Annie Hill , President of the Potomac Association of Housing Cooperatives

VERNON OAKES: Good morning, everybody. This is Vernon Oakes. Welcome to Everything Cooperative. We thank you for tuning in this morning. This is African American Month, the celebration of our history, the kinds of things that we’ve done to help build the United States. There is a long history of African Americans and this cooperative movement. It hasn’t been known or hasn’t been recognized. It’s been a hidden history. February recognizes African American Month in the United States.

Carter G. Woodson pioneered this celebration that started as a week in February of 1926. Right now it’s currently a month-long celebration, but it was a week in 1926. The book Collective Courage that Jessica Gordon Nembhard wrote, documents the importance of cooperative economics in the African American community. Her book is a takeoff from the W.E.B. Dubois’ book. Dubois wrote about the Black group economy. He talked about insulating Blacks from continued segregation and marginalization.

Dubois started a group called Negro Cooperative Guild in 1918, the idea of advancing cooperation among Black people. He had 12 men in that first meeting in 1918, representing seven states. So way back then there were cooperatives. It is amazing that I didn’t hear about cooperatives until about 22 years ago when I started doing property management. Dubois talked about in his book, The Souls of Black Folk, he noted that the problem in the 20th Century is the problem of the color line, Black, white, right down that line.

I would suggest to you that’s the problem in the 21st Century, and it’s highlighted now with the election of Donald Trump and white supremacy, which causes a lot of fear I know in my life and a lotta people’s lives, both Black and women and Hispanics, this whole thing of white supremacists. The color line is back in full force. Dubois is known for his describing the problems of race in America, but he’s not really given a lot of notice for his promoting the economic cooperation as the solution to the issue of the color line. I have found that to be the same thing today.

A potential solution is cooperatives, a way of getting new wealth distributed. Right now it’s going to the one percenters, the Donald Trumps of the world, those billionaires. They’re getting 57 percent of every dollar. The rest of us, the 99 percent of us, are getting the other 43 percent. We have to divide it out between us. So how can we now change that financial structure and social structure so that we can get a bigger piece of every new dollar? I never believed that anybody with money is gonna give me 40 acres and a mule. I never have believed that.

Carter G. Woodson’s home is being made into a national park. It’s at 1538 9th Street NW. That’s between P and Q Street. Today we have with us Annie Hill, who lives in the Second Northwest Cooperative, which is on 5th Street in the Shaw Community, very, very close to Carter G. Woodson’s home. Good morning, Annie.

ANNIE HILL: Good morning, Mr. Oakes.

VERNON OAKES: How long have you lived at Second Northwest?

ANNIE HILL: I’ve been a member of Second Northwest since 1979, about 40 years almost, coming up on 40 years.

VERNON OAKES: So you went there when you were one?

ANNIE HILL: [laughs] I’m only 19.

VERNON OAKES: Only 19, okay. You’re there 40 years and 19 years old. I got that. You can tell me how your granddaughter and your daughter are doing.

ANNIE HILL: They are doing wonderful. Thank you for asking. My granddaughter is [indistinct] and her hope is still to go to Berkeley, our alma mater.

VERNON OAKES: What does she want to major in?

ANNIE HILL: She wants to major in directing, behind the scenes.

VERNON OAKES: If you meet her granddaughter, you will be just — I fell in love with this young lady. What is she now, 12, 13?

ANNIE HILL: She’s 16.

VERNON OAKES: Sixteen?

ANNIE HILL: Yeah, she’ll be 16 this coming June.

VERNON OAKES: Oh my God, they grow up so quick.

ANNIE HILL: Yes.

VERNON OAKES: Just a delightful young lady, full of energy, and that is why we celebrate Black History Month so that we can sort of help to let people know about our past so they can look forward to the future. So you’re 19, she’s 16, you lived there 40 years. I’m getting the math —

ANNIE HILL: You’re getting your math?

VERNON OAKES: New math. I’m majoring in math, but I have to figure this one out here later on. What is Second Northwest Housing Cooperative?

ANNIE HILL: Second Northwest Housing Cooperative is a limited equity cooperative. It was established and developed under the HUD Housing Act, Section 236, which was to help low and middle-income families be able to have a form of home ownership.

