Partners In Housing Development Corporation

Today, Libertarian Party of Indiana Executive Director Dan Drexler and I visited the Colonial Park project of Partners in Housing Development Corporation. Partners In Housing Development Corporation was founded in July of 1993 with a mission to "create or cause to be created" affordable housing for people with special needs. Usually it takes older apartment buildings that are vacant or mismanaged, renovates them, and creates affordable housing.

I've been intrigued by Partners in Housing because one of their recent projects, Linwood Manor, was done with private equity and without government grants and their restrictions. Dan and I met with Partners founder and chief executive officer Frank Hagaman and their Development Director Lee Ann Harper. One of the purposes of the meeting was to learn more about Partners and their success with Linwood Manor. Another purpose was to learn how the Libertarian Party of Indiana can help spread the word about Partners and the Linwood Manor project.

We learned how Partners received many benefits by doing this completely privately (fewer government restrictions, requirements and reporting to government officials were highlighted among many things). This helped drive down the costs from the typical project, which allowed them to do more and serve more disadvantaged people.

Currently, nonprofits focused on housing are very dependent on government, through grants, specials programs, laws, etc. The current "system" is designed this way now, and Partners is still dependent upon it and will be for the time being. However, Dan and I admire Linwood Manor and Partners efforts to break out of the current "system" in an effort to serve more people at an affordable price.

Dan and I both hope that you take a look at their web site and spread the word about them and their efforts with Linwood Manor. It is their hope that a more perfect world comes about and they are able to develop other projects on the Linwood Manor model.