Stretching funding helps Laredo keep things running

Elizabeth Alonzo-Villarreal works with a staff of eight at NeighborWorks Laredo, where she serves as CEO. But together, the staff helps about 1,000 others each year. So when the staff switched from working in a central office to working from home at the start of COVID-19, the organization utilized grants from NeighborWorks America to help things run more smoothly as they continued to provide homebuyer education, financial capability training and foreclosure prevention counseling. The organization also has 67 rental units that they own and manage.

Some of the funding, which came from the NeighborWorks Critical Relief Fund, made possible with significant help from the Wells Fargo Foundation, went toward technical support. Some went toward uplifting struggling tenants. And some went toward helping individuals enroll in homebuying classes by way of discount coupons. "We've seen clients continue to sign up on a monthly basis," Alonzo-Villarreal says, though the numbers have dwindled from 30 to 10 per month. This month, the last of the fiscal year, the organization will be giving full credit to people taking homebuying classes. They're hoping September will see an increase, especially with the funding assistance.

"Our Laredoan community has not stopped accomplishing their dream of being homeowners," says Claudia Ruelas, housing counselor. "Due to COVID-19, mortgage interest rates have dropped, which brings in a tremendous opportunity to those who look forward to invest." Because clients have not stopped purchasing, the organization needs to keep offering counseling and guidance remotely, Reulas says. But to do all they needed to do remotely, they needed a technical boost, which is where the grant came in. To start, the two housing counselors – Ruelas, and another counselor who focuses on foreclosure prevention – needed equipment to effectively operate from home.

"One of our counselors had to keep going to the office to make copies, to scan this or that," Alonzo-Villarreal says. "We said, ‘let's just get you a scanner." They found a printer that had other capabilities, including scanning and copying. "It was wonderful that we could use this [grant]," says Alonzo-Villarreal. "We had not budgeted any technology equipment other than regular updates and upgrades on software."

Alonzo-Villarreal says their foreclosure counselor had been using her phone for Internet connectivity. She needed more. "I said, ‘hold on a minute,'" Alonzo-Villarreal says. She allocated another part of the $37,000 they received – the combined total from the critical relief fund and the NeighborWorks Rental Relief Fund – for Wi-Fi. They also used the grant to purchase a professional Zoom account, which helped with weekly presentations, where speakers talked about everything from lending to insurance when buying a home. Before that, Alonzo-Villarreal kept her eye on her watch to make sure they didn't go over the time afforded with the basic version. "We were having these great conversations and having to cut them," she says. "We used funding from the grant for the full purchase of Zoom."  

Another key purchase was cloud-based accounting software, so that the accounting team could efficiently work remotely and continue the accounting process fully automated instead of having to take turns accessing the desktop version of QuickBooks. The larger purchases were two computers. Alonzo-Villarreal says that her own computer had crashed twice before at the office and her staff would tell her she needed to buy a new one but she resisted to save money. The computer crashed again for a third time while working remotely and she finally told her procurement manager "I think it's time for a new one." The other computer was also required for her administrative assistant to work remotely as that computer, too, kept failing.

Ruelas says it's been a difficult time for clients to transition from in person to virtual or telephone sessions, "but they are able to grasp all information that is provided to them to succeed. Not being in person should not be an obstacle for us, as a counseling agency, to provide the opportunity to our clients who are eager to learn and move forward to their American Dream."

"With the COVID situation, we've had to adapt," Alonzo-Villarreal says. Unexpected needs crop up. NeighborWorks recognized that network organizations would have these needs, so the organization issued $20,000 grants in March. Alonzo-Villarreal says that funding was used to help organizations provide food pantries. "We also offered [all of] our tenants $100 assistance toward electricity bills and a $50 gift card for basic necessities. That was something that was very welcomed. We have some tenants that were struggling a bit with rent and we were able to get them caught up." 

Meanwhile, their only maintenance worker was diagnosed with COVID; while he was recovering, the network organization had to find contractors to do his work. The grants helped with that, too, Alonzo-Villarreal says. She also provided a chair for a staff member who needed a better situation from home. She improvised to address her own need for a more comfortable working set-up. "I drove back to the office and got my chair," she says.

The grant also helped with deep cleaning before a new tenant moves into a rental unit, and to prepare the office when half of the staff returned in June, "however, with the increased number of positive COVID-19 cases and deaths that our community was experiencing, all staff went back to working remotely," Alonzo-Villarreal says. 

Marietta Rodriguez, president and CEO of NeighborWorks, often talks about the importance of organizations being able to pivot during COVID. "Our own organization has had to pivot to respond, and our network organizations have done the same," she says, adding that she feels fortunate to provide funding that will help organizations do just that.

Alonzo-Villarreal says the important thing is to keep moving forward and to continue delivering services. Payment assistance programs and lending companies work with them and rely on them to help clients realize the dream of home ownership. "Now, more than ever, foreclosure prevention counseling is also very important to offer with jobs being lost due to COVID-19," she says. In Laredo, people know where to go to seek help. "It is important that our non-profit organization continue during these uncertain times that we, as a world and as humanity, are facing. Life has to go on and we must adapt to meet the challenges and we must continue to help our communities. We truly believe in equitable opportunities for everyone and our agency does that."