What does a landlord get out of renting a property to a group of people who almost certainly have criminal histories, evictions on their records, and substance use disorders to overcome?
It’s not a pile of money, that’s for sure.
Then again, if you’re inclined to be a landlord through Rock Hill’s Rapid Rehousing Program (RRHP), you realize something David and Rachel Chwaszczewski believe – that there’s more to life than money.
“One of the things that we set out when we were younger in our investing careers is that when we get to a point where money isn't the driving factor of what we need to survive,” said David, “we wanted to do projects that we enjoyed.”
That translated to RRHP. Specifically, it translated to a house in Southside Rock Hill, where an unofficial family of five is halfway through their turn in the city’s yearlong program.
You can meet the residents and learn a little more about RRHP in the first two parts of our three-part series on the program.
For the Chwaszczewskis, renting to folks involved in RRHP is what David calls “a feel-good;” a way to make a difference for people who are trying their hardest to reset their lives and regain their independence in a society governed by rules, accounts, credit scores, and long-term decisions.
But there is still a business reality at play. The Chwaszczewskis are not doling out free houses to people trying to exit homelessness. They are compensated through the city’s RRHP fund, which, says Melissa Carlyle, executive director of CACH, is a pretty good deal.
“We’re … guaranteeing you rent for 12 months,” Carlyle said. “You don't get that just renting to anyone off the street. We're also doing nonrefundable security deposits [for] two months’ rent.”
CACH is the Catawba Area Coalition for the Homeless, one of two main coordinators of RRHP. The other is the Housing Development Corp. of Rock Hill (HDC), which doesn’t just move residents from a shelter into a house and then wipe their hands of them. HDC provides life skills and financial literacy education throughout the year, to reduce – and, ideally, eliminate – the chance that RRHP tenants will backslide into homelessness.
“We really work with these individuals for a long time, for the whole year,” said HDC Executive Director Corrinne Sferrazza. “It's not just get into a place, here you go, here's two months, figure it out. We want to provide a very well-rounded program, so they can succeed.”
But HDC also works with landlords, like the Chwaszczewskis, to make sure they know what they’re signing up for as well.
“We’re asking you to overlook some things,” Carlyle said. “We’re asking you to overlook criminal histories. We're asking you to overlook substance use disorders. We're asking you to overlook prior eviction histories.”
Initially apprehensive, the Chwaszczewskis have come to embrace RRHP. That’s partly because they feel like they’re doing something positive for a community in need – and not just by providing a set of ceilings, walls, and floors, but by providing a place to help get people traumatized by time living on the street improve their mental health.
“They have their own space,” said Rachel. “They can do their own thing. They can retreat if they want to. They can socialize if they want to. The place gives them a sense of peace, I think, that allows them to then be able to think about other things.”
Sitting in the shared kitchen area with four of the house’s five residents, it is clear that just having a door they can shut and a counter they can gather round is doing them a lot of good.
For David, the proof is in the fact that his apprehensions are gone.
“It's [worked out] way better than I would have thought,” he said. “I thought we were going to have a lot more conflicts, a lot more personalities, bumping heads, and it actually ended up being the opposite. Everybody’s getting along. Our office manager was like, I can't believe that they're even doing things for each other now.”