VERNON OAKES: So Shaw Community, when I came here in 1986, was what we called the ghetto. It was a neighborhood. There was a lot of poor people living in that area, and it was known for crime and perhaps drugs. Now with the convention center three blocks away and all of the gentrification, that’s high-rent district today.

ANNIE HILL: Yes. When the co-op was first created, in the neighborhood it was, as you said, plagued by drugs and abandoned homes. But over the years, we was a group, Second Northwest, who was part of the Orange Hat Group. I don’t know if you remember that.

VERNON OAKES: Yeah, I remember.

ANNIE HILL: Which we helped to combat the problems that we was experiencing in the neighborhood. Over the last 15 years, a lot of gentrification has gone on in the community. Families that was once part of the community is no longer. Second Northwest is one of the few communities that still exist within that neighborhood.

VERNON OAKES: How big is it?

ANNIE HILL: We have 145 units, of which 14 are townhouses. There on the 5th Street side. Second Northwest is bordered by O Street, 5th Street and N Street. We sit on 5.5 acres of land.

VERNON OAKES: I would imagine that the developers would really like to get their hands on that land.

ANNIE HILL: Oh yes. There’s not a week go by — I served on the board at Second Northwest for almost 20 years. For about 18 years I served on the board there. There was not a week that went by that I didn’t get at least three emails. Ask me how they got my email address, I couldn’t tell you, but I received three emails a week from different developers saying oh, we’re interested in buying your property. So yes, there’s a great interest in developers in purchasing the land.

VERNON OAKES: You’re on 5.5 acres. You have 145 units. I wouldn’t be surprised if they wouldn’t get 500 or 600 units when they go up.

ANNIE HILL: Oh I’m sure, because if you’ve been to our property, there’s a lotta space on the property. We love that space because it allows for the children — we have a lotta children at Second Northwest, so it gives open space for the children to run and play on the property without getting in the street.

VERNON OAKES: A lotta good green space.

ANNIE HILL: Excuse me?

VERNON OAKES: A lotta good green space?

ANNIE HILL: Yes.

VERNON OAKES: So you were on the board for 18 years? What is being on the board like? What is the goal and the role of the board of a housing co-op? It’s pretty much any cooperative.

ANNIE HILL: The role of the board is to make sure that your cooperative is being run properly, and that begins financially. If you don’t take care of your financial part of it, then your co-op will soon go under. It’s also making sure, the board’s role, risk and responsibility, which entails that the board is responsible to their members. At the structure of the co-op is the members first, then the board of directors, then your management and all of your vendors and other advisors. With the board being in place, the board is responsible to make sure that it takes care of the cooperative, that it caters to the members’ needs and issues, and that means economically as well as socially. In co-ops you will find that they have a lotta activities within the co-op for their members.

VERNON OAKES: Okay, wait a minute. I want to go back to something that you said because you’ve said a lot in a really quick time. It starts off with the members on top that has the responsibility and authority, then they elect a board of directors and that gives them — the board of directors have to share a responsibility, the financial responsibility. They are in charge of the corporation. Then they are run by a set of bylaws. They have to administer the corporation according to their bylaws.

And then the board can either manage it themselves or they can hire site managers or they can hire a third-party manager. Then after the manager, then they can have other vendors or you can have a lawyer, you said other entities, so you can have a lawyer, you can have a tax preparer, accountant, so you can have different other people that come in, but they all report to and their ultimate responsibility is to the board.

ANNIE HILL: To the board, exactly.

VERNON OAKES: That’s a big role, 145 units. What’s the average rent or co-op fee?

ANNIE HILL: We don’t use rent.

VERNON OAKES: I got that, that’s why I said or co-op fee?

ANNIE HILL: Well, to come into the co-op you must first purchase a share within the cooperative. That is usually a one par share, which gives you a share within the entire cooperative, not your individual unit.

