COQ Awards Program
National Sponsors of NAHMA’s 2023 Communities of Quality® Awards Program
Three Communities Earn NAHMA COQ Awards
NAHMA announces that three communities won 2023 Communities of Quality (COQ) Awards this year. Since 1992, these awards have honored the best multifamily affordable housing communities nationwide.
Entrants are judged on how they manage their properties’ physical, financial, and social conditions and how well they convey their success in offering their residents the highest quality of life.
The 2023 COQ Awards will be presented as part of a special luncheon and panel discussion with the winners on March 7 during the NAHMA’s Biannual Top Issues in Affordable Housing winter conference on March 6-8. For details on the NAHMA meeting, visit https://www.nahma.org/meetings/.
“There is no other award that focuses so comprehensively on the everyday life and management expertise of affordable housing properties,” Kris Cook, CAE, NAHMA CEO, said.
This year’s COQ Awards program is jointly sponsored by Navigate Affordable Housing Partners, a nonprofit engaged in developing, owning and managing affordable housing and consulting with various housing agencies and the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Section 8 project-based contract administrator (PBCA) for multiple states, and Yardi, which develops and supports industry-leading compliance, accounting and property management software for every type and size of affordable housing provider.
NAHMA congratulates the winners.
- Exemplary Family Development: Lindsay Apartments, Lindsay, Calif.; Owner: Honolulu Group LP; Management: The Michaels Organization; AHMA: AHMA-NCH
- Exemplary Development for the Elderly: St. Joseph Village, Dyersburg, Tenn.; Owner: St. Joseph Village LP; Management Company: Wesley Living; AHMA: SAHMA
- Exemplary Development for Residents with Special Needs: Mullen Manor, Sicklerville, N.J.; Owner: New Jersey Affordable Housing Preservation; Management Company: PRD Management; AHMA: JAHMA
About Navigate Affordable Housing Partners
Based in Birmingham, Ala., Navigate Affordable Housing Partners is a nonprofit engaged in developing, owning, and managing affordable housing. Navigate is also a federal contractor providing compliance and financial services on behalf of HUD as the Section 8 PBCA for multiple states. Navigate’s core values—Service, Respect, Transparency, Quality, and Innovation—are applied to every aspect of their work and have resulted in an exemplary reputation in the housing industry. For further information, visit https://www.navigatehousing.com/.
About Yardi
Yardi develops and supports industry-leading compliance, accounting and property management software for every type and size of affordable housing provider. Yardi solutions streamline compliance with HOME, USDA Rural Housing, HUD 50059 and Low-Income Housing Tax Credit programs. Clients choose Yardi for quality products, expert support and stability. They stay with us for evolving solutions that outpace the ever-changing technology landscape. For more information on how Yardi is Energized for Tomorrow, visit yardi.com or call 800-866-1144.
The following is a summary of the award-winning developments based on essays they submitted as part of the awards application.
Lindsay Apartments
Enjoy a video about Lindsay Apartments: https://youtu.be/fKDa05-FEFE
For more than 30 years, Lindsay Apartments has provided a safe place to call home for some of the city’s hardest-working people with the lowest household income. We will strive to continue this for our community for the next 30 years and beyond.
Lindsay Apartments community likes to think of itself as a little family. Residents know they are welcome to come into the office with questions or concerns or just to say “Hi” and tell the staff how they are doing.
The community room is open to residents to gather and play games, watch movies or have a place to come in and get out of the heat. There is also a computer room with five desktop computers and printers for the residents to use whenever necessary.
The staff strives to give the residents a place to feel safe and takes pride in their work to make sure everyone here is happy to call Lindsay Apartments their home.
Management walks the property daily to ensure that the grounds are kept clean and that the property is well maintained.
Every year, management plans the budgets for the following year. When doing so, they look for things to improve or upgrade the property. It could be installing new countertops, new flooring, or, for instance, new furniture and appliances for the community room in the most recent budget. Staff always looks for ways to improve the property and ensure the residents are happy.
The 24/7 on-site maintenance staff work hard to make sure any calls they receive are taken care of in a timely manner to ensure that everything is fully functional and working correctly for the valued residents.
