For over 30 years, the principals affiliated with Wishrock have created and maintained safe and supportive affordable housing communities, often in difficult settings and challenging markets. We have preserved over 11,000 units of affordable housing and have never removed the affordable component from a project. Our affiliated non-profit partner, Springboard To Opportunities, connects families living in affordable housing with resources and programs that help them advance themselves in school, work and life.
WHO WE SERVE
Our residents typically are working, lower-income adults with children. Many are single parents, with a heavy representation of female heads of household. Earning up to 60% of area median income, our residents generally rely on low-wage jobs in combination with rental subsidy and other social assistance to meet their basic needs of food, shelter, and clothing. In many of our apartment communities the residents are predominantly minorities or first generation immigrant families. We work hard to provide these individuals and families with a safe affordable place to live, believing that stable housing provides a platform from which individuals and communities can begin to address to social and economic challenges and stigmas of poverty. In addition to providing our residents with stable living conditions, we have developed a series of funded empowerment services for our residents, services which vary from property to property depending on the needs of the resident population and the available resources in the specific community.
PRESERVING AFFORDABLE HOUSING
Wishrock specializes in the preservation of affordable housing, focusing almost all of its development activity on the acquisition and rehabilitation of existing affordable housing. By specializing on this one vital area of the affordable housing business, Wishrock has been able to develop a deep understanding of the complex financing tools and regulatory environment necessary for successful preservation and rehabilitation of older affordable housing apartment’s communities. This work is crucial for both meeting our country’s need for safe, affordable housing for low income citizens and for providing those citizens with access to empowerment services as the barriers to overcoming institutional poverty are becoming more and more challenging.
COMMITTING TO QUALITY PROPERTIES
Wishrock provides its low-income renters with homes that are safe, secure, and physically well-functioning. We take great pride in ownership of our properties and work carefully and conservatively to maintain a safe and well functioning physical plant, a thorough on-going maintenance plan and adequately funded reserves to maintain the quality of the property over time, and, at many of our properties, empowerment services to provide opportunities for our residents to break the cycle of poverty and pursue their hopes and dreams (too often low income residents don’t believe they are entitled to hopes and dreams or don’t believe they are possible).
SUPPORTING RESIDENT SUCCESS
Wishrock residents have access to programs that help them connect with jobs , daycare and education resources. These supportive services are not pre-determined or standard at all projects – the program for a given property is determined by the needs and potential partnerships in each community. Wishrock often provides full-time staff to assist residents and coordinate services, and we can apply for grants when needed to bring the right services to residents. Empowerment services provide opportunities for our residents to break the cycle of poverty and pursue their hopes and dreams (too often low income residents don’t believe they are entitled to hopes and dreams or don’t believe they are possible).