Ithaca Neighborhood Housing Services looks to future of affordable housing under new leadership

As Ithaca Neighborhood Housing Services (INHS) prepares to usher in two new Tompkins County projects — Compass manufactured home community (MHC) and Village Grove, both in Trumansburg — the organization also welcomes a new executive director, Kate G. de la Garza, who is eager to lead INHS into the future despite the challenging housing climate.

“It’s just a great next step for me personally in my career,” de la Garza said. “I can’t think of a better nonprofit community agency to work for than INHS. I was certainly just drawn to the role. They have a long history of having a solid impact in Ithaca and the whole region, and I just can’t wait to be a part of it.”

Founded in 1976 as a partnership between residents, funders and local government, INHS is a nonprofit community development corporation. The INHS mission is to help people of modest incomes obtain affordable housing on a longterm basis. Its service area includes Cayuga, Chemung, Cortland, Schuyler, Seneca, Tioga and Tompkins counties.  

De la Garza comes to INHS with a long track record of working in affordable housing and development, having worked for a variety of nonprofit organizations, including housing authorities, in Seattle, Washington.

De la Garza holds a Master of Urban Planning & Public Administration degree with a concentration in Real Estate Development from the University of Washington and a Bachelor of Arts in Government from Smith College.  

They spent the last eight years since moving to New York state working in the finance side of the business.

“That has given me a well-rounded skill set,” de la Garza said. “Now, to play a leadership role in this region of central New York is the perfect next step for combining both my skills in the nonprofit side and the finance side, understanding how complex it can be to get [INHS’s] work done, essentially.”

De la Garza, who is nonbinary and comfortable using pronouns she, he or they, resides in Fayetteville with wife Marisa, two children (Camila, 13, and Andrea, 8) and border collie Rexie. The family moved to upstate New York to be closer to Marisa’s family. Several of Marisa’s siblings went to college in Ithaca, de la Garza said.

“We have those family ties,” they said, “so it’s really exciting, this next step we’re taking.” De la Garza said they hope to move to Ithaca in the future but, in the meantime, they plan to commute to INHS.

De la Garza said that their experience in affordable housing and the time they spent working on diversity and inclusion within staff support and management has given them the ability to “meet staff where they are at.”

INHS Board President Jeremy Thomas said that empathy was one quality the board was searching for.

“What we were really looking for was someone that sort of has that emotional intelligence to sit down with anyone and have a good conversation,” Thomas said. “A good listener. That is very much the culture of INHS.”

De la Garza expects those skills will serve them well when meeting people within local communities.

“Affordable housing, whether we like it or not, can be a hot-button issue,” de la Garza said, “and I take great care to meet one-on-one with community members to understand where they are coming from. That involves a lot of respect and communication.”

De la Garza will take the reins from Finance Director Patricia (Patty) Paolangeli, who stepped in as interim director for six months following the exit of Johanna Anderson. Anderson served as INHS executive director for six years and is currently president of Tompkins Community Bank’s Central New York market. 

“She kept her role on the finance side as well as managing the organization overall, so she worked really hard and did a great job,” Thomas said of Paolangeli, who will return to her regular role as finance director when de la Garza comes on board Jan. 2. “The leadership side on the INHS team, with the very capable support from Patty and the board as well, provided an outstanding solution as we looked for an executive director.”

Now that de la Garza is coming on board, Paolangeli will return to her original role as finance director while helping with the transition.

“[Paolangeli] knows the organization inside and out,” Thomas said. “She will be critical to working with Kate and making sure Kate has all the knowledge they need.”

Paolangeli said de la Garza is an ideal fit for the job.

“I think her work experience in affordable housing and community development is critical to the mission of INHS and aligns perfectly with what we’re trying to accomplish in our county and the counties surrounding us,” Paolangeli said.

INHS has held true to its mission over the years while expanding its reach, said Paolangeli, who has been with the organization for 26 years. “When I first started, it was a smaller organization and only working in the city of Ithaca,” she said. “Over time, we expanded our affordable housing opportunities into the rest of Tompkins County and the counties that touch Tompkins County’s borders.… We’re doing the same thing, just on a wider scale.”

