Interview: Ronay A. Menschel

1. What led you to your philanthropy work and your interest in homelessness/affordable housing in particular?

I have always been interested in poverty but I got involved in housing, in particular, about 30 years ago. While I was serving on the board of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority for New York City, a fellow member of that board invited me to join the Phipps Houses board where he served as chair. The mission of Phipps Houses is to provide affordable housing to low and moderate-income families.

2. Can you talk a bit about Phipps Houses?

Phipps Houses is focused on creating affordable housing, and subsequently managing and maintaining this housing that we own. We also have a community services arm — really a human services arm—that provides not only social services, but also educational programming for youth which includes a big summer youth employment program. Through these we provide services for formerly homeless families that are living in our properties, as well as their neighbors. It’s a pretty broad spectrum of services that we provide to our tenants and to members of the community.

3. What have been the biggest challenges in doing this work on creating affordable, accessible housing in New York?

As in most cities, the affordability of housing is becoming more difficult because incomes are not keeping up with the cost of building and constructing housing. As an example, even Phipps Houses, which is a not-for-profit organization, is not able to finance the construction of housing without government assistance.   Even we can’t build it unless there are at least several layers of government capital, often coupled with Low Income Housing tax credits, for a project. There is a major shortage of capital available for housing. There are a lot of families who live doubled up, and they would very much like to have their own place. I know at one point, for instance, the public housing authority had a waiting list of 200,000 families. I don’t know how long it is now but I’m sure it’s long!  So, despite all the affordable housing that has been developed in recent years, there is still a tremendous shortage of housing. Another piece is that many families who are very low income—and certainly families who have been homeless– also need social services or some kind of support services in order to survive, including accessing benefits for which they are eligible, and move ahead.

4. You also spent time working in politics- what policies do you think can best help support housing justice?

I think one thing that needs to be recognized is that a lot of families who are homeless face debilitating issues, these may include lack of skills for employment, poor health, mental health challenges, and domestic violence. Mental illness is a growing affliction among the homeless. This country does not have enough mental health professionals to address the needs of middle- and upper-income groups, let alone the homeless and the very poor. Upper income persons are able to access services because they have the financial resources, but middle- and low-income people routinely struggle to get care. It’s a big problem and deeply tied to homelessness. A lot of mental health issues undermine people’s ability to function, to work, and to get along with one another—in short, to maintain their housing. Mental health issues often start within families and manifest in disruptive ways. For example, families suffering from domestic violence are not creating an atmosphere that is productive for a child’s learning. That then shows itself in the classroom when kids are disruptive, and it undermines learning. Schools then face major challenges and poor educational outcomes. And, while schools shouldn’t have to take on the burden, they do need to be able to access resources to address those issues.

5. How do you stay motivated to continue working on such a seemingly intractable problem?

It can be very disheartening, and I think at times it has taken its toll on me. When we’re young, we’re really optimistic about people and believe that change that can be made. But the fact is, it’s very hard for people to change, especially if they face deep poverty, suffer mental issues, or if they are mired in a culture that, for instance, doesn’t value education. This is a real detriment to their children—it hinders their ability to learn, to find work as adults, and, ultimately, to support the growth of future generations. To me it was a real eye opener seeing how long advancement takes, and how it is usually achieved in very short steps. You don’t often see the meteoric rise out of poverty for families or individuals that you wish could happen or hope is possible. Sure, we all hear stories about meteoric rises, and I’m sure it still sometimes happens. But it’s not the average trajectory that you can expect. Still, there are children out there who are amazingly resilient. Somehow they see enough of the world to recognize that there are opportunities and they go for them, often with the help of a caring teacher, a strong parent, or friend. I think we live in a society today, as critical as we may be of it, that has a lot of people who really do want to help. People who give opportunities to young people to help them succeed.

Phipps Houses’ affiliate, Phipps Neighborhoods, runs a number of after school programs, and I always say we should try to identify a child’s interests and encourage them to develop them. Oftentimes I’ve found that after school programs do what I call ‘just processing children.’ They never ask the kids “what are you interested in doing?” I think we should help kids identify their interests and then find resources to support them master those interests. When that happens and kids are inspired, it helps them in so many other areas—even in doing well in the subjects they don’t love. That’s what we want to develop and find in kids. I see a lot of first-generation kids going to college now. They’re entering into the workforce and advancing in their careers, which gives me hope.