And then, and always, the steam finds a way out.
So, to be completely transparent, I penned a blog with a very different tone for this post about a week ago. I knew as I was writing it that I was a little out of sorts. The piece came out cranky, impatient, maybe a little defensive—far from the voice I generally believe reflects the nature of the work we do.
I should have anticipated my own mood better. Summer is a time each year when I’m covered up, analyzing funders’ goals against our project list and crafting grant requests in response. Our annual Raise the Roof campaign launches, and on it rides our ability to fund much needed property improvements and service expansions for our residents and neighbors. And while we dash around, keeping those plates spinning, we also begin advance planning for Holidays for Hope and Housing, which each December essentially sets our organization’s operating budget for the next year.
Suffice to say it is a nervous time. In three short months, we distill our aspirations and intentions for DHC’s affordable housing work into what we hope are tight pitches and persuasive materials and send it all out into the universe to await a response.
Welcome to butterflies season at 220 Sloan.
This summer, the season has been what our interns might call “extra”—and it all comes down to a refinance, which ought to be a pretty mundane piece of financial business.
And yet this particular transaction is anything but mundane because it marks a turning point for DHC and our positioning as Davidson’s home-grown, citizen-driven affordable housing nonprofit. A successful closing for this single refinance pushes the door open to writing the next chapters in the unfolding story of The Bungalows, our first affordable rental community.
It’s a complex story, so before we jump into the current chapter, let’s recap.
One month and three years ago, our tale reached a highly anticipated climax in which DHC successfully negotiated a deal to secure full ownership of The Bungalows. To facilitate that climax, DHC took on the largest single loan ($1.08M) in our organization’s history. Gaining local control of the neighborhood sparked a clear pivot in a narrative that had been building with tension while we negotiated the exit of our tax credit investor and figured out what was next. As a result of the deal, we were able to shift our focus to: 1) addressing deferred maintenance issues, 2) protecting residents from the threat of being displaced, and 3) strengthening property management practices.
Most important, we reasserted DHC residents as the central characters they are and should be in the plot line. Over the last three years an astonishing array of supporting characters—local individual and nonprofit donors, vendors, and grantmakers—have come together with us to move the plot forward. We’ve replaced roofs and water heaters, fully updated 11 apartments, and installed new appliances as aging equipment fails. We’ve improved operations, and in doing so, raised efficiencies to strengthen community cash flow without pricing current residents out of their homes. And we’ve made strides toward building stronger, more collaborative relationships with the people who choose to call The Bungalows home.
All of that action brings us to this summer and one very big plot line left to tie up: securing a more permanent loan to take the place of the short-term financing commitment that helped us fully acquire The Bungalows in 2023. Back then, we were fortunate to find a partner who was willing to look past the financial risk that The Bungalows then represented. As a community-based organization, we were determined that we could and should shoulder that considerable risk and work through it to resolve the underlying issues. Convincing a conventional lender to walk with us might have been another matter all together. So when Crescent Communities stepped forward with an offer of short-term funding we willingly took on a secondary obligation, vowing to turn things around and repay Crescent with interest within three years. We were fortunate that Crescent’s leadership understood just how critical the Bungalows’ survival was to the broader Davidson community and that DHC needed to buy time to reassert control and stabilize operations for this pivotal affordable housing asset.
Over the last year, we’ve analyzed and documented the operational and cash flow improvements we’ve achieved at The Bungalows, even as we’ve continued to pursue remaining projects like the HVAC replacement that sits at the core of this year’s Raise the Roof campaign. We’ve vetted lenders’ offers and selected a bank with a community development focus as The Bungalows’ long-term lender. The process has required surveys and appraisals, title searches and lots of supporting legal work to get over the finish line. As anyone who has ever closed a loan knows, it’s never over until you sign those final papers!
And . . . we did it! The refinance transaction closed this morning, and we repaid Crescent today.
Three years ago, that outcome was far from certain. And so, yes, I think I needed the exercise of writing a blog draft that I ultimately tossed out. Maybe I was sort of exhaling all of the organizational tension that goes with balancing the demands of running an operation the open market won’t touch with delivering a service that in the end is about the people we’ve all asked to be our neighbors.
Here’s hoping your summer is treating you well by giving you the room you need to exhale—in whatever form you needed, for whatever welcome weight you carry!
(And if you’re wondering if there’s a chapter you can help us write, there’s always our Raise the Roof ‘26 campaign, the proceeds of which will allow us to replace all of the aging HVAC units at The Bungalows and close out the last of the major systems replacement projects we scoped three years ago. That promises to be a chapter with a very happy ending.)