And now I welcome Singler Mans the CEO and president of Lucas Metropolitan Housing and a veteran in the world o public and affordable housing.

Welcome to Business Live 360.

It's really great to have you here.

Senghor Manns: Pleasure to be here, Kristi.

Thank you.

Kristi The homeless population is dire.

The need for housing is dire.

Tell us mor about some of the numbers that you are seeing in our region and who you are able to impact.

Senghor Manns: Lucas Metropolitan Housing historically has served the low income community, and we have done it very proficiently.

We we serve over 17,000 individuals.

And in doing so, over 70,000 individuals probably about, rounding, of course, about 7500 families are served.

And so in that 7500 families, you have kids, you have, elderly, you have folks that have had, previously been homeless, you've had folk that have been nearly homeless.

And so, with the community the size of Toledo and the size of Lucas County, as you might imagine, the need for affordable housing is, is important.

So the need is great.

We have waiting lists, for example, with our public housing that we provide.

These are the communities to which we own.

And, that's 4600 apartments that we provide, roughly.

But then we also have th Housing Choice voucher program.

That's about 2600 and up.

Both of those waitlists are closed.

We open that that waitlist up just for three days.

We would probably end up getting about 4000, 3500 to 4000 applications in those three days.

Kristi: I mean, you are just doing wonderful mission based work.

And, you know, I look at this and I think you really are one of the largest landlords in the state of Ohio.

Where do you get your funding?

Senghor Manns: Primarily, from the federal government.

Right.

And I'd say that kind of that way, because we don't want it to necessarily be like that.

And what I mean is, you don't want to put all of your eggs in one basket, right?

You want to make sure that you have a diverse portfolio, at least on the portfolio.

And, and so the traditional model has been with housing authorities is you receive your funding from HUD, then you use that funding to provide public housing in section eight.

Which is a great it works.

Most housing authorities that's how they, they operate.

But when we want to look at some other kinds of projects, for example, how do we serve populations that are well above 30% area median income?

Or you have to look at other potential, resources.

And so you look at the tax credit program, for example, that the state has and, you look at the Federal Home Loan bank, programs that have affordable housing dollars.

And so, so we're actually going to diversify.

That's part of my task.

My job, they brought me on to create a little bit more of a diverse funding, stream for us.

Kristi Tell us more about some of the future initiatives that you're working on.

Senghor Manns: Yeah.

So we have a number of different initiatives.

So it's really attractive to to me.

Was this, this not not only the willingness or desire, but also the capacity that this organization has, for thinking outside the box and really trying to tackle other, for lack of a better way of putting in special needs populations.

Right.

For example, yout aging out of foster care.

Right.

That's actually a population that's at risk of becoming homeless.

And, and then if they're homeless, what does that mean for the community?

Right.

They're they're they're using other services that, not very efficiently.

You want to make sure that they're actually in a safe environment and actually have to concentrate on other things, such as school or maybe the trad benefit, if you will, to make them more self-sufficient as, as a citizen.

And so, so we look at that now and that's what we're working on.

We have as an example, I think you might have hear about the Park Hotel Apartments that we're working on that project, which, you know, when it's done in September, we'll provide 45 units, 45 apartments for, youth aging out of foster car or youth that are on the verge of being homeless.

That's a program that not very many housing authorities in the state are trying to develop.

That kind of, complex or community.

You mentioned seniors.

We have a senior sit that we're developing right now.

So there'll be services that will be very specific to helping that that particular community, we're looking at for 2025 how we can actually generate a, a concept, for veterans.

But you also mentioned th homelessness population we have.

We have to figure out how to address this homelessness crisis and housing authorities now.

And Lucas is no exception.

Has been tasked with now trying to figure out what we can do.

So we're going to use our we're going to use our intellectual capacit and use them as much as we can to actually build some very, very, health programs to the, to the community.

Kristi: You are making a tremendous impact on our community and on our region.

And we thank you so much for being a part of business life.

360.

Senghor Manns: Thank, thank you for having me.

I look forward to the future and this this particular, location, Toledo, Lucas County.

We're going to be doin some fabulous things for this.

Kristi: I know you are.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

And now with me here in studio is Terry Alles, who is the director of Lucas Housing Services Corporation.

Terry, welcome to Business Life.

Terry Awls Thank you so much for having me.

Happy new.

Kristi: Year.

Happy new year.

It's great to have you her on set with me.

Appreciate it.

You do so much good work in the community, and I'd love to know mor about your role and what you do within your organization.

We just talked with Sing Mance, and he kind of gave us a preview of the, the the big picture of the organization.

Terry Awls: He's a he's a brilliant man.

He's going to take the organization to a different level.

So I oversee the nonprofit division, which is LHC, which is Lucas Housing Services Corporation.

And we right now we're i the process of building homes.

So we renovate homes in blighted areas, to help people become homeowners, credit courses, make sure they're financially stable.

They can pair with the bank.

They can pair with a realtor.

They don't have to buy from us.

But we want to make sure that they're, we're we're doing our part to help them succeed.

As far as homeownership.

Kristi You really building their dreams and allowing them to have a lifestyle that they really wan going forward for their futures?

Terry Awls: I think that's you couldn't have said a better, growing up in the projects, I I've wanted to be a homeowner.

And that's the thing that, you know, it's it's something that, you know, it was, as pride, you know, being able to cut my grass for the first time, I cried.

Kristi: We talked with Simmons, and we talked about some of the projects that you are all working on.

Tell us about your top project, or one that you particularly would like to emphasize.

Terry Awls The one I'd like to emphasize, I guess, would be the Parks Hotel.

It's for transient youth, youth or aging or foster care.

We're going to have complete wraparound services.

It's going to be a 24 hour, guard, I guess at the door where people can come in, you know, if they, you know, if they're coming in, if they have a job or something like that, or, we're going to help them with interview skills to help them with life skills.

We're going to help them kind of be productive so they can get back ou and kind of make a difference.

Kristi: Now, how many, young adults are we talking about?

Who in our region are agin out of the foster care system?

Terry Awls: That's probably thousands.

When I heard the homeless population number, you know, in the, you know, 5 to 10,000, I mean, i that number is just astonishing.

From the parks project to Cherry Street mission to, to Collingwood five.

We're we're able to be able to, to help our community.

And it takes all of us.

It really takes a village, you know, to to kind of do what we do.

Kristi: Terry.

Alice, thanks for being on Business Life three.

Terry Awls: Thank you so much for having me.

Appreciate it.