VERNON OAKES: So listen, we’re gonna come back after our first break. We’re gonna come back and go from this share of stock to the co-op fee and what the share of stock gives you. But right now we’re gonna get the news or weather or the traffic and then we’ll be right back, so don’t touch that dial. [music plays]

VERNON OAKES: Welcome back to Everything Co-Op. This is Vernon Oaks. Welcome back. We have Annie Hill, who is the President of the Potomac Association of Housing Co-Ops, and she lives in a co-op in DC. It is called the Second Northwest Cooperative. It’s 145 units. They have 14 townhouses and other structures on this 145-units in the Shaw Community, which is close to the Carter G. Woodson home. It is on N Street, O Street and 5th Street. It’s on 5.5 acres. They’re already having a lot of developers trying to get their hands on this land.

She has lives there 40 years, and the mathematics, this new math, she has a granddaughter that’s almost 16, and she says she’s 19 years old. Hey, I’m trying to get this new math, and lived there 40 years. We’re gonna get this stuff here in a few minutes.

ANNIE HILL: You’ll get it.

VERNON OAKES: Annie, thanks so much for being here. When we left, we were talking about the roles/responsibility of the folks in the co-op, and we started off with the members have the ultimate responsibility for the co-op. There’s 145 families there. They vote for a board of directors. That board then can hire a management company, and this is what Second Northwest has done. Then they will have vendors and other advisors, like a tax guy or a lawyer, have consultants of different natures.

They all, though, report back to the board and the board has the ultimate responsibility, called the fiscal responsibility. They also, economically she said they have to start off making sure that it’s financially sound in the first place. Then also they do social things for the co-op. So you were talking about a share of stock is the first thing that you do when somebody comes in.

ANNIE HILL: Yes. To become a member of the cooperative, you first have to purchase a share of stock, which is one par. That means that you have a connected share with the other 144 members in the entire cooperative. In a cooperative versus a condo, condo you own your unit outright. In a cooperative, you do not own your individual unit. As I said, you only own a share within the cooperative itself.

VERNON OAKES: Let me just add something. In a condo, you get a deed which gives you the rights and privileges to occupy your unit. In a co-op you get a share of stock that gives you the same rights and privileges to occupy a unit.

ANNIE HILL: Yes. Well, in a condo, you not only occupy, you have home ownership of your individual unit. That’s the difference with the co-op.

VERNON OAKES: So the question that I was trying to get to, there’s 145 units. What’s the average co-op fee, would you say? Is it $500 a month, $1,000 a month? What’s the average co-op fee? What I wanted to get to is how much income comes into that co-op on a yearly basis?

ANNIE HILL: On a yearly basis, well the co-op, we have one, two, three bedroom. Average for one bedroom runs about $500. Average for a two bedroom is around $600, and three bedrooms around $700, close to $700. Then you have your townhouses, which just a little over $700.

VERNON OAKES: I’m gonna choose a number of $600, so $600 x 145 is $87,000 a month?

ANNIE HILL: Somewhere around that.

VERNON OAKES: So you’re almost a million dollars a year?

ANNIE HILL: Yes.

VERNON OAKES: So the thing that I’m trying to get to is there is a business here. It’s called a housing co-op, 145 families elect a board of five or seven?

ANNIE HILL: Seven.

VERNON OAKES: Seven members, and then that seven people have to manage a business that’s approximately a million dollars’ worth of income. It’s not a small business. It is a relatively large business. In Jessica Gordon Nembhard’s book, she made a couple points. One is that a lot of the co-ops are run by and managed by women. I have found that to be the same case in these housing co-ops. Most of the presidents and people on the board are women. And the second thing is that more often than not, there was somebody doing something wrong.

There would be somebody trying to be a predator to the co-op. It could be a developer trying to get their hands on the assets of the co-op. It could be the management company trying to get their hands on an asset, or it could be board members that are either taking monies or they will give benefits to family members or friends and not to everybody else. You can have all of these different things that play into — and this is why Annie started off by you have to make sure it’s financially sound. That means that you have to be following rules and regulations based on the bylaws to make sure things are sound and that you make sure that everybody is treated the same according to the bylaws. Is that right?

ANNIE HILL: Absolutely, absolutely. We have a saying that you follow your bylaws and you stay outta trouble. What you do for one, you must do for all. You cannot choose to discriminate among your members. All your members deserve the same equal treatment. That’s part of the principle of the cooperative.

VERNON OAKES: We’re gonna get into the principles of the cooperative a little bit later, but it’s critical I’ve found that in order to have a successful business, particularly a successful co-op, you have to have knowledgeable board members, knowledgeable people run it, knowledgeable management, and you have to have integrity. That integrity is what you just described. It’s whatever the bylaws say, you follow it for everybody. When you have that, it can be very, very successful.