One of the great things about the management company, The Michaels Organization, is that it offers residents college scholarships every year. It allows students looking to further their education an opportunity to do so. This past year, Lindsay Apartments had two residents awarded scholarships.
Lindsay Apartments works with Better Tomorrows, which works with community partners to facilitate impactful social services and community programs for seniors, adults, and children living in affordable housing communities. The program is designed to help with academic support, financial literacy, health, wellness and nutrition, job readiness, occupational wellness and stability, and social and community engagement.
St. Joseph Village
Enjoy a video about St. Joseph Village: https://youtu.be/rhqJ_vlfe-8
With a bustling population of 16,00 people, the small West Tennessee town of Dyersburg is home to St. Joseph Village.
St. Joseph is a HUD Section 202/8 property that houses low and extremely low-income residents aged 62 and over. It was built and placed in service in the 1980s and has been a mainstay in Dyersburg for senior retirement. St. Joseph was built and run by the Catholic Diocese of Memphis until 2012, when it was acquired by Wesley Housing Corporation of Memphis, now known as Wesley Living.
St. Joseph Village’s staff and Wesley Living’s commitment make it a true Community of Quality. St. Joseph has the same staff they had when Wesley Living acquired the property in 2012. The property manager at that time is now the regional asset manager, and the current manager has been at St. Joseph for five years. The maintenance technician has been at St. Joseph for an impressive 25 years, and the service coordinator has been there for 12 years. The regional manager has 13 years of experience with Wesley Living.
The employees are all SAHMA Excellence Program members and the property manager was the 2023 SAHMA Manager of the Year. The manager is an active volunteer with SAHMA and has her CPO, FHC, and SHCM designations. At the same time, the service coordinator is a Tennessee State Health Insurance Assistance Program level III counselor and volunteer, the secretary for her American Association of Service Coordinators chapter, a Certified Dementia Practitioner, and holds her PSC designation.
The staff at St. Joseph is dedicated to the overall well-being of the residents. Residents never know what they might find happening in the community room at St. Joseph on any given day. There are too many activities to list, ranging from fitness classes and money management presentations to jewelry making, potlucks, holiday/seasonal tree decorating, painting classes, cookouts, line dancing, health fairs, holiday parties, free manicures, music bingo, dementia and Alzheimer’s support, free life planning legal services, spiritual offerings, breakfast club and much, much more. And, of course, the staff is always elbow-deep in the fun. It is unimaginable to some that the employees can say they get paid to “play” at times.
One of the community’s proudest offerings is a Wesley bus to take residents grocery shopping and to banks, pharmacies, post office, department stores and other offerings in Dyersburg and surrounding towns. However, the residents most enjoy the outings each week. One such outing was to Senior Day at the Memphis Zoo. Seeing the residents’ faces light up was great; many of them had never been to a zoo before. They were like children on Christmas morning, seeing the animals they had only ever seen on television or in books.
St. Joseph has partnered with Christ Classical Academy in Dyersburg and its Salt & Light Project, allowing the students of CCA an opportunity to serve. The project helps students develop an outward focus by seeing and meeting the needs of others. There are many other community agencies and programs St. Joseph partners with, such as the Chamber of Commerce, the Red Cross, McIver’s Grant Public Library, the United Methodist Church and other spiritual entities, First Citizens National Bank, West Tennesee Legal Services, Feed The Need, Transitions of Dyer County, Matthew 25:40, Office on Aging, Senior Crimestoppers, the local UT [University of Tennessee Institute of Agriculture] Extension Office and many more. Being heavily involved within the community brings activities and education to the residents that enrich their lives physically, emotionally, and spiritually while helping them retain their independence.
St. Joseph began to age and needed upgrading and modernization; Wesley Living set its sights on seeking funding to rehabilitate the property. The main goal for rehabilitation was to ensure the aging property would continue to be an asset to the senior population of Dyersburg and a safe, modern, and exciting place to call home. Planning and development took several years to engineer options for rehabbing the site. The site was refinanced and layered with Low-Income Housing Tax Credits (LIHTC) for the total rehabilitation project and development. The rehab work began in late 2017 and was completed in 2018.
