Leading The Way: Cheryl O'Connor

You can never be totally prepared for what comes your way. The ability to change and pivot from one idea to another may not be comfortable, but it is necessary now. Be resilient …

Cheryl O’Connor, the executive director of HomeAid Northern California, was helping to plan a national HomeAid conference in Portland, Oregon when the Bay Area implemented its shelter-in-place order on March 16th ...

When did you realize that you were going to have to start operating differently?

When the Bay Area’s shelter-in-place order went into effect, I knew were in for new challenges, not just for HomeAid Northern California, but because of the enormous impact on the people HomeAid serves — the homeless.

We are one of 19 HomeAid chapters across the country. As soon as we cancelled our in-person conference in Portland, we started planning a virtual gathering to bring the chapters together and start sharing ideas and best practices. The gathering lifted our spirits and inspired us to believe we could navigate COVID-19 together and figure out a way forward. Without the pandemic, we would have held an in-person conference that everybody would have enjoyed and then we would have gone back to doing our own thing.

We knew nonprofits would be hit especially hard during the pandemic, at a time when we are needed more than ever. On top of that, we could see that this crisis would increase the need for housing for the homeless because more people who are housing-insecure could lose their homes. We also knew that the more we shared new ideas and financial survival techniques the better off we would all be.

What was your initial response to COVID-19?

We convened our national HomeAid leadership group and created short-term, medium-term and long-term plans. In the short-term, we focused on surviving and helping all of our HomeAid chapters apply for PPP loans. Most of them did, and everyone who applied received a loan which helped us cover payroll for the next few months. Our longer term strategies included mentoring other chapters; developing innovative, new, more diversified funding streams; streamlining our processes and supporting each other. We shared what works and what doesn’t in this new normal.

We started rethinking our approach to homeless shelters, since asking a group of people to live together in a big open space wasn’t viable during the pandemic. I started working with both cities and our funders to help supply emergency housing for those affected by COVID-19 and started drafting language to allow people to use RVs on their property to temporarily house people.

As a board member of Eden Housing, I was asked to join a task force organized by All Home California, with the goal of developing a white paper with creative solutions to provide emergency housing during the pandemic, including how best to implement “Project Roomkey" to convert vacant motel rooms into permanent housing.

Late last year, I was approached by a pastor in Hayward who wanted HomeAid to build six tiny homes on his church’s property in six weeks. I said, “there’s no way, but let’s pull the builders together and see if we can do it.” And we did. When COVID-19 hit, we realized tiny homes are a great solution since they can be built quickly and provide independent living. That led us to discuss how to replicate the tiny home concept and build more of them in other locations in the Bay Area. I’m mentoring other HomeAid chapters, like Austin and Hawaii, who are also building tiny homes. We’re also sharing best practices.

What about on the fundraising side?

Fundraising is stressful during these times. Our supporters are used to gathering for our annual in-person trap shoot, so we have had to look for new solutions to raise critically needed funds, like a socially distanced golf tournament.

Last year, during a series of strategic planning meetings with HomeAid Northern California’s Board of Directors, we suggested that instead of a $5000 “give or get” requirement, we ask each board member to donate $5000 at the beginning of each year. The board agreed. With 23 board members, the funding will allow us to hold just one fundraiser this year.

Recently, the Building Industry Association (BIA) held a social distanced golf fundraiser. They sold out in 24 hours and had 80 people on the waitlist. So we proposed that BIA do another golf tournament on September 14th for the benefit of HomeAid instead of the trap shoot.

We’re fortunate that HomeAid Northern California has been a strong chapter for over 20 years. Because our homebuilders understand the economic ups and downs of this industry, they knew it was critical for us to have money or reserves in the bank for a rainy day. We are fortunate to have reserves to fall back on during these challenging times.

Tell me more about your work building tiny homes.

There are all kinds of tiny homes – tiny homes on RVs, tiny homes on wheels, pre-fabricated tiny homes, tiny homes with or without bathrooms, palette homes, tough sheds. The smallest is 150 square feet if it includes a kitchen and a bathroom; without them, you could make the tiny homes even smaller. After our experience in Hayward, we started more tiny home projects with churches since there is now a push to provide independent living (instead of a large open room), and cities and counties want these projects completed by year end! With government funding, we can buy the tiny homes from a factory which saves time so we can provide the housing more quickly.

