Talking Heads Angela Boyd, Make Room
By Darryl Hicks
11 min read
Songs to end the rental crisis
Rock ‘n’ roll icon Jimi Hendrix once said, “If there is something to be changed in this world, then it can only happen through music.”
Angela Boyd, a 34 year-old native of Kansas, who earned her undergraduate degree from Johns Hopkins and a Master’s in Public Policy from Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, is using the power of music to end America’s rental housing affordability crisis.
There are currently 11.4 million households in America that pay more than half of their income toward rent. While most people equate high housing costs with San Francisco, New York and Boston, Boyd said the issue has become an acute problem everywhere, even in her home state.
Last May, Boyd was appointed Managing Director of Make Room, a national campaign spearheaded by Enterprise Community Partners, Inc., headquartered in Washington, D.C.
Make Room launched a film series called Concerts for the 1st (since rent is due on the 1st of each month), involving musicians who perform private, living room concerts in the homes of families and individuals who struggle to pay for rent and utilities. The films combine music with story-telling, documentary style, relying on the unscripted words of the families themselves. Concerts for the 1st, viewable on YouTube and Make Room’s website, have generated more than 10.1 million views.
Musicians who have volunteered their time for the cause include pop star Carly Rae Jepsen, breakout R&B star Miguel and the indie band American Authors.
Tax Credit Advisor sat down with Boyd to discuss the origins of Make Room and what she hopes to accomplish in 2016 and beyond.
Tax Credit Advisor: Before we start talking about Make Room, please give us a little background on yourself?
Angela Boyd: I thought I wanted to be a doctor but ended up studying political science. After finishing my undergraduate degree, I was offered a fellowship at the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute in Washington, DC, which led to a position in the public policy office at Enterprise. When my fellowship ended in 2004,Enterprise offered me a full-time job and that is where I have been off and on ever since. I rose through the ranks and by 2007 was deputy director of Public Policy. That same year, I left to get my Master’s degree at the Kennedy School of Government. When I finished in 2010, Terri Ludwig had been named as Enterprise’s new CEO. She wanted a chief of staff who knew the organization, so I came back and served in that role for four years.
TCA: What led to the creation of Make Room?
AB: When I returned, Enterprise was rethinking its strategy and setting a new vision. Despite everyone in the industry’s best efforts, access to affordable housing has worsened over time. There are a lot of important social causes and yet housing was never at the top of the agenda. We studied other sectors, such as health care, education and hunger, and decided the housing sector needed a national issue campaign to bring new partners to the table and put pressure on policymakers to address the issue differently. People experiencing homelessness have great advocates and the same can be said for homeowners. But there remains a large segment of people in the middle who rent and pay 50, 60, sometimes 70 percent of their salaries on housing. There are 11 million renter families in this situation that are on the brink of homelessness and they need a voice. That is how Make Room got started. We launched in May 2015 after an 18-month planning process. It has been a fantastic journey that is sparking momentum around the country.
TCA: Why music?
AB: We thought a lot about how we could make a real impact in the first year of our campaign, while simultaneously making housing a cultural issue that is relevant in a way that perhaps it has never been. We asked ourselves what things help people relate to one another. One is empathy. One is humor. And then there is music. There are a lot of people who work in the arts and entertainment industry who struggle with rent and so musicians felt like genuine and authentic spokespeople for the cause, and plus they have amazing platforms that might help us reach new audiences and people who may never have thought about this issue before. My highlight from last year was when Rolling Stone magazine covered the rental housing crisis. I thought, ‘we are really getting somewhere.’
TCA: Jim Rouse, founder of Enterprise, has a long history of philanthropy. Can you tell us about the corporate culture at Enterprise that inspired this effort?
AB: I never had the opportunity to meet Mr. Rouse, but his legend lives large around here. We all draw inspiration from his vision that this country can end poverty, and it’s the right thing to do. He saw first-hand what happens when communities are economically devastated and what happens to families when they are forced to live in unsafe environments where there are no opportunities for adults or their children. Mr. Rouse wanted to end poverty in a generation. We are now maybe at a generation-and-a-half since then, but my colleagues and I believe in his vision and work every day to make it a reality.
TCA: Who is the audience for this campaign? Who are you speaking too? Public, press, federal or local government?
AB: This campaign is focused on the people and the institutions who have the power, the platform and the capacity to create change. Influencers of all stripes – policymakers, corporate leaders and employers – have an important role to play in solving this problem. And certainly the real estate sector and the media. We did some survey work recently and found strong support among the general public for building more affordable housing and having our leaders pay more attention to this issue, but among the influencers themselves there is significantly less support. That is where we have our work cut out for us, to make the case to the people in power that this issue has to be higher on the agenda.