Some of the significant innovative designs include green technology building attributes such as LED lighting, thermal insulated windows, sweepable floors made of fiberglass that are attractive and repairable with a lifetime warranty to reduce waste, low or no formaldehyde cabinets, centralized heating and air conditioning, no VOC [volatile organic compounds] paint, Energy Star-rated appliances, highly insulated roofs, and high-efficiency exterior doors. The apartments were modified to be adaptive, with restrictive walls and obstacles removed during renovations so that as the residents age, the apartments can adapt to their needs. Other adaptive items include cabinets that convert for under-counter wheelchair access when needed but provide additional cabinet space when not required, lowered upper cabinets and other accessible features.
St. Joseph is an Enterprise Green Community and was recognized nationally as an Enterprise Green Best Practice. With renovation and modernization, the facility’s upgrades decreased energy consumption by 40%, saving over $30,000 annually and reducing water consumption by over 20%.
The rehabilitation of the property was also about enhancing the lives of the seniors by building a new community room that could hold all the residents in one space and the staff offices. There used to be two small community rooms, and having an activity or function with all 90 residents in attendance couldn’t be accomplished. The new community room is spacious and outfitted with a generator, shower facility and storage for cots in case of a weather-related or catastrophic event in or around the area. One of the two previous community spaces was converted into a theater room with
state-of-the-art equipment, including a projection screen, DVD, surround sound and streaming capabilities. St. Joseph now has some Netflix aficionados. The other previous community room was made into a state-of-the-art fitness center with exercise machines designed specifically for seniors. With an emphasis on overall health—to reduce risk factors for dementia, cardiovascular disease, and fall prevention—the community offers physical fitness and health education classes. It has an exercise physiologist to assist the residents with fitness workouts, healthy eating habits, chair exercises and line dancing classes. Programs like these help to keep the residents happy, prevent social isolation and promote a healthy lifestyle.
Another exceptional attribute of St. Joseph Village is its dedication to housing people experiencing homelessness. St. Joseph has housed 10 homeless persons in just the last two years.
When a homeless resident moves in, the unit is fully furnished with furniture by a partnership with Big Lots and other local companies, and the Golden Cross Senior Ministries provides 30 days of nonperishable foods and a move-in kit that contains everything a homeless person would need for daily living. The kit has everything from a toothbrush and toilet paper to dishes, linens, cleaning supplies, soap, pots/pans, and decorative items. The resident also receives a gift card to buy perishable foods at the grocery store.
Some of the people formerly experiencing homelessness at St. Joseph found themselves in need because of mental illness. The dedicated and educated staff helps residents obtain the services needed to treat their disorders and lead fulfilling lives. Wesley Living’s interdisciplinary team of service coordinators includes mental health professionals, nurses, and social workers who work together for every resident. The nurse can work with hospitals, doctors, and other health care organizations, as well as be an advocate for the resident while dealing with these entities. When dealing with government entities like Social Security, though, the on-staff service coordinator can assist residents in navigating the extraordinarily complex systems. This interdisciplinary team brings a level of support uncommon in most affordable facilities nationwide, and this team is critical in meeting the needs of not just people experiencing homelessness but all the residents of St. Joseph.
Being a resident or staff member at St. Joseph Village means you are family. The feeling of family makes St. Joseph “home” for our residents. The residents and staff celebrate milestones, grieve losses, empower and support one another in a way that is hard to describe. It is a feeling. A comfort. A way of life.
Mullen Manor
Enjoy a video about Mullen Manor: https://youtu.be/orp4chpT_1M
Mullen Manor, nestled in Sicklerville, N.J., is a testament to the unwavering commitment, dedication, and transformative power of community. Under the stewardship of the property manager, who has served this extraordinary residence for 17 years, Mullen Manor has emerged as a beacon of exemplary development for residents with special needs.
This remarkable property has undergone a significant transformation over time. The exterior of the building now welcomes visitors with an inviting facade, enhanced by the addition of stone columns and a lighted sign, effectively transitioning it from a simple structure to a symbol of hope and inclusivity. The interior, equally impressive, is renovating each of the 24 apartments as they are turned over from one resident to another. The overhaul includes all new flooring, modern kitchens, and bathroom upgrades. These renovations, guided by the principle of being strictly barrier-free, have given the residents the independence and comfort they deserve.