For example, we are building a new Tiny Home project for 30-60 people experiencing homelessness on another church site in Livermore. The homes will be purchased from a manufacturer instead of building them on site because the project has to be completed by year end. HomeAid with Trumark Homes will do all of the site work for the project, and HomeAid supporters are doing the design and engineering services pro bono.

In September 2013, I read an article in the Harvard Business Review called “Triple-Strength Leadership” which made the point that if you’re going to try to solve huge social problems, you need government, business and nonprofits working together. When we began broadcasting HomeAid Northern California’s Tiny Homes story, we got attention from other housing advocates like Denise Pinkston of The Martin Group and Senator Nancy Skinner, who asked how we could replicate the tiny homes concept on additional properties. That led to conversations about developing legislation to allow emergency tiny home housing on government-owned or leased properties. We also gathered up our network of housing experts to draft language to allow temporary RV parking in driveways to allow for more emergency housing.

When you look back over the past four months, what surprises you?

The pandemic and resulting statewide shutdown have gone on longer than we anticipated. When the shelter-in-place went into effect, I did scenario planning for best and worst case scenarios and realized that we needed longer term fundraising solutions. Volunteer in-person events are not happening, and that’s been hard. We pivoted to a virtual HomeAid Essentials Diaper Drive and will probably hold a Virtual Toy Drive during the holidays.

People of color are affected disproportionately and have always been the most affected by homelessness. With the killing of George Floyd, racial justice, equity, diversity and inclusion have become an added focus, wrapping the issue of inequality into the pandemic. HomeAid needs to be part of the solution, not just in housing, but also by adding a lens of racial equity in everything we do. We’re connected to the homebuilding industry which is not diverse, so we need to consider how to step outside the industry to broaden or widen our net to collaborate with other nonprofits.

How busy we would all be with the added Zoom meetings and additional work to provide housing, even without all of the site visits and in-person meetings we used to have.

The great way our HomeAid peeps have stepped up to help one another.

What have you learned so far?

• You can never be totally prepared for what comes your way. The ability to change and pivot from one idea to another may not be comfortable but it is necessary now. Be resilient.

• The importance of being intentional and purpose-driven during this time so as not to get depressed with all the continuing bad news. Do what you can and stay healthy.

• Going back to Triple-Strength Leadership, if we’re going to solve large social problems, we have to work collaboratively and bring other business sectors and other industries to help build additional housing.

• The need to stay flexible. Instead of saying, we have to build housing from scratch, being open to factory-built to lower costs. We build our tiny homes in a pop-up factory which makes them kind of like prefabricated, even though they’re not. But by building them this way, they’re approved by the California Housing and Community Development Department (HCD) and can be built anywhere.

What will you take forward into the future?

I recently had meetings with 3D printing start-up companies to discuss other ways of building housing for the homeless. We have to look at other solutions like prefab construction, 3D printed homes, moveable tiny homes and other creative solutions to help lower the cost of construction and provide other tools to house people.

We’ll continue to build tiny homes on church properties using a variety of approaches since California faith-based organizations have over 38,000 acres of property, much of which is underutilized. Led by forward thinkers like Pastor Jake Medcalf of First Presbyterian Church of Hayward, churches and other faith-based groups are working to help people in need to include housing. In light of the recent pandemic and the increased need for housing, HomeAid will continue to pursue all housing solutions to serve the thousands of people experiencing homelessness in the Bay Area.

Cheryl O'Connor is the executive director of HomeAid Northern California. After serving as the first woman Regional Chair of the Building Industry Association (BIA) of the Bay Area in 2008, Cheryl became the CEO of BIA during the height of the economic recession from 2009-11. She is the recipient of the BIA Bay Area Lifetime Legend Award and Chairman's Award and was inducted into the California Homebuilding Foundation Hall of Fame in 2016.