Recently I attended a weeklong non-profit conference and had the opportunity to converse with hundreds of colleagues who also work with a passion to fulfill a mission or calling. It is always good to share stories, challenges, future plans and visions, and even complaints. Sometimes these conversations are therapeutic, sometimes instructional, sometimes both.

Intentional listening is always a great learning opportunity, but additionally, sharing with others is also instructive, for me, as I get to see reactions first-hand to the things I say and show passion for. I can always learn something from seeing how my thoughts resonate (or not) with others.

At this conference, during these conversations, I occasionally pulled from things that I wrote in my book. This later gave me the opportunity to look up those same thoughts as I wrote them down back then, to see how I expressed them, and compare them to how I just said them recently.

A recent example of that is the place in the book where I talked about striving to “get it right” and how humans are not really all that capable of doing that, and that reliance on the Holy Spirit guarantees “getting it right” every time, as He cannot make a mistake. In business, this thought is often foreign. As leaders in business we feel the stress and weight of responsibility to make good decisions and plan good directions, and even though as believers we may try to practice following the Spirit’s leading, we usually just do what we think is best, and then ask Him to bless it, or help us down the road if our direction encounters a barrier.

The conversation I’m thinking about followed that line. The person I spoke with expressed that they were a believer but followed it, as we all do sometimes, with a “yeah, but….”. “Yeah, but I don’t know how to hear from God”. “Yeah, but I’m not sure I hear Him correctly”. And etcetera.

Well, there are no “yeahbuts” that I’ve ever seen, even my own, that worked out better than simply following what we believe He is saying, and knowing that even if we got that wrong, He would still cover us because we were attempting to let HIM get it right, not us.

God WILL lead us, if we ask Him, and trust Him in executing what He said, even if we’re not sure. Business leaders take on more responsibility than they need to. It is His. Let Him lead.

In that conversation, I learned that what I wrote in the book is still hard to take sometimes, but it’s truth is still relevant and foundational.

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A few years back I wrote an article intended to dispel some myths about affordable housing. It seemed to be well received and many new voices joined the conversation. Much has happened since then.

Now that Unity Park is open, two sides of a story have become prevalent. One side of the story focuses on the park as a great quality of life amenity for Greenville citizens — and it is. The other side of the story focuses on the gentrification it accelerated and the continued inequities that have always been present, whether the park was built or not, but now are getting worse.

But now that the park is here, and the conversation is raging, my focus is on what’s next. What needs to change now. And what change is needed to actually bring some solutions.

At Homes of Hope, we talk all the time about generational change. Change to the point of no return. Change that affects children and grandchildren and ways of life in perpetuity.

I’m often quoted saying this: “At Homes of Hope, handing the family the key to their new home is not the end of the story; it’s the beginning of it.”

Affordable housing is a foundational beginning, not an end. We read article after article about how many “units” of housing are needed and how many dollars need to be invested, and they are not wrong. But more talk, and of course action, needs to be had around the question, “What’s after that?”

Until more emphasis and investment is put on economic mobility for households that are in need of, and living in, affordable housing, in addition to this critical foundation, we are not finishing the job. “Units” don’t change lives solely by themselves; “units” change demographics. Relationships and investment and united efforts can lead to changed lives.

If Unity Park was worth $70 million to produce, how much worth can we assign to the lives of people who work in our community, especially those whose incomes fall short in affording this great quality of life we talk about?

Yes, we need more investment in producing more units, but please remember these things that are critical to not miss:

• Units are not people
• Units target certain income ranges, but unfortunately for the lowest income households that range is usually not theirs
• Units, while critical, are not the sole answer

So we ask, “What’s next?” Hard work toward economic mobility opportunity is a good place to start. But not just on the part of organizations like mine, or by the city or county governments, or churches. Hard work is also required from the families living in additional “units.”

And from our experience, hard work has always been something those families have been willing to do. But barriers that they can’t remove themselves must be removed. And resources they can’t access themselves need to be made more accessible. And opportunities for real economic mobility must be provided by those who can.

Just between Homes of Hope and Habitat for Humanity there have been well over 1,000 “units” of housing developed in past years. But countless are the lives changed, because both organizations focus on the people over the “units.”

We should continue to invest, but at a level that truly represents the worth of the people. We should support a bond issuance that could finance more affordable housing, or dedicated tax revenues, or budget commitments from both city and county operating budgets.

But we must also support efforts focused on economic mobility. This is critical.

Greenville is known in many circles as great. We can be great in this too (both city and county). Great for everyone. We must be. If we don’t muster up this greatness, we will all regret it soon.

