EP48 – Kyla Mittal, Affordable Housing Specialist

Welcome back with another episode of the Digible Dudes podcast. Today David and Reid have a new guest, Kyla Mittal, a housing specialist for a non-profit organization that focuses on affordable housing. In today’s episode, Kyla shares her wisdom about numerous aspects of the affordable housing concept.
Kyla dives into the conversation by sharing what she is doing in the field of affordable housing for homeless individuals in the Denver area. She shares her thoughts on several factors that contribute to homelessness in Denver. Kyla dives deep into the issue, explaining some of the demographic factors that contribute to homelessness and the challenges homeless folks have to face. She shares how issues such as the lack of common life skills, mental and health issues, history of surviving without a proper house make matters worse for homeless individuals.
In the next section of the conversation, Kyla talks about how her organization arranges guaranteed payments for people who need assistance with their rent. She also talks about several logistical aspects her organization works on, such as extra pools of funding to cover, security deposit assistance, application fee assistance and, damage fee assistance.
Diving into performance metrics, Kyla shared how they measure the success of the work by reduced recidivism and how her organization guides its clients to stay in houses rather than jumping from one apartment to another and how they build partnerships with other organizations to create stable housing for the clients.
In the next part, Kyla talks about the process of working with landlords. She explains the benefits landlords can have by working with them, different voucher programs they offer, and some of the challenging experiences she has seen when working with landlords. Talking about the landlord barriers, Kyla mentioned how some landlords are unwilling to drop their rent prices to what the voucher can cover and some of the measures her organization has to take to counteract it. Towards the end of the episode, Kyla talks about the challenges they face when trying to keep the communication with her clients when most of her clients don’t possess a cellphone.
[05.12] Introduction – What affordable housing means for the real estate industry.
[10.19] What Causes Homelessness? – Kyla shares her thoughts on some of the factors that contribute to homelessness in the Denver area.
[13.06] Hardships of Homelessness – How some socioeconomic factors make matters worse for homeless individuals.
[17.31] Assistance to Homeless individuals – How Kyla’s organization helps people with their housing.
[20.24] Guidance for Customers – Kyla dives into how her organization guides customers in a way they can maintain stable housing and how her organization measures the success of their work.
[28.15] Benefits for Landlords – Kyla shares the benefits landlords can get from working with her organization.
[32.12] Working with Landlords – Some of the challenging situations that emerge when working with landlords and the workarounds.
[35.29] Communication with Clients – Kyla faces a unique challenge when communicating with their clients when most of the clients do not possess a cellphone. Kyla shares the measures they take to overcome this challenge.
[42:34] Get Involved – How you can get involved to improve affordable housing.