CEO of affordable housing nonprofit cherishes beating the odds

EAH Housing CEO Mary Murtagh

In an industry in which five out of every six projects never get off the ground, Mary Murtagh still loves her job and can laugh about it.

“Affordable housing is Murphy’s Law incarnate,” says Ms. Murtagh, who has been with the affordable housing organization EAH Housing for over twenty five years. “Anything that can go wrong will go wrong.”

Mary Murtagh on the balcony of one of EAH’s affordable apartments.

 

As its president and CEO, Ms. Murtagh is the force behind EAH, which has built or renovated nearly 1,400 units of housing in the North Bay, and over 5,000 total in 12 counties and two states- California and Hawaii during her tenure with the San Rafael-based nonprofit. The agency is Marin County’s largest affordable builder, and second-largest in the North Bay to Burbank Housing.

The nonprofit EAH used to be known as Ecumenical Association for Housing, owing to its faith-based roots. The company employs about 350 people, the majority of whom work in Marin County.

Ms. Murtagh grew up in rural New Hampshire, near Dartmouth College. She’s a self-described former hippie, who now loves to build infill developments that are good for the environment. She has an undergraduate degree in art history and philosophy from Wellesley College in Massachusetts, and a master’s in architecture from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Those degrees, she said, did not prepare her for what she would encounter at a job with the Los Angeles Redevelopment Agency where she grew interested in real estate development – specifically finance.

“Up until then you can kind of picture me as a totally naive rube wandering around with my mouth open,” she said. “The first time I went to New York though, I thought the whole thing was a terrible mistake and a terrible thing to do to the planet. And when I finally started studying real estate finance, it suddenly all became clear … I started to understand the city and urban economics.”

In Los Angeles, Ms. Murtagh became what she says was the translator between the real estate office at the Redevelopment Agency and the Office of Housing and Urban Development in Washington. And when the first grant she ever wrote – to expand a Pep Boys in inner city Los Angeles – was funded, Ms. Murtagh said she felt like she was empowered to effect change.

Ms. Murtagh moved to San Francisco in 1984 and worked for a political consulting and market research company. While there she helped orchestrate the approvals for the renovation of the Arlington Hotel, a residence for recovering alcoholics still viewed as a model development in San Francisco’s Tenderloin district.

In 1986, she was hired to direct EAH, an affordable housing organization that at that time was licking its wounds from two money-losing projects and considering getting out of the building business altogether.

EAH Housing CEO Mary Murtagh celebrates the opening of the largest affordable housing solar installation in the nation.

“Obviously, that was a serious issue but I said to them, ‘If you don’t want to build anything, don’t hire me. That would be a mistake for both of us because I love to build things,'” she said. “The smell of sawdust is what makes my day. That and curing concrete.”

Ms. Murtagh set out to make her first big project at the head of the organization a success. She negotiated for two acres on Corte Madera Creek and you can hear the pride in her voice today when she talks about it.

She said 760 people applied for residency in the 28-unit development that turned out “beautifully.”

“Opponents compared it to the Exxon Valdez during the hearings,” she laughs. “And I was getting my feet wet and finding out what opposition meant in Marin County.”

Setbacks are a fact of life when it comes to building almost any kind of housing, including affordable units.

“You have five deals fall through for every one that ever sticks. Maybe more,” she says. “I don’t try and think about that ratio. It’s too discouraging.”

She said in her over 20 years with EAH, affordable housing hasn’t gotten any easier. Getting the approvals is still just as difficult. Opposition is as vocal, if not more. Funding is hard to coordinate and unexpected things change.

CEO Mary Murtagh accepts an award on behalf of EAH Housing.

And just when she says she feels like she’s “trying to sweep the ocean back with a broom,” something encouraging will happen, like the passage Proposition 1C, which opened up $2.9 billion for affordable housing.

Ms. Murtagh said her future attention will be on continuing to strive for a permanent state funding source and more partnerships with private developers.

How EAH housing helped one woman reduce her commute by 90 minutes

Anelyn Gallego, a mother of four grown children, emigrated from the Philippines when she was 15 years old and has since lived in the Bay Area for over 35 years. She currently lives at San Clemente Place, an affordable apartment complex in Corte Madera managed by EAH Housing, with one of her daughters.
Anelyn works for the California Highway Patrol (CHP) in Corte Madera as an office assistant, and her daughter is a preschool teacher in Novato. Anelyn’s current commute is a two-minute walk to the CHP office down the street.
But Anelyn’s commute wasn’t always so short. Until last fall she was living in Fairfield in Solano County and her commute into Marin would sometimes take three hours round-trip. To avoid the worst of the traffic, she would often take evening organ lessons at her church in Novato, returning home at a much later hour.
When the long commutes became unbearable, Anelyn started looking for a home closer to her job with the CHP. She spent a great deal of time looking for an apartment she could afford in Corte Madera with no success.
“This is a very affluent area; I never thought I would be able to afford to live here.”
She then applied for an apartment at San Clemente Place and was accepted. “I am so grateful to be able to live here. The Lord answered my prayers, giving us an affordable, quiet and safe place to live.”
Moving to San Clemente Place has also drastically reduced her carbon footprint.
“The best thing about living here is being close to my job. I’m just two doors down the street and I can walk to work. I don’t have to pay for gas much anymore, because I walk everywhere. I’m walking distance from the supermarket, my gym, restaurants; everything is convenient.”
But she does understand that there are many more like her who need an affordable place to live near their job. “It would be really nice if there were more affordable homes here so people don’t have to drive so far.”