TCA: Speaking of influencers, have you reached out to the largest retailers, such as Wal-Mart, that are routinely criticized for not paying their workers enough to sustain themselves and their families?
AB: We crunched the numbers and figured out that if all of the families who currently pay more than half of their salaries for rent paid just half – which is still too much – we could free up $60 billion in purchasing power, which families could be using at Target, or CVS, or the grocery store. Too much is going just to keep a roof over their heads. There are a number of reasons why businesses should be looking at this issue, whether it is building a stable workforce, minimizing turnover, or reducing tardiness because employees are forced to live two hours away. We are just beginning to have these conversations with the business community, but it will be a priority in 2016.
TCA: What are some of the events you have already presented and what have the results been?
AB: We’ve released five Concerts for the 1st films, which along with our data analysis has resulted in more than 750 news articles about the rental affordability issue. Personally, it has been a meaningful experience to visit different communities and be introduced to so many people who are really struggling to keep a roof over their heads. They have been so open and willing to share their stories with me, a complete stranger, and then on film for the whole world to see. I was surprised but they told me, ‘we want our story to help others.’ One of the inspirations for the Concerts for the 1st series are rent parties. During the early part of the 20th century in New York and other urban centers, there was a tradition in the African-American community of holding rent parties for families struggling to pay rent. Communities came together in the family’s house, there was food and music, and people passed the hat to raise money. Our Concerts for the 1st are modern-day virtual rent parties with online crowdfunding campaigns. Raising a few thousand dollars won’t solve everyone’s problems, but it creates hope and in at least one case it prevented a family we worked with from being evicted and becoming homeless.
TCA: What events are you planning in the future?
AB: We are planning three more concerts this spring. I am excited that Make Room is going to the South by Southwest music and film festival in Austin in March. I am organizing a panel with one of our film directors on how music and story-telling can promote activism. On the policy side, we are working closely with Enterprise’s policy team on something new called Forums for the 1st, a series of public discussions on housing issues starting this spring and continuing into next year.
TCA: What has the experience been with the families in whose homes you have presented events?
AB: I’ve felt a close connection to all of the families and have stayed in touch with them. They are amazing advocates, despite their tough situations. We worked with a single mom in Nashville who had done everything right. She played by the rules. She earned a Master’s Degree in Economics. She teaches three classes as an adjunct professor at a community college but isn’t even making minimum wage. When I met her she was going through a divorce, struggling to provide for her two daughters on her own while grieving for her 10-year old son who had passed away from a brain tumor six months before. She didn’t have enough money to put a headstone on his grave. The fact that she opened up and let us tell her story was meaningful for us and the whole crew. After that, we worked with a young man in Denver who was trying his best to get a start in life, but was being held back by student loans and family challenges and could not afford a place to live on his salary, even with roommates. When I met him, he was living in the unfinished basement of his friend’s rental home. By a lot of standards he was homeless. He didn’t think of himself that way, but young people in general, Millennials, are being adversely impacted by changes in the rental market. Living on their own, even with roommates, can be pricey in a lot of places, so that was an important story to tell.
TCA: Many current mayors have made affordable housing a priority in their election campaigns. Are you collaborating with them?
AB: Yes. Last year, we focused on building awareness and explaining that rent affordability is not just impacting people in New York and San Francisco, but in places like Nashville and Detroit. This year, we are going to focus more on advocacy by supporting local advocates in a few places who are pushing for change. One place is Denver, where Mayor Michael Handcock has made affordable housing one of his priorities. He has a fantastic team that is committed to this issue. They are trying to get a dedicated source of funding for affordable housing and we are going to be a part of that effort because it could become a model for other parts of the country. We will also be working in states where housing is not a priority and where misconceptions persist. Ohio and Louisiana are two states where people think housing is cheap but in reality a good chunk of renters are severely cost-burdened. We are getting conversations started in these states and explaining that housing affordability is an issue there.
TCA: What are the desired short-term and long-term outcomes for the campaign?
AB: We would like the 11.4 million families who are currently paying too much for their housing to see some relief. We need to think about how we can keep more money in family’s pockets, so that they have more disposable income. That leads into discussions on wage reform and tax reform – things like expanding the Earned Income Tax Credit. Long term, we need to rebalance and reprioritize how America spends its housing resources. We spend hundreds of billions of dollars on housing, but we need to ensure these funds are being used as effectively as possible for the people who need them the most. Short term, we are trying to build a coalition of people and organizations who see this as their cause and who want to work with us on some of these policy issues. We absolutely want to see more discussion, dialogue and debate around the rent affordability issue. The discussion is already starting in high-cost cities like San Francisco, but if one in five families in my home state of Kansas are paying more than half of their incomes toward rent, then we have a national problem.