You can have your savings up, you can be financially sound and you can provide what you call the social programs for seniors and for children and for family members, whatever those be. Talk to your members and see what they need and then provide that out of the co-op fees or the rents or whatever you call it.

ANNIE HILL: Yes. The fees that you pay into a co-op, that’s why it’s very important that you collect your monthly carrying charges, because without that you cannot run your cooperative. Your cooperative carrying charges pays for your maintenance, pays your vendors, pays your management company. It pays all the bills of the co-op. In order to pay those bills, that means that every member that lives in that co-op must pay their fair share.

VERNON OAKES: Must, must.

ANNIE HILL: It’s not an if, but a must.

VERNON OAKES: So if every member pays their fair share, that’s the first responsibility of a membership in the co-op is paying your membership and your cooperative fee. I did have a lawyer named Herb Fisher tell me that they are really rent. Most people call them co-op fees, but they’re really rent and you’re renting from the association. The lease is an occupancy agreement. He spent some time trying to describe this to me. I just call them co-op fees like you do. It’s a fee to pay to the co-op to pay for all of the maintenance of the cooperative, whether like you said, it’s maintenance, snow removal, insurance, property taxes, management to whatever extent. So whatever the fees in running the business, the expenses of running the business, the members have to pay that. You also have to do savings.

ANNIE HILL: Yes, by law. Since we are under HUD, HUD has underwritten our mortgage. With that it comes that we have to fund three accounts. That’s the reserve account, your operating account and your members account. So you must fund these accounts. Your reserve is for if something goes on, an emergency comes up, you have those funds there to take care of whatever it is. A few years back we had the earthquake, and that did structural damage to a lot of the buildings so we had to use money from the reserve to make sure that we took care of that issue.

VERNON OAKES: My parents, I don’t know about yours, but in West Virginia my parents never had any savings. If a window broke or if the roof needed to be replaced, there was no let’s go to the bank and let’s get the money out or let’s go and cash in some stocks. There was never any savings. My mother’s favorite saying was there’s always something. Always somethings pop up, whether it’s earthquake or a window gets broken. There’s always something, so you have to have money.

That’s one of the things I learned in managing co-ops, is this replacement reserve is so essential to the running of the business. You have to have the savings. You never know what’s gonna come up. You know that something’s gonna come up. It’s always something that’s coming up. Again, my mother’s favorite saying, there’s always something. So how do you have savings for that? Does HUD tell you what the reserves have to be in this replacement reserve?

ANNIE HILL: Yes, it’s like three percent of the total income that you must put in each month.

VERNON OAKES: So three percent of this $87,000 that we’ve figured out is approximately what you get every month. So if that was $90,000, 10 percent would be $9,000, so three percent is $2,700. So you’ve gotta put that away every month to replace things or to fix things if there’s an emergency.

ANNIE HILL: Yes.

VERNON OAKES: So that gets to be a very good rule for everybody out there is to get the savings in place. The financial planners talk about 10 percent of whatever you make, you need to save that for yourself first. The Bible says you put 10 percent to tithing first and then secondly, the next 10 percent is to you. But the Donald Trumps of the world, they have 33 percent going to the government first. We’re going to take our second break, Annie. We’ll be right back. Please don’t touch the dial. [music plays]

VERNON OAKES: Welcome back, everybody. We really wanna thank NCB for sponsoring this program. NCB’s mission is to help cooperatives grow by supporting and being an advocate for America’s cooperatives and their members, placing special emphasis on serving the needs of communities that are economically challenged. We’ve had people on the program, particularly rural counties in the US. Eighty percent of rural counties are the most poverty-stricken economically challenged communities. When you go to cities, it’s mostly where Brown and Black folks live. These 80 percent of rural is where Brown and Black people live. So you get economically challenged communities a lot where minorities or Brown and Black people, and the US has put together funding, particularly housing.

