Client Story

Indiana has over 200,000 low-income renter households, 76% of whom face severe cost burdens and spend more than half of their income on housing and utility costs. Indiana does not have an adequate supply of affordable housing to meet their needs. According to the National Low Income Housing Coalition’s “The Gap” report, there are only 34 affordable and available rental homes per 100 extremely low-income renter households who experience severe cost burden in the state. 

With this shortage of affordable housing, it is more important than ever for communities to find innovative solutions to not only help meet the basic needs of low-income renters but to provide them with the resources, skills, and support they need to thrive. The Glick Housing Foundation is doing this important work through their Success Center at the Carriage House East Apartments on the far east side of Indianapolis, Indiana. The Success Center offers a myriad of services, programs, and amenities to Carriage House East residents that focus on basic needs support, youth development, workforce development, and community engagement. 

Glick Housing Foundation is an Indianapolis-based public charity providing affordable apartment homes with a focus on supporting resident well-being. Their mission is to create communities where every person has a place to call home and the opportunity to reach their full potential. They provide affordable apartment homes to more than 11,000 residents in 46 communities across 11 states. 

In 2019, the Glick Housing Foundation opened the Success Center at Carriage House East Apartments. It was built to foster a sense of community for residents and provide basic needs support, youth development, workforce development, and community engagement services. At the Success Center, residents have access to a teaching kitchen, an outdoor classroom, a greenhouse, multipurpose rooms, food and clothing pantries, and much more. It offers residents a safe and healthy space to learn, grow, and express themselves.

Like so many organizations who are providing innovative, mission-driven solutions, Glick Housing Foundation thought they were doing impactful work, but sought a partner to help them use their data to fully understand and communicate their impact. They came to Transform Consulting Group (TCG) with a big question: What is the value of the programs and services we’re providing to the residents of Carriage House East?

Glick Housing Foundation hired TCG to conduct a rent assessment valuation study to determine the value of the Success Center programs and services to the residents of Carriage House East. They wanted to better understand the financial value of Success Center’s programs and services provided to residents, which go beyond standard apartment amenities. Glick Housing Foundation planned to use this data to inform their reimbursement rate request from the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). 

TCG used a multi-step approach to determine the value of programs and services provided by Carriage House East’s Success Center. We collected and reviewed an inventory of the services, programs, and amenities offered by the Success Center. We then gathered external data from organizations providing comparable services to determine financial values. TCG also reviewed HUD guidance and other supporting documents to inform our valuation methodology. 

We found that the value of the additional programs and services supports improved quality of life, improved self-sufficiency, and other intrinsic and extrinsic benefits to residents and the community as a whole. Beyond these benefits, we helped the Glick Housing Foundation quantify the financial value of the Success Center’s programming.

TCG estimated a valuation in the range per unit per month in savings to residents. We prepared a final report that described our methodology, data collection process, data analysis, and determinations/ findings and equipped Glick Housing Foundation with information to make the case for support to HUD and other external partners.

• Inventoried Carriage House East’s data, including services provided, participation rates of services, length and duration of programs, cost savings to residents, program costs, staff salaries, and grants provided by the Foundation to community partners for services and programs;
• Benchmarked external organizations providing comparable services such as Indianapolis nonprofit organizations, nonprofit industry reports, and other HUD Section 8 property rent compatibility studies;
• Developed a valuation methodology and reviewed related HUD guidance and supporting documents;
• Calculated the monetary value of the resident programs and services provided, and their subsequent impact on the property’s Section 8 market rent;
• Created a final report that included the methodology, data collection process, data analysis, and determinations/findings.