Manna

Over the years, there have been several developmental milestones and transition points in Manna's vision and mission to produce affordable housing and provide an opportunity for lower-income people to realize their dreams and significantly improve there lives and communities. When Manna began its work and during its early years of operation, the focus was primarily on the purchase, redevelopment and sales of individual homes--both single family and multi-family--to individual lower-income buyers throughout the District of Columbia. The strategy was to produce the highest quality home, at the lowest cost, for the lowest income possible. Thus, projects were selected more on the basis of economic feasibility than overall neighborhood impact. Nonetheless, Manna has always engaged the neighborhood for input, approval and support of its projects. But in development jargon, our projects were more "deal and individual buyer driven" than "neighborhood impact" driven in the early years.

Milestone #1. Within a short time after Manna began it was decided to bring all the development functions in house, i.e., project management and finance, construction and design, marketing, homebuyer training, community organizing and community building, property management etc. Originally, Manna contracted these functions out to consultants and independent contractors. When that proved not to meet our high expectations for quality and cost control, we developed all these functions through our own employees. Manna's excellent "design-build" capacity is one of the unique aspects of Manna in comparison to many other non-profit and for-profit housing organizations who rely on outside contractors. This uniqueness is not just local, it's regional and national.

Milestone #2. In 1985, Manna created its homeownership training program which eventually became the Manna Homebuyers Club. Early on Manna realized that many lower-income people wanted to buy a home, but few knew how to go through the step-by-step process to do so. Most had never owned a home nor had anyone in their families. In addition, Manna realized that quality pre-purchase counseling and education was a key ingredient to preventing problems such as foreclosure after purchase. Without a doubt, Manna's homebuyer training program is a big factor in the success of our buyers. The Homebuyers Club created by Manna has become a national model and been replicated across the country by Neighborhood Reinvestment Corporation, a national non-profit intermediary chartered by Congress.

Milestone #3. In 1989, we completed our 100th home and conducted a survey to determine buyer satisfaction. The results indicated that Manna homeowners basically "loved their new homes, but hated their neighborhoods," as one new owner put it. The study clarified the important relationship between an individual buyer's long-term success and the health, or lack thereof, of the neighborhood conditions surrounding the individual owner. This helped Manna staff and its Board to begin to put an equal emphasis on rebuilding neighborhoods through our individual affordable homeownership mission. Thus, we now emphasize and choose projects that will contribute to a demonstrable positive impact on a block, neighborhood or entire community while simultaneously continuing to focus on providing homeownership opportunities for individual buyers.

Milestone #4. To increase our impact and production capacity, we formed more partnerships with other non-profit organizations and with for-profit corporations, banks, religious institutions, and governmental agencies that were trying to produce affordable housing, revitalize neighborhoods, and help lower-income people significantly improve their lives. Because Manna has developed a significant in-house housing production capacity and development projects and production pipelines never flow evenly, Manna decided to use its excess capacity and resources to help other groups when it could in order to produce even more housing and have a greater neighborhood/city-wide impact. To date, we have produced over 200 housing units in such partnerships and been able to reach very low-income groups.

The renovation, training, and sales of affordable homes, community organizing, expansion into neighborhood job creation and business development, forging stronger partnerships with social service and neighborhood-based groups which offer other important complementary services, and partnerships with banks and funders became a means in an overall strategy to revitalize neighborhoods in which we work.

Milestone #5. After ten plus years of very dedicated service and commitment, many of the original Manna staff decided to move on to new callings and interests in their lives . We have learned that just as individuals go through life cycle changes, so do organizations. After twelve years, the incredible success and expansion of Manna's programs had grown larger than the organization as it stood could continue to handle. Thus, Manna went through an organizational transition and re-engineering process at this point and hired, George Rothman, as its new President and CEO to manage the day-to-day operations. George had run his own successful residential real estate development business prior to joining Manna at this time.