Housing is one of those things that if you don’t have it, I heard Keith Ellison speak to this one time. Keith Ellison is a congressman from Minnesota. He said that a house is similar to a bowl. If you take a bowl to try to make a cake, he said try to make a cake without a bowl. A house to a family is the same thing. You need a house so that you can raise your children and they can do their homework, they feel safe and secure, and then they can thrive. You can’t get a cake to bake if you try to break the eggs and put ‘em on the table or the floor if you don’t have a bowl to put them in and mash everything together.

So a house is very, very much needed, so this is why HUD and the US has put together monies in their Section 236 and other programs to provide housing for the low and moderate income. This is where the Second Northwest got their funding. HUD underwrote it through the 236 program. NCB has helped fund economically challenged areas, both housing and other customers like worker cooperatives or credit unions, or all kinds of different co-ops they have helped to fund and done a great job of it.

Most banks, if anybody out there has ever been to a bank, knows that they’re only interested in three things: Getting their money back, getting their money back, and getting their money back. So what they normally loan is to people that already have a lotta assets so if they don’t make the current loan that they’re making, they can go get other ones. Economically challenged neighborhoods, we, Black folks, normally don’t have and Hispanic people don’t have other assets, so it’s awful hard to get a loan from a normal bank. Congress in the early ‘80s helped to create the National Cooperative Bank so that they could help funding of cooperatives in economically challenged neighborhoods like Shaw used to be, but not today.

Okay, so the first thing that somebody does is they get a share of stock, they come in, they go to the board. What are your processes when you bring somebody into the co-op?

ANNIE HILL: Well, the process is when we bring someone into the co-op, we first bring them in, we do orientation. That’s where we tell them what a co-op is, the benefits of a cooperative, economic benefits, social benefits and all from living in a cooperative. We also share with them that it’s another form of home ownership. This is where we really try at this orientation to tell them if you’re able and you’re approved to come into this cooperative, try to change your mindset from a renter’s mentality to a homeowner mentality.

VERNON OAKES: That’s the hardest part is getting people to change that mentality from a renter to a homeowner, but if they do, then it’s wonderful.

ANNIE HILL: It’s wonderful, it’s absolutely wonderful, because when people feel like they own something, they take more pride into make sure that it run, make sure that it’s taken care of. I get such pleasure out of when I walk outta my door I see members that will stop and pick paper up off the ground, or I see members that will sweep the sidewalk. Because maintenance staff is there Monday through Friday. They’re off on the weekends, so it’s up to the members to make sure that the co-op is clean and safe of debris over the weekend. So that’s what we try to instill in members as they come on and when we do our orientation.

VERNON OAKES: So there’s another point in here that I wanna make sure comes out is that in a co-op, the co-op has the right to reject somebody from coming in.

ANNIE HILL: Exactly, and now with the new laws, of course, you have to be, but one of the rejections, we look at their finances. The co-op is here, we run and operate off of what we receive in from our members. So we will not bring someone in that we know could not pay, because then it’s a burden to us because you’re gonna have to lower your co-op fees and all of this to go through the process to remove this person. Why bring someone in when they can’t afford it? That’s a disservice to your cooperative, as well as the person you’re bringing in.

VERNON OAKES: And in New York there was a co-op that wouldn’t let Richard Nixon come in. Another co-op wouldn’t let Madonna come in, and they had the money. But they said in both cases it would disrupt their quiet enjoyment of their home, with the camera people and the posses and other people coming around. One of them sued, and the courts found that they were correct, that they had the right to not let them in for that reason. You can’t discriminate because of fair housing rules and all of this, but if you have a legitimate reason, then you can say no, this person cannot come in, even if they can pay for it.

You don’t have that right in a condo, and you definitely don’t have that right in a single-family in a neighborhood. You could end up with anybody being your neighbors, but in a co-op you have that right.

ANNIE HILL: Yes.

VERNON OAKES: And that’s one of the reasons I like co-ops. Some co-ops will have a committee that looks at every application, and then they will meet with them even before — you said it, the committee that meets with them to give them an introduction.

ANNIE HILL: That’s the selection committee, the member selection committee.

VERNON OAKES: So the member selection committee will look at them to see first and foremost if they will be selected to come in.

ANNIE HILL: Correct.

VERNON OAKES: So they’re in and you’ve got them where they’re paying their monthly dues. What else do you want from a member to do?

ANNIE HILL: Well, we want members’ participation.

