Gardner House residents2024 Social Impact

We create vibrant, integrated housing communities that meet the affordability needs of a wide range of families, seniors, and individuals with special needs. Our strategic emphasis on service-enriched affordable housing fosters empowered communities, contributing to broader societal well-being.

How We Measure Up

We adopted the Multifamily Impact Framework which created a common standard and transparent reporting guidelines to drive more impact in the rental housing industry.

Explore our 2024 impact in the seven key areas of the framework: affordability, housing stability, economic health and mobility, resident engagement, health and wellness, climate and resiliency, and diversity, equity, and inclusion.

 

Who We Serve: Household Income
"" 17% 0–30% of Area Median Income
55% 31-50% of Area Median Income
26% 51–80% of Area Median Income
2% Earning near the Area Median Income

Affordability

  • Multifamily Impact Framework Standard: At least 50% of units must be affordable to households earning 80% of Area Median Income or Less.
    • Our Impact: 98% of our portfolio is affordable to households earning 80% of Area Median Income or less, and two-thirds of units are affordable to those earning 0-50% of Area Median Income.
  • 100% affordable housing, so families and individuals with lower incomes can stay in their homes as long as they need.
  • For every dollar our CDFI, Mercy Community Capital, invested, we helped create or preserve $28 of affordable housing. Read more.
  • AA – credit rating from S&P Global, the highest rating to be obtained by a nonprofit social housing provider and an endorsement of our ability to develop affordable housing at scale. Read more.

Housing Stability

  • Multifamily Impact Framework Standard: Incorporate specific activities that increase housing stability at the property and portfolio level by increasing length of stay, increasing on-time rent payments, and reducing turnover rates, bad debt costs, and non-payments.
    • Our impact: Residents of Mercy Housing tend to stay in their affordable homes for three times longer than the average American renter.
  • 7 years = average length of stay for Mercy Housing residents… 3 times the national average for renters.
  • 25% of Mercy Housing residents accessed additional services to help them stay in their homes, including rental assistance and housing success coaching.
  • With support from MacKenzie Scott, we launched a new strategic change initiative designed to fill vacant apartments more efficiently, reduce turnover, and reduce utility costs. We’ve already increased net operating income, allowing us to invest savings in resident-serving programs. Read more.

Economic Health and Mobility

  • Multifamily Impact Framework Standard: Corporate strategies must include specific activities to help renters be more financially resilient, improve their credit scores, and improve their standard of living and economic mobility.
    • Our Impact: A Mercy Housing home is just the beginning. Through programs and partnerships, we’re supporting residents to build savings, improve their credit scores, and achieve their financial goals.
  • We helped 3,500 residents access public benefits, including nutrition support and insurance.
  • At 50+ percent of our communities, residents can opt-in to having their rental payments reported to a credit bureau, helping to build positive credit scores and improve financial stability.
  • We formed a new partnership with the U.S. Census Bureau and Eviction Lab to analyze economic outcomes for people who have lived in Mercy Housing homes, leading to key insights about the best ways to operate affordable housing.
  • We partnered with HUD on the Family Self-Sufficiency Program. This model helps families with low incomes increase their financial security and build their savings. With the success of our launch in Denver, we will be expanding this program to other communities. Read more.

Resident Engagement

  • Multifamily Impact Framework Standard: Employ a resident engagement approach that includes regular surveys to measure satisfaction and need, tools to identify community resources, and initiatives to increase renter-property manager communications.
    • Our Impact: With 70% of residents participating in engaging, empowering programming, we are leading the charge to provide service-enriched housing that changes lives.
  • Mercy Housing residents have access to free onsite resident services and around 70%participated in at least one program.
  • Our Community Connect program brings together residents and property staff and empowers residents to participate in decision-making about their own communities.
  • Next year, we will pilot a new resident-feedback survey and incorporate the results into our service delivery and property management model.
  • We worked with hundreds of partner organizations to connect residents to community resources last year. Read more.

Health and Wellness

  • Multifamily Impact Framework Standard: Adopt healthy building design and property management practices, ensure life and safety needs are addressed, and incorporate health needs into a property’s resident engagement platform.
    • Our Impact: We’re leading the industry in healthy, accessible building design and providing programs that help residents take control of their wellness.
  • Our greatest opportunity for influence is through health and housing success. Half of Mercy Housing residents participate in free onsite health and wellness programming.
  • Our new national building design guidelines are aimed at creating healthy, safe, and accessible housing communities. All new communities will be built to showcase these industry-leading standards.
  • Site-specific crisis intervention plans at all properties are in place to help meet the needs of residents in crisis. Staff are trained to address emergency-level threats to residents’ health and safety.
  • Through our new engagement portal, residents can request support with life and safety needs and get support ASAP.

Climate and Resiliency

  • Multifamily Impact Framework Standard: Property owners take actions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, achieve utility efficiencies, assess climate-related risk, and use the Energy Star portfolio manager to benchmark success.
    • Our Impact: We’ve promised to reducing carbon emissions 50% by 2030, and we’re making it happen: we’ve already had an impact equal to taking 2,900 gas cars off the road for a year.
  • Since 2013, the impact of our sustainability initiatives equates to taking 2,900 gas vehicles off the road for a year or reducing water use by 300 Olympic-size swimming pools. We’ve also procured 2.8 Megawatts of solar energy.
  • All 342 of our properties have been assessed for climate risk in partnership with Stewards of Affordable Housing for the Future. We are now engaged in resilience planning to address flood risks, heat waves, and other natural hazards.
  • We are making progress toward our Better Climate Challenge commitment through the Department of Energy to reduce our carbon emissions 50% by 2030. Read more.
  • 152 Mercy Housing properties have received green certifications.
Staff Demographics
"" 65% BIPOC
34% White/caucasian
1% Not disclosed
  • Multifamily Impact Framework Standard: Corporate impact plans and investment strategies must quantify the levels of diversity in the workforce, identify steps to increase the number of women and BIPOC staff throughout the workforce, and focus investments on women- and BIPOC-owned developers and entrepreneurs.
    • Our Impact: We are a deeply diverse organization with a focus on creating communities where everyone can thrive.
  • To ensure equitable and inclusive communities,  we strive to ensure our employees’ demographics reflect the residents we serve.
  • We launched a three-year strategic change initiative to advance racial equity in our recruitment, hiring, and retention practices.
  • We are committed to using data to identify and address any racial disparities in the effectiveness of our service delivery.
  • The loans we made through our CDFI Mercy Community Capital to other affordable housing developers will provide housing for 7,500 residents, over 50% of whom are likely to be BIPOC.