New Directions Housing Corp.
Joe Gliessner, Executive Director
1000 E. Liberty St.
Louisville, Ky. 40204
(502) 589-2272
(502) 589-3256 (fax)
Website: www.ndhc.org

A classic example of a model grassroots program that started small and grew into a major factor in its community, New Directions Housing began nearly 30 years ago with a group of people who literally gathered around the kitchen table in the rectory of an inner-city Catholic parish. Since that time it has been responsible for building more than 700 units of decent, affordable housing -- enough to change the face of a medium-size city -- and continues to manage most of them under a management philosophy based not on profits but empowerment.

It all began around 1969, Executive Director Joe Gliessner recalled, when Louisville's St. William Parish was reorganizing itself in the wake of changes in the Catholic Church following Vatican II. A small and declining parish in a racially changing neighborhood, St. William's community decided to keep itself alive in an innovative way: It became what members called a "Vatican II Parish," ripping out the pews and traditional altar of the turn-of-the-century red-brick sanctuary in favor of a church in the round with modern music and experimental liturgy; and it accompanied liturgical changes with a powerful commitment to social justice that would begin near home.

First, parishioners organized the St. William Neighborhood Center to provide emergency services to poor people of all faiths in its near-West End community. Then, in the famous "kitchen table session" with Father Ben O'Connor, then the pastor, a small group of activists decided that decent housing ought to be a priority.

New Directions began simply, as an informal group of volunteers who'd help poor, elderly and handicapped neighbors with ad hoc, low-budget home repairs and rehabilitation. But it wasn't long before their dreams grew larger. With the help of a New Directions team member who happened to be a director of the local HUD office, at a time when HUD was actively seeking church and community organizations to partner with the federal agency to build low-cost housing as an alternative to public housing, New Directions won a development contract under the HUD 236 Section 8 program to build Jackson Woods, a 60-unit apartment complex in a poor neighborhood just southeast of downtown. This project -- which continues to thrive under New Directions' management -- launched the group as an independent non-profit (of which St. William's parishioners comprise a majority of the board) and set it on its path as a developer of multiple-family apartment complexes for low-income families.

After a brief and unhappy experiment with contracting out the management to a profit-making firm that, board members concluded, failed to accord tenants proper dignity, New Directions made another critical decision: It would maintain a commitment not only to build apartments but to manage them, and that management would be inspired by a commitment to empowerment and respect. Although this decision placed a heavy additional burden on the organization, no one has ever regretted it, Gliessner said. Over the life of New Directions, it has ensured that decent housing STAYS decent, and that the people who live there have some opportunity to break the cycle of poverty.

Over the years, through the changing policies of the Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush and Clinton administrations, the organization stayed cognizant of new and sometimes contradictory rules for tax credits and other development incentives, altering the nature of each successive development to take advantage of what was then available from HUD and other agencies. On occasion, when historic-renovation incentives made it appropriate, they rehabilitated and sold once-fine Victorian homes in Louisville's Parkland neighborhood; more often, based on the economies of scale and the availability of federal assistance, they stayed with multiple-family developments, spreading quality housing around all sides of Louisville and even into a few low-income suburban neighborhoods. Many of the complexes were new construction; others creatively re-used sturdy old buildings, including two large complexes in former public-school structures.

During the '80s, New Directions also moved into transitional housing for formerly homeless people with Heverin House, a seven-apartment complex with a full-time case manager and a budget for programs aimed at rebuilding lives as well as houses. More recently, it facilitates empowerment by working in partnership with other Louisville-area non-profits, providing the housing piece while their partner provides the program piece for initiatives ranging from Wellspring, a residential program for schizophrenics, to House of Ruth, for people terminally ill with AIDS. In partnership with St. Matthew's Church of Christ, New Directions houses "The Smoketown Lifelong Learning Center" in a near-east neighborhood, an initiative that started as an after-school homework program, soon added a computer-training element for youngsters and has now opened the computer classes to residents of all ages.

And, years after having spun off its original home-repairs program to City Hall, New Directions recently partnered with a local bank to harness again the voluntarism of hundreds of local citizens -- from St. William and elsewhere -- who mobilize twice a year in Repair Affair, a weekend in which volunteers armed with paint buckets and tools venture into the inner city to provide quick and thorough home repairs, paint-up and fix-up services to more than 100 elderly and handicapped residents.

Recently moved into large, attractive quarters that formerly housed Louisville's old Casa Grisanti restaurant, New Directions now calls the building "Casa," or "House," a thoroughly appropriate name. With a staff of 35 full-time employees and nine part-time workers, New Directions' annual operating budget is around $2 million. It has built or renovated nearly 770 apartments and 70 single-family houses, and currently has 577 apartment units in its management portfolio.

All the feature stories on @GRASS-ROOTS.ORG's pages are reported and written by Robin Garr, a prize-winning journalist who has visited more than 500 innovative grassroots programs in all 50 states since 1990.

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