VERNON OAKES: Participation.

ANNIE HILL: Yes. It’s very important that members participate in the running of their co-op. If something is not going right, you have a board in place. Your board is not doing what they supposed to do, then members need to step up and speak up. That’s the only way that you keep the board on point to make sure that they are looking out for your best interests. Because at the end of the day, if the board does something to cause the co-op to go under, that means that their home is gone as well as your home. So it’s very important that the members stay involved, they serve on committees, they participate, they volunteer in whatever activities that concern the co-op because that’s the only way that you can have a co-op that’s gonna be sustainable for future co-op members.

For example, with myself, I moved into my co-op when my daughter was two years old. My daughter became an adult. She also became a member of the co-op, and now she’s —

VERNON OAKES: She got her own unit?

ANNIE HILL: Yes, she has her own unit and she’s raising our granddaughter in a co-op, so hopefully if she stays in the area, she may one day become a member of the co-op. That’s what co-op living does. Usually people that comes in the co-op, if they’re good members, paying members, financially supporting the co-op, they stay there for generation after generation.

VERNON OAKES: I had a co-op member and she was in Virginia, an older lady, a German lady, and they were talking about in a limited equity co-op, you limit the amount of equity you can get. What she said was her return on investment was three strong children, and they were all professionals. When I was talking about this, they gave the home and a loving environment with people in the community looking out for each other, and she was able to raise three children. That was her investment, or return on investment.

ANNIE HILL: Absolutely. When you become a member of a co-op, you become a part of a much larger family. When you’re in a co-op you get to know each other. You don’t pass by your neighbors. Each time you pass by your neighbor, you stop and chat because it’s usually hard to get out the front door and see a neighbor out there that you don’t stop, have a how are you doing today? How are the children doing? So this is what a co-op, it just invites you into a much larger family.

Hilary Clinton had made millions on a book that says it takes a village to raise a child. But where I grew up from in Alabama, that concept came from Black people in general because neighbors watched out for neighbors, for your children. In a co-op, now we embrace that same feeling, that I know your children. If I see them doing something wrong, I’m gonna correct them and report it to you.

VERNON OAKES: Same thing happened in Bluefield, West Virginia. It was the whole neighborhood that raised us. We’re taking our last break. We’ll come back and talk about the Potomac Association of Housing Co-ops when we get back on. I told you the hour goes by really, really quick. If anybody wants to call in, you can call in at 1-800-450-7876 if you’ve got a question or a comment to Annie or myself, 1-800-450-7876, and we’ll be right back. [music plays]

VERNON OAKES: Information is power. This is why the National Cooperative Bank is sponsoring this program to give you information about cooperatives so that you might take this information and go start your own or go look for a co-op to either join a housing co-op or a credit union or a food co-op. There’s one called Glut ride off of Rhode Island Avenue in Maryland. There’s Greenbelt Cooperative up in Greenbelt, Maryland, and one in Silver Springs, a food co-op. You can get into a community and normally you’ll find out that prices are lower and quality is higher in a cooperative. Not always true because of the expense side. I like shopping at Glut. It’s a funky little store, a lotta good foods in there and prices are right.

So Annie Hill is our guest today and we’ve been talking about Second Northwest Cooperative, which is a limited equity cooperative. You don’t make very much money. It has a form that tells you what the increase will be off of your membership fee. I live in a market rate cooperative. [indistinct] with 57 units. It’s a similar kind of thing. It is a community, you know your neighbors, you know the children of the neighbors, and people work together to help raise the children by telling the parents what they might be doing or whatever you see.

I’m gonna change the subject a little bit because we only have another 15 minutes. You’re the President of the Potomac Association of Housing Co-ops. What is that association and how did you get involved in that?

ANNIE HILL: Well, being a member of Second Northwest, as I said, I joined the board of Second Northwest about 20 years ago. When I joined the board, I was a layperson. I had no ideal of what a cooperative was about or what a board should be doing. But our cooperative at that time, we were about to foreclose, and the president at that time said she needed help, so that’s when I stepped up. That’s one of the best decisions that I made in my life is to join that board of directors, because not only did it increase my love for my home and my community, it’s educated me about the co-op.

