need to both nurture future clients and provide the market with an overall education around the homebuying process. In looking for ways to achieve this, we sought to partner with Goodwill Industries of North Georgia to create a homebuying curriculum pilot for over 600 Goodwill career services clients, leading to the formation of the Homeownership Wealth Initiative. Participants who have identified homeownership as a near term goal have taken the necessary steps to prepare for homeownership; including continuing to upskill, save for a down payment, and strengthen their credit worthiness to be homeownership ready. The curriculum was built by RCF in partnership with Rocket Mortgage’s internal educational design team. Here is another example of the power of our model. Through the active engagement of Rocket Companies, we are crafting stronger, longer lasting solutions alongside our program partners to maximize impact to residents. That’s what ‘Philanthropy as a Service’ is all about.
What’s Next
Philanthropy will continue to play a crucial role in addressing the pressing challenges within the housing sector. As we navigate complex issues such as homelessness, displacement prevention, digital inequity, and the homeownership gap in black and brown communities, RCF will continue to offer innovative solutions, catalyze community-driven initiatives, and provide crucial support to vulnerable populations in partnership with our Rocket Companies. The need for philanthropy is not going away anytime soon (I’d argue ever). There will always be a need for intervention until the system undergoes major structural change. By harnessing the power of generosity, collaboration, and social responsibility, we can work towards a future where safe, stable, and affordable housing is accessible to all, fostering stronger, more inclusive communities for generations to come.
What I’m Reading: Cultish, Amanda Montell
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