Brian narration: This is Built, a podcast series where you’ll meet the people behind some of the biggest transactions and investments in commercial real estate, and hear how they got to where they are today.

 I’m your host Brian Maughan, chief marketing officer with Fidelity National Financial.

And those of us in this business, well we know the buildings...but how many of us know the stories of the people behind those structures?

This time, we’re talking to Cristian Ahumada.

Cristian is executive director of Clifford Beers Housing in Los Angeles. Clifford Beers develops affordable housing. But as you'll hear it does a lot more than that. Cristian and his colleagues are also working to improve life for underserved populations and combat climate change, one project at a time.

Brian Maughan: Cristian, thank you very much for joining us today, we appreciate it. Could you just tell me a little bit about Clifford Beers and what you do?

Cristian Ahumada: Sure. Clifford Beers is a developer and I always say we're a developer for good, not evil. So we develop housing that's for the homeless, for affordable households. Many of our projects contain commercial spaces, and now we're catering to BIPOC populations. Our projects are very focused, not just on design, but on sustainability. And we're also focused on racial equity and the economic reactivation of Los Angeles. 

Brian Maughan: And you recently had an opening of one of your projects that took about six years to develop, right? This is Vistas del Puerto, in Long Beach. So tell me a little bit about that project.

Cristian Ahumada: So Vistas del Puerto is essentially 50 percent of the units are for homeless individuals and families. But the other 50 percent are reserved for affordable households. So what that essentially means is that individuals that are at the lower end of the economic strata have an opportunity to move up. There's economic mobility built into that model, and simultaneously it’s a safety net for individuals at the higher end of that economic spectrum.

Brian narration: He calls this an integrated population mix. That mix also includes the tenants of the two commercial spaces on the ground floor. Their small business strategy favors businesses owned by people who are Black, indigenous and people of color - or BIPOC. Cristian says helping these traditionally underserved entrepreneurs has a knock-on effect.

Cristian Ahumada: And the reason for that is because if we're able to help a business thrive, lower the rent, for instance, help them secure a tenant improvement loan, those folks will remain housed and those folks are going to employ other people that will probably remain housed. And so therefore, we're creating sort of an ecosystem within a building that can focus on multiple things at the same time. So that's what Vistas del Puerto embodies.

Brian Maughan: That’s fantastic. How did this project come about, again as kind of an example of what you have done and Clifford Beers has done? How did this come to be?

Cristian Ahumada: About seven years ago, we started focusing in on finding another plot of land in Long Beach. Our stomping grounds are in Long Beach, and there was something called a request for proposal, which means a public jurisdiction releases sort of an offer for developers to compete, you know, based on a concept, a vision to essentially do this. So at that time we connected with Mental Health America of Los Angeles, who is a service provider.

Brian narration: MHA LA provides things like therapy and medication management for those with mental illness. They often partner with Clifford Beers to provide mental health services for the residents at their properties.

Cristian Ahumada: And together we decided to join forces and create a very kick-butt proposal to submit to the city. And so we essentially explained the vision. We had some schematic drawings. We talked about the economic mobility, integrated population mix that I just shared with you, some sustainability features, including the two commercial spaces. And a couple of months thereafter, essentially, we were chosen to be the developer to work on the site.

Brian narration: But when Covid came along in 2020…that affected the pace of construction. Social distancing rules kicked in. Suddenly plumbers, electricians and other tradespeople couldn’t all work together on the same floor, at the same time. Cristian says in normal times that’s what happens, and having all those people working together simultaneously makes the project go quicker.

Cristian Ahumada: But we couldn't do that through COVID, so we had to sort of stagger it through wings. So our carpenters maybe were on the second floor and the plumbers were on the third and the electricians were on the fourth. And then we do like a rotate type of a thing. So it took a little bit longer and it cost a little bit more than what it should have because all things being equal, everything went up during COVID and we're still living that today, right? But that's how the project came to be.

Brian Maughan: What interested you first about getting into affordable housing or getting into this space? How did that come about?

Cristian Ahumada: You know, I recently unraveled that within myself because sometimes it takes a little bit to sort of figure out why it is you do the thing you do. I grew up in Chile, in South America, and this is in the late 60s, early 70s. We had a dictatorship at that time. It was a very tumultuous period of time in Chilean history, and there was a lot of poverty. And I remember, you know, being at home and there being a knock on the door and children and families were begging for food. They would come knocking to your door. And I remember being inside and being very warm in my house, right, with my parents, you know, and I had food on the table and I had nice clothes. And I remember just like, Oh my god, how can this…how can this exist, right? How can this exist? And it marked me. It really did.