We joined Potomac Association of Housing Cooperatives, which we received board of directors training and it opened up a whole new window as to what my role sitting in that seat as a director was to be. The Potomac Association was established in 1976. Last year we celebrated the 40th anniversary at our annual membership meeting in Norfolk, Virginia. We educate cooperative board members on their fiduciary responsibility of being a board member. We help them to understand and to relate to their members of the co-op, and also provide customer service care along with that because cooperative boards and their staff, we are in the customer service field.

When we learn how to talk to our members, how to hear our concerns of the members and be genuinely concerned to our members then it helps us be a better board. It helps to make our cooperative a much better co-op. We provide training on different topics, anything from maintenance, board responsibility. We even will give training to co-ops, go out to the co-ops to train their members on what it means to be a member of a cooperative because that’s sometimes where we fall short. Our members are not educated, therefore it makes the work of the board much harder.

VERNON OAKES: So the educating of the members is — how many members do you think you have, approximately?

ANNIE HILL: Approximately we would have at least 300 members, I would say.

VERNON OAKES: So educating those members is one of the critical roles. I said earlier that I’ve found that successful co-ops have knowledgeable board members. Board members you have are knowledgeable about running the business, and the more integrity that you have, that’s what causes it to be successful. So you got on PAHC’s board through getting on the board of —

ANNIE HILL: Second Northwest.

VERNON OAKES: — Second Northwest.

ANNIE HILL: Yes. I started to attend conferences and the training provided by PAHC, and I was approached by a then-board member. She’s now deceased, Ms. Sherman. Ms. Sherman saw me, took me under her wing to tell me oh, you would be a great asset to this board. You’re a people person, you talk. I thought I was a shy person, but she saw something in me that I didn’t realize —

VERNON OAKES: You’re not shy.

ANNIE HILL: — that I didn’t realize I had. From that, I became interested. I started doing training alongside of Ms. Sherman, and from there it’s just — I look back. If someone had told me 15 years ago that I would be doing what I’m doing today, I would’ve said no way. But it’s a rewarding experience. It’s one that I would not trade. My experience on Second Northwest’s board, my experience with PAHC. I also currently serve on the board of the national, where I have the position of secretary. All of those experiences —

VERNON OAKES: You’ve come a long way.

ANNIE HILL: Absolutely. And I feel that I’ve been so blessed. I’ve been blessed by the people that was in my life who helped me, who saw potential in me. I want to be that same help to someone else. I believe in the phrase each one teach one.

VERNON OAKES: So you’ve had people to teach you. You got somebody to pull you into the Second Northwest board because they were having problems. I think I heard you say they were getting ready to be foreclosed on or something.

ANNIE HILL: Yes.

VERNON OAKES: So you got into that and that opened up the world of cooperation to you or running a business. Most people don’t see it that way, but it’s running a business. You actually learn how to run a business, now to interact with people. Then you got into PAHC, you got the training there. You’re now the President of the Potomac Association of Housing Co-Ops.

ANNIE HILL: That’s right.

VERNON OAKES: Ms. Sherman was one of those people from the old school who put her finger in your face who tell you what’s right and tell you when you’re doing wrong. She didn’t have any problems with it.

ANNIE HILL: Yes.

VERNON OAKES: She was the treasurer of the Potomac Association for a long time.

ANNIE HILL: Yes.

VERNON OAKES: And ran a really, really strict house. So then you are on the board of and the secretary of the National Association of Housing Cooperatives.

ANNIE HILL: Yes, and in that position, when I became a member of NAHC, one of the purpose of being from the region and being a member of NAHC, you take your region’s concerns to the national level. They have a lot of experts on the national board which you can talk to, which you can seek guidance from. That helps with the issues at the regional level. Every year at the annual conference, I engage our members and I ask them what concerns do you have? What is it that we can do better? In order for us to be better, we must know what the members want that can enable us to better ourselves and make sure that we’re addressing their concerns.

VERNON OAKES: I want to raise it back, the conversation now, to national. We’ve got President Trump in, and we talked about W.E.B. Dubois talked about the color line in 1918. That color line looks like it’s back in place and right up in our face with white supremacy. But Trump Administration is expected to dramatically cut the federal budget by $10.5 trillion over 10 years. He’s talking about raising defense spending, so they’re looking like there’s an arms race to see who will get the most bullets or nuclear weapons. He wants to cut taxes.