Mullen Manor’s origins are deeply rooted in compassion. The project was named after the late mayor of Sicklerville, Ann Mullen, who initiated the idea in 1994, partnering with PRD Management Inc. This collaboration led to the development of the property from 1997 to 1999, utilizing land donated by the township of Gloucester. The sponsorship for this endeavor came from the Multiple Sclerosis Association of America, reflecting a commitment to the cause of those with mobility impairments. In 2016, HUD approved a sponsorship transfer to allow New Jersey Affordable Housing Preservation to become the new sponsor, reinforcing the property’s commitment to its mission.
One of the most exceptional aspects of Mullen Manor is the care and appreciation extended not only to residents but also to employees who go above and beyond in their dedication to the building and the community they have helped create within its walls. This culture of recognition and appreciation fosters a nurturing environment that goes well beyond providing physical assistance.
Residents of Mullen Manor take great pride in their home. They actively participate in decorating the common areas and making use of the outdoor spaces. The proximity to Camden County College’s Blackwood campus offers unique opportunities for residents to engage with the wider community.
Partnerships with organizations like Walgreens for vaccinations and the services of a podiatrist reflect a commitment to holistic care. Regular deliveries of food and produce from local farmers and Wawa ensure that residents receive essential resources catering to those who may find it challenging to venture outside. Collaborations with local institutions, including the Camden County Living Center, local churches, and the Girl Scouts, further enrich the lives of Mullen Manors’ residents. The Girl Scouts are active throughout the year at Mullen Manor, where they hold door-to-door Christmas caroling during the winter holidays, give out candy and cookies, and, in the summer, help with various residents’ needs and do seasonal activities.
What sets Mullen Manor apart is its dedication to providing independence to residents with special needs. Notably, a 28-year-old resident was able to experience true independence for the first time when she moved to the community, a transformation that brought newfound confidence that was truly life-changing. Her experience encouraged her, and after years of residing at Mullen Manor, she had the confidence to live more independently on her own in the greater community. Similarly, a differently abled father cared full time for his then f5e-year-old child, who has now graduated from high school, exemplifying the property’s transformative influence on lives.
Mullen Manor has modernized its infrastructure and created an atmosphere that encourages independence. The tenant coordinator, Regina Richards, not only schedules activities like bingo and parties but also helps with paperwork for programs the residents may qualify for and assists in completing them correctly. Various skills that teach independence, or at least contribute to the sense of autonomy, are things like computer assistance with online ordering of groceries, setting up a Grubhub account, making crafts to give as gifts, setting up transportation for doctors’ appointments, or something as simple as wrapping gifts at holidays.
The property’s commitment to barrier-free living and assistance from private home health aides as needed reflects a profound dedication to ensuring residents have access to all available resources for their well-being.
The rest of the Mullen Manor team includes the maintenance superintendent, who addresses work orders thoughtfully and promptly in all units and throughout the property, and the on-site live-in, who has lived on the premises for 16 years. She handles all resident emergencies and maintains the cleanliness of the common areas with care and attention.
An electronic bulletin board informs residents about events, services, and community activities. The property’s social calendar is brimming with engaging activities, from Sunday’s Eagles games to community barbecues that invite families to partake in the joy of the community.
The property’s interiors are a testament to thoughtful design, with decorations for every holiday and a fully adorned common area that fosters a sense of community and belonging. Despite its nonprofit nature, Mullen Manor invests its budget to make every aspect beautiful. The property manager keeps her door open, physically and metaphorically, encouraging residents to express their needs and ensuring that they feel heard and their needs are met.
Mullen Manor holds a special place in the hearts of its residents. It is a place where those with mobility impairments find the support they need to lead independent lives. They can sit by the path through the nearby park to watch games at the brand-new pickleball court and partake in various activities within the park. Mullen Manor, backed by the supportive township, is even working to install better sidewalks to improve accessibility.
Mullen Manor is not merely a property but a symbol of inclusion, empowerment, and transformation. Its dedication to fostering independence, creating a close-knit community, and serving as a lifeline for those with special needs makes it the epitome of development in the field of housing for the mobility impaired. It is a place where residents find a home and the confidence to live their lives to the fullest. Mullen Manor has made an unprecedented contribution by