Brian narration: Cristian and his family immigrated to the US when he was ten. Years later he studied architecture and urban planning in college…and after he graduated he worked in urban planning in Los Angeles. As part of his role he wrote up community plans for two neighborhoods affected by the LA riots of the early ‘90s. He was young and idealistic. He couldn’t wait to see things change.

Cristian Ahumada: But what I learned from that period of time was that while I created these community plans for both of these, you know, respective geographic areas, those plans sat and collected dust. And very little was utilized from that, and that's what essentially then drove me from more of a planner to a developer because the developer needs to see tangible results. Either you build something or you don't. There's nothing in between. So what drove me to this space, to housing development, specifically affordable housing and now permanent supportive housing, is that this is a space where now I have control to be able to effectuate change through a building.

Brian narration: That is hugely satisfying. On the other hand, funding these projects is tough. It involves a complicated system of public dollars, private investment and tax credits; a process Cristian is very much hoping will evolve in the coming years.

For him, the complexities of funding are just one part of the challenge of building affordable housing. He’s also focused on how to lower costs and be sustainable at the same time. Which brings us to the use of concrete.

Cristian Ahumada: So today in Los Angeles, most construction is something called five over one, five stories over one story of concrete. And that's pretty much, or sometimes two stories or concrete. But that concrete, It's called a concrete podium where the parking typically goes, It's 20 percent of total development costs. 20 percent of total development costs. And you know, when we see these articles and the price of housing, you know, you're like, Oh my God, why is it so high? OK, well, there's one of them. But here's what nobody really talks about, which is that concrete pad…the concrete and steel accounts for some hideous numbers, like 27, 30 percent of the world's contaminants. So now, if it cost a lot, right, it contaminates a lot, why do we still do it? Well, we still do it because construction code is not sympathetic to, let's say, a population that doesn't own vehicles.

Brian narration: LA construction code still caters to drivers. Most buildings have to include a certain number of parking spaces. But Clifford Beers is increasingly working in so-called transit oriented communities, or TOCs, where the buildings go up within walking distance of public transit. So there’s much less need for parking, so less concrete is used…and less concrete means fewer contaminants.

Cristian is always thinking of new ways to shrink a building’s environmental footprint.

Cristian Ahumada: So what else can I do here on that sustainability? And well, what if I put solar panels, but enough solar panels to actually not need to be connected to the grid, right? So we say, OK, all that mechanical equipment up on the rooftop and the venting shafts have to be relocated elsewhere. Now I'm going to activate every single square inch of that rooftop and I'll face it, southwest, right? And then I'll have my batteries, you know? You know, probably in some exterior walls somewhere. And now I'm actually able to not just be net zero. Right. So I'm not impacting the grid, but I can also decarbonize, right? Because carbonization is a huge contaminant.

Brian Maughan: So it's maximum impact, most efficient movement, right? How do you get the most out of what you can do…

Cristian Ahumada: That's right. It has to be. I think there's also an element of trial and error, right? You have to be allowed the space to experiment, to evaluate and then bring in the stuff that works and discard what doesn't. Simple as that, but you have to be given that space.

Brian Maughan: So what obstacles exist today that really get in the way of that experimentation happening so that we can advance in this area? Is it legislation, is it community perception, is it the high appreciation of housing so people become more reluctant to want to participate in these affordable housing projects?

Cristian Ahumada: That is a great question, and I'm going to answer with another story, actually a story that happened to me that day in the grand opening event of the Vistas del Puerto building. So as you can imagine, you're chatting with a lot of different folks. And one of the tenants approached me and she said, Can I give you a hug? And I said, Of course. So, you know, so we're chit chatting, getting to know each other. She's telling me about her unit. And she says to me, Hey, by the way, you know, I'm a little upset. And I said, ‘well…Please share, you know, let me know if there's anything that I can do to help.’ She goes, well, you know, I was previously homeless and now I have a studio unit. But I don't have a parking spot and other units have parking. How do I get parking?

And I said to this person, I said, well, listen. I'm sorry that you don't have parking, but at some point I had to make a decision, right? And by the way, all new projects that we're doing that we're sitting next to TOCs, so they have little to no parking whatsoever, right? But in this case, this represents sort of the older world and I had a little bit more money, so I was able to accommodate some parking, but I couldn't accommodate parking for everyone, but I had to make a decision. And that decision was, do I build more parking or do I build more housing? And I said, I'm sorry, but I had to choose more housing because there's a greater need for putting people in a permanent place, in a home, than there is for a vehicle.

Brian narration: He says few areas of LA are zoned for the type of homes Clifford Beers constructs. Housing with multiple units. He says most of the city is zoned for single-family homes.