So he’s raising the expense side, and as being a board member, you know what happens when you raise the expenses, normally you wanna try to raise the income. But he’s gonna lower the income by cutting the taxes for the wealthy and the corporations. So you’re gonna lower the income and raise expenses. How do you balance the budget with that?

ANNIE HILL: As I said, in a cooperative we rely on like I said, the members. Looking at that, I’ve been talking to members not only at the Second Northwest Cooperative, but also the members of PAHC to make sure that, as you said, you get your house in order. If you ever needed to do it before, you definitely need to do it now. As they say it’s praying time, it’s now time to take care of business and get serious about the business that you’re taking care of, and that’s your cooperatives.

VERNON OAKES: Because of the way he’s gonna cut HUD monies or he’ll cut welfare money, he called it discretionary spending. There’s another term that they use. It’s like they’re giving and helping poor people, but they don’t look at how much they’re giving to the rich when you get write-offs for your homes or all of these discounts that they give to the billionaires. The billionaires don’t pay their share of taxes.

ANNIE HILL: And that’s one other benefit.

VERNON OAKES: One other benefit.

ANNIE HILL: One of the benefits of cooperative living is that you don’t face the challenges of single-home owners or renters because in a cooperative, with everyone cooperating, you can keep your expenses low. That means that members have to take part in it and really step up to make sure that they are helping out in their co-op. Whereas you’re somewhere else, co-op fees are based on your income, so if your income drops, we just don’t throw you out in the street. We work with the individual to see how we can help and assist to make sure that they can stay members of the cooperative.

VERNON OAKES: That’s a great point because we’ve had people on who in ’08, the great recession, that cooperatives, they protect sometimes. The members would decide to take a lower salary in a worker cooperative so they didn’t have to fire anybody. So people are looking out for each other. Again, that’s one of the reasons I love this cooperative principle, because you make decisions as to what’s best for the group, not what’s best for me individually. How do I get more out of this? What is best for the group?

We need to take care of business. You were saying it right on the head, because we are in Trump time now and you get trumped. You find out that HUD would probably get cut and they won’t have money for limited equity co-ops. They haven’t been putting a lotta money in limited equity co-ops in recent years anyway. They’ve been putting it in apartment buildings [indistinct] because rich people own apartment buildings and they get the income off of it. But it doesn’t provide the same quality of life that a cooperative does.

ANNIE HILL: Absolutely, and you heard it from their own mouth. Ben Carson is the person that’s up to head HUD. What did he say in his interview? He does not plan to give any American not one red penny of that money. So don’t expect any help from HUD, that’s what I’m saying, not at this point in time.

VERNON OAKES: And you’ve had a lot of them ask the question would you make sure that Donald Trump and family are not getting money, and it’s been a whole array of answers to that question. But we’ve got to really dig down and make sure that the co-ops, housing co-ops is what we’re talking about today, are really focused on taking care of business. You said that so well. If there’s nothing else that comes outta this interview, that’s it. We’re looking at hard times. If you haven’t been taking care of business, you’ve really gotta take care of business and make sure you have your savings in place, that you are running by your bylaws so that if there are cuts — not if, there’s gonna be cuts according to what he’s promised.

There’s one thing that’s clear. I heard somebody say it, is that this is a president that’s doing what he said he’s gonna do. He’s doing it. So the question is as he does that, who is he going to hurt? It’s Brown and Black people and perhaps women. We have to be prepared for it, and that is getting in the trenches and taking care of business. Any other comments? We only have about a minute left.

ANNIE HILL: Yes. I want everyone to know that the Potomac Association annual conference will be coming up April 27th through the 29th in Dover, Delaware. You can go to the Potomac website, www.potomacassoc.org.

VERNON OAKES: So April 27th through the —

ANNIE HILL: 29th.

VERNON OAKES: — 29th is the annual meeting. So if you wanna get training about cooperatives, you can come up to that. Annie, thank you so very much for coming on, and even though you have a cold, we heard it a little bit, but you did wonderfully well. Thank you. For everybody else out there, have a great cooperative week and we’ll see you next Thursday. [music plays]