De la Garza was already familiar with one INHS project in her most recent role as vice president and senior relationship manager at KeyBank, working across the upstate New York region in its Community Development Lending & Investment division.

“I was the lender and funder on the Village Grove project that’s just breaking ground in Trumansburg, so I was super excited to see that project take shape,” de la Garza said.

KeyBank’s community development lending and investing division is highly focused on affordable housing, de la Garza said, adding that the bank has a large impact even though it is classified as a regional bank.

“We’re the fourth largest affordable housing lender in the country,” they said, “so we punch well above our weight in terms of how much we support affordable housing.… We’ve reached almost every corner of central, western and upstate New York, so that’s been very exciting,” they said, adding that they cannot wait to start working on multifaceted projects such as Village Grove, which is currently breaking ground in Trumansburg.

“These really creative projects are where my heart is at,” de la Garza said, “so when this opportunity came up to combine my passion with my experience working in communities, I knew there couldn’t be a better place to do that than INHS.”

De la Garza said that they are looking forward to leading INHS’s efforts to provide a spectrum of services that will fit the needs of a wide range of people.

“From first-time renters to first-time homeowners and elderly folks who need a renovation of their housing as they’re aging, I’m excited to be a part of INHS’s mission to meet the full spectrum of services needed,” they said. “Most organizations like INHS focus only on rental housing, and it’s remarkable how much INHS has done over the last several decades to advance affordability at all these different levels.”

Paolangeli agreed that INHS is unique in that it provides assistance in multiple areas. “We don’t just focus on rental housing, or just home ownership,” the outgoing interim director said. “Because we are diverse and offer a full service, whether it’s assisting a homeowner who needs repairs or someone who wants to buy a home.”

“We are living in unprecedented times with housing insecurity, interest rates where they are at, homelessness and other crises that dovetail with affordable housing,” de la Garza said.

The majority of federal funding goes to people who make 80% percent of the area median income (AMI) or less, Paolangeli said, adding that the Ithaca area has a higher median income than most of the surrounding counties. Many people living in Tompkins County don’t realize that they qualify for housing assistance.

“Your dental hygienist who feels like she is a professional and went to college for what she is doing but is making $40,000 a year is under 80% AMI in Tompkins County,” Paolangeli said. “When people think affordable housing, they think of it as Section 8 housing, but the majority of the people who qualify are the person who is checking you in at the doctor’s office.… There is a misconception in the world about what affordable housing really is.”

INHS is exploring creative options for what affordable housing might look like, with projects such as its first manufactured home community, Compass MHC, in Trumansburg.

INHS recently purchased several new homes in the existing mobile home park, and Paolangeli said that de la Garza is coming on board at the right time to help build up the community.

“Hopefully she’ll be instrumental in working with [INHS Director of Manufactured Housing] Ben Carver to attract individuals to move into the community,” she said. “There are now paved roads in there, and we’re hoping to upgrade that community to a more desirable location. It’s cool because it’s on a bus route, and there is vacant land out there that we are going to pursue for some other opportunities to build there.”

Future plans for the 138-pad neighborhood, which is also located partially in the town of Covert, include removing vacant, blighted structures and replacing them with energy-efficient manufactured homes, making repairs to existing park-owned homes to ensure all safety and code issues are addressed and installing new roads, sanitary lines, street lighting, landscaping and a playground, as well as improving existing water and drainage systems, according to the INHS website.

Another Trumansburg INHS project is Village Grove, a residential mixed-use, mixed-income project located at 46 South St. That project is about to break ground, but INHS will still need to oversee the housing as people move in.

“We want to be a good landlord and manager of the community and will have staff on site to facilitate the moving-in process,” Paolangeli said.

De la Garza said they are up for all of the modern challenges of the job.

“There are interest rates and barriers like the cost of construction and all the headwinds facing affordable housing right now, and that can certainly get me down,” they said. “But for better or worse, this is my lifelong passion, and if I’m not going to be a light for it, and for change and hope, then who is?”