Cristian Ahumada: I can see that that's a battle that the next mayor of Los Angeles is going to have to tackle. But inherently, we're going to have to look inside ourselves and say, if we want to solve homelessness, we want to solve our housing crisis, that housing has to go somewhere. And there's only very few places in Los Angeles that can occur, per today's zoning.

Brian Maughan: Have there been developments in technology in terms of the way that you construct your buildings…manufactured housing or prefab housing?

Cristian Ahumada: Yeah, I'll share with you a building that's currently under construction right now, for us. So that particular building is going to be made out of shipping containers and shipping containers is an available material number one. So we're not additionally contaminating the environment. And if you were to be inside one of them, it would look the same, right? And the benefits are tremendous. For instance, it has a higher fire rating. What does that mean? So that's another space, and no one's really chatting about it, right? When you have typical wood construction, that fire rating, you know, is what's called a one hour firewall. Right? You want to be able to increase that because global warming is demanding that increase. But you can't go concrete because concrete gets too expensive and you're also contaminating the environment. So you've got to be able to figure out what are those construction typologies that can work. But in addition to that, in addition to, you know, the construction happening quicker, which is a benefit…this particular building, we also created something called the living lung because of the proximity to the freeway. So we identified tree species that break down as much as 50 percent of the contaminants coming out of the freeways. And then we decided to put in a gray water tank that essentially recycles the water of the building to therefore irrigate the living lung that's now cleaning up the air.

Brian narration: The living lung is essentially a wall of greenery, and it acts as a filter for pollution and noise from the nearby freeways. So this is kind of a superbuilding if you think about it - it houses people who really need a home, but it also uses recycled materials, and it cleans the air. Pretty cool.

Cristian says his work is satisfying on many different levels. It stretches him every day. He has to think so hard about how to make all these pieces fit together.

Cristian Ahumada: I use all my faculties. There's absolutely nothing… If I was making lemonade, the peel would go in the lemonade [laughs], right? The seeds would be planted somewhere. I would waste absolutely nothing.

Brian Maughan: So if I'm a potential real estate professional who wants to be in the business of commercial real estate in whatever capacity, we're in a very hot market. Been a lot of people that made a lot of money being involved in commercial real estate. Why should a seasoned or a young professional spend time trying to solve the problems like you are, trying to solve things like affordable housing or sustainable housing or innovations relative to construction? Why spend my time in that space? What's your argument as to why they should?

Cristian Ahumada: I will not share with you any altruistic reasons, OK? But I will say this…when we create these new tools, whatever these new tools are...So let's say now it's a mixed commercial and housing or mixed commercial housing, for instance. Are you aware that 20 percent of all college students are homeless?

Brian narration: Statistics vary, but a surprising number of today’s college students are housing insecure, or even experiencing homelessness - particularly those at community colleges. College housing can be very expensive, and Cristian says there are ways to solve this with the kind of projects Clifford Beers specializes in. For example, affordable housing that’s intergenerational…

Cristian Ahumada: And what if there was commerce connected to it? What if it had a sustainability component to it? And what if it had all these other things that I'm mentioning? What you would see is a market that would see the potential of a return - return on a dollar because you could see that it works, we're gravitating towards that space. So what we're really seeing is the inception of a new economic market that's going to be much more mixed than we have ever seen.

Brian Maughan: I love that. Any additional advice that you would give anybody learning about this space, learning about, you know…the good that can come from being a developer?

Cristian Ahumada: I would say to folks that…give yourself the opportunity to create the new American dream. Right? So the old American dream may have been a single-family house with a white picket fence. But give yourself the opportunity to explore something that's totally different, right, whatever that difference is. But reevaluate it in a brand new manner, because we're living in exciting times and it's changing and it's difficult and it's expensive. Yes - we, you know, we live that here every day. But if you're open enough, we'll create the solutions.

Brian narration: Cristian Ahumada. I really admire what he’s doing and I want to meet him in person and see some of these incredible projects, the next time I’m in LA.

Thanks for listening to this episode of Built. We’ll be back with our next show in two weeks.

Built is a co-production of Fidelity National Financial and PRX Productions. From FNF, our project is run by Annie Bardelas. At PRX, our team is producer Ashley Milne-Tyte, Senior Producer Genevieve Sponsler, and associate producer Courtney Fleurantin. Our editor is Isabel Hibbard. Audio mastering by Rebecca Seidel.

The Executive Producer of PRX Productions is Jocelyn Gonzales.

I’m Brian Maughan.

Every story is unique, every property is individual, but we’re all part of this BUILT world.