Milestone #6. Manna, Inc. made the commitment to incubate, invest in and spawn Manna CDC, a fully operational, separate community development corporation focused as a strong advocate, organizer and force for equitable development, living wage jobs, small minority business, and affordable housing in the Shaw neighborhood. In December of 1996, Dominic Moulden, was selected by Manna Inc's Board of Directors as Executive Director of Manna CDC and has successfully led the evolution and development of the CDC, its staff and its mission ever since. To date, the CDC has started several small businesses, including a temp-to-perm staffing agency called Enterprising Staffing Solutions and a bike store called Chain Reaction. Manna CDC is also intensifying its organizing and affordable housing development efforts and partnerships with other non- and for-profit groups who are committed to applying the CDC's "equitable development" principles to new commercial and residential development sites in the Shaw neighborhood. Because of Manna CDC's growth and evolving mission differences with Manna, Inc., in 2005, the Manna Board of Directors voted to spin-off Manna CDC into a completely separate independent entity with a new name and new corporate charter.

Milestone #7. Financial Literacy Training - Individual Development Account (IDA) and Condo Fee Subsidy Programs. In 1996, Manna launched Individual Development Account program in which the organization matches, on a pro rata basis, home down payment savings by program participants. Manna was the first organization in Washington to create and implement its own IDA program.

The IDA program is an asset-based approach designed to fill the gap that often occurs for potential homebuyers who have the income and credit rating to purchase a home, but lack sufficient savings. It enables Manna to reach deeper into the low-income community to secure home ownership for families that otherwise might not be able to realize this dream. In addition, it increases Manna sales and strengthens our ability to rebuild neighborhoods in D.C. and encourages increased economic development.

The same year Manna also started its Condo Fee Subsidy Program. This program is similar to the IDA program in that it adds another effort to facilitate home purchase by low-income families. Sometimes the only difference for a prospect between qualifying and not qualifying to buy a condominium is the amount of the monthly condo fee. Manna established an internal program whereby condo fee are subsidized up to $75 per month for up to three years for a low-income buyer when this assistance will enable the buyer to purchase.

Before this program was established, Manna lost five or six sales per year because the prospective purchaser initially could not qualify for a first mortgage because of the monthly condo fee. This translated into approximately a half million dollars in lost sales. Based on our experience with actual applicants, this initial subsidy will enable the prospects to purchase. After three years, their incomes and payment experiences generally will have increased to the extent that the subsidies should no longer be needed.

Milestone #8. In 1996, Manna embarked on a capital campaign to raise enough money to purchase and renovate new office, training and storage facilities for all of Manna Inc's staff and to refurbish the former Manna offices in Shaw as Manna CDC's new office headquarters. Because commercial office property had already gotten too expensive for Manna to afford in Shaw, we found a building approximately one mile away from the new CDC quarters in an adjacent northeast neighborhood to adequately accommodate our space needs.

Milestone #9. During the 2000's, D.C. was not the city it was when Manna began its work in 1982. Thanks to the District's "renaissance", the D.C. real estate market skyrocketed. As a result of this transformation, gentrification and displacement replaced neglect and disinvestment as D.C.'s primary community-development challenges. Across the city, thousands of units of affordable housing were converted to high-end homeownership opportunities, but by expanding its services to include the perservation of affordable housing by helping low-income tenants vulnerable to displacement. This help was offered in the form of development and construction services as well as a la carte consulting, organizing and increased advocacy on issues of affordable housing both nationally and locally.

The dynamics of affordable hosuing in the District have shifted dramatically over the last two years with the downturn in the economy caused by the mortgage crisis and credit meltdown. For most of this past decade, Manna and our clients had to combat skyrocketing costs of housing and the influx of people who wanted to live in the city, and watch as the income disparity increased between the poor and the affluent, and witness too few opportunities for longtime, lower-income residents to share in renaissance. The situation in 2010, is, for the most part, a different picture altogether. Manna's goal is to continue our work in the District to ensre that lower-income families are given the opportunities and assistance necessary to create family wealth throughhomeownership and asset building. 

Manna's project development strategy traditionally has been opportunity based. Manna looks for properties that can be purchased at a low enough cost to make homes for  its low-income clients feasible.