EAH Housing announces Shelter Hill is going green

Shelter Hill, affordable housing built in the 1970s, got a green energy retrofit from EAH Housing.

Affordable housing is going green as solar retrofitting and other efficient technologies are being utilized in the refurbishing of a complex in Mill Valley. Shelter Hill, a 75-unit housing complex in Mill Valley managed by EAH Housing, is going solar starting this month. The solar installation will provide predictable energy bills and reduce the utility costs paid by the residents each month.
The complex, which hosts four four-bedroom, 40 three-bedroom and 27 two-bedroom apartments, also includes a community room with a kitchen, a computer learning center and outdoor play areas for kids.
Of the 275 to 300 residents who call Shelter Hills home, many are lower income or living on fixed incomes. Reducing the ever rising energy costs will provide a welcome reduction of out of pocketing heating, cooling and electrical costs, EAH officials said.
Built in 1975 and in need of a redo both aesthetically and to bring the property up to modern standards, the planned greening of the complex was something EAH was very interested in.
“It is a mission of our company. We want to make the units green as we can as well as the common areas as it benefits everybody,” EAH project manager Dave Egan said.
The upgrades will include a new solar electricity system, which will be installed by Berkeley’s Sun Light & Power. It is made up of 138 Trina 280W solar modules on the roofs of the buildings.
The cost of green rehab pays for itself in utility savings while reducing energy usage by 25 percent for the entire property. Each unit will be installed with hydronic heating and cooling systems, energy efficient double glazed windows, low flow water usage toilets and new refrigerators.
Sun Light & Power has installed solar electricity as well as solar hot water systems at other EAH Housing communities. The company recently completed its largest affordable housing solar installation Crescent Park in Richmond.
“Shelter Hill was a property built in the mid 1970s in southern Marin. It has been operating as affordable housing ever since. Now it is time to refresh the property to bring it up to modern standard,” Egan said.
The property will also be getting other upgrades as part of the redo which will consist of the installation of energy efficient appliances, high-efficiency water heaters, dual-pane windows, water-saving fixtures and native-plant landscaping. Over half of EAH properties have been retrofitted with green technologies and the other half have received energy use audits.
Established in 1968, EAH Housing manages 102 properties in California and Hawaii.

EAH Housing opens Fresno’s first housing complex for low-income people with disabilities

Finding an affordable apartment that is handicapped accessible has always been difficult for Rene Potter, paralyzed on the left side of her body from two strokes. The bathroom is often the most challenging room in an apartment because it’s hard to move in and out of the tub, Potter said.

Potter has no problem now that she’s living at Arbor Court. In 2011, Fresno’s first-ever housing community for low-income people with disabilities had its grand opening. Arbor Court is a 20-unit development on East Laurel Avenue in southeast Fresno. The one- and two-bedroom

units comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act.

The apartments are designed with 30-inch doorways that allow wheelchairs to easily move in and out of the units. There are roll-in showers, grab rails, low sinks and counters and lowered light

switches in each apartment. “The accommodations are so much more beneficial to me,” said Potter, who was among the first residents to move in last month.

The demand for a development of this kind is high because it gives disabled people the opportunity to be independent, said Jenine Breedlove, the property supervisor. A few months after the apartments became available to lease, the complex is already full with a waiting list of at least 15 families, Breedlove said.

That’s exciting for the developers who didn’t know whether the project would happen after introducing the plans more than seven years ago. The declining economy put a halt on construction when a $1.5 million state grant that the project depended on was frozen

 

 

But developer EAH Housing, a Marin County nonprofit, kept pushing and was able to find other ways to complete the project. The company reassessed its design plans and construction costs, said Mary Murtagh, president and chief executive officer for EAH. The project also qualified for state and federal grants through the city of Fresno and the federal

Department of Housing and Urban Development.

New resident Anna Ross wasn’t planning to move from the Cypress Apartments, half a block away, where she lived for 21 years. Her family insisted she try to get into the new apartments. They knew it would be helpful for Ross, whose left arm is paralyzed from a stroke she suffered in

1985. Ross walks slowly with a cane. “I love it,” Ross said. “It feels like home.”

On the other side of the complex, Jerry Smith is happy with his decision to leave Senior Citizen Village on Chestnut Avenue for a new one-bedroom apartment. Smith, who suffers from chronic back pain and has had multiple back surgeries, enjoys walking his dog, Boogie, around the complex picking up trash and keeping the area clean. “It’s nice to have something new,” Smith said. “If we all work together, we can help keep it great.”

This article originally appeared in the Fresno Bee.

EAH Housing built affordable housing community Arbor Court with the needs of persons with disabilities in mind.