We must be in unity about this. But unity is not a park. If Unity Park teaches us anything, it should teach us that unity is a thing to be pursued by the community, not just a place for it to attend.

– Don Oglesby
President/CEO, HDFP, EDFP
Homes of Hope Inc.

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A waiting list can entail both anxiousness and hope at the same time. Waiting is really hard. But there is always a story in the waiting. Maybe even multiple stories. 

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This past week, on September 1^st, on the first day of open applications for Homes of Hope’s potential Greenville housing clients, within 30 minutes of opening the website for applications, the demand was so large, it crashed our website. Twice. 

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The drama that unfolded was quick and powerful. Between scrambling I.T. technicians and a phone system avalanche from folks cut off in the middle of applying, emotions were intense. 

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What followed that avalanche was a group of dedicated staff who sprang into action and managed the phone calls and the folks who drove down to our office, and the I.T. frenzy, to eventually arrive at a place where all applications were submitted. 

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There were so many though, that the waiting list was eventually cut off. On DAY ONE we had already reached a number of applicants far larger than we could house in this next year. Thinking about that is stunning. I wonder how many more would be equally and desperately applying if we could have kept accepting applications. (We average over 300 “inquiries” every month). 

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But at least some hopefulness was now possible for some.  

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However, some emotion of despair was also firmly embedded among our staff. Despair that came from the cold water shower of a demand so intense that we knew we were just scratching the surface of the need. 

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And in the midst of it all, stories. Stories of trauma from those we spoke to who were desperately trying to get through to us after the website crashed, and get on the list. Some were in tears and their desperation so evident that it almost overwhelmed us. Stories of drama on our part when we collectively despaired at our efforts being so much less than what was needed (even though we are the largest non-profit developer of single family affordable housing in SC).  

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To us at Homes of Hope, we’ve always focused on the people, not the numbers. We are so intentional to not chase numbers as our measurement for mission success, and focus on life impact and generational change one household at a time. 

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But this avalanche was real and important. The numbers are overwhelming. 

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It took me 20 years to complete the book I wrote about the Homes of Hope story (“Still Desperate in the Promised Land”). During those 20 years I continually wondered why I couldn’t finish it. I eventually learned that the “story” is in the waiting. 

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I couldn’t finish it because the “story” was still being written right before my eyes. The story of the faith it took for us to persevere in achieving the mission. The story of the evolution of how we attacked the mission. The stories of those we served and what we learned from knowing them. 

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A waiting list is indeed a place of hope but it is also a place of drama and trauma, and learning, 

and the formation and cultivation, of stories. 

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Lamentations 3:25 says, “The Lord is good to those whose hope is in Him, to the one who seeks Him. It is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord.” Our stories are continually being written in the midst of our waiting. 

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My prayer is that the stories of all who made the list, and all who didn’t, will continue to write themselves into all of our consciousness and that together we will continue to work towards a great ending.

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I remember the feeling I had when I received the text saying “The book is live”, meaning it’s on Amazon and people can start to purchase it. It felt really weird, like nothing I’d actually ever felt. I was perfectly comfortable for years telling the story, but the realization that I’d now written the story came with a stomach full of butterflies. Knowing that anyone, anytime could learn the story and I wouldn’t be there to explain parts of it that they might not have understood, or parts that they wanted to know more about, well, weird was really the only word for it at that moment.

I remember my responses to texts, emails, and phone calls of congratulations at the book coming out, and my self-deprecating humor responses, with lines like “yeah, if you’re having trouble sleeping, this book will help”.

I also remember hearing from people who had already read the book and who were telling me how it impacted their lives and changed their outlook on some things, and thanking me. Also weird, not that I wasn’t thrilled to hear these things, but that they somehow credited their excitement to me in some way.

I kept feeling this way until one day soon after, I jumped into the car going to an appointment, and during the drive I started praying and telling the Lord how “weird” I felt (like He didn’t already know, right?). I remember telling Him that I knew I shouldn’t use self-deprecating humor, but it was just a reflex to deflect praise off of me. And “promoting” the book was even weirder because of that reflex.

And in that moment, it was another one of those times where I absolutely KNEW that the Lord was speaking to me, I heard Him say “Who’s story is this?”. I answered, “Well, it’s YOUR story Lord.” And He said, “Can you not promote MY book?”. And of course, immediately I said “Yes Lord! I CAN!!”.

From that moment forward I’ve eagerly and excitedly “promoted” HIS book and now with this website I am also eagerly and excitedly promoting myself to speak in public about it and tell more of the story in person, and also promoting myself to share the things we learned during the story with other organizations in hopes that something we learned could be something helpful to them.

I’m sharing HIS story, not mine. THAT, I can promote. I hope HIS story will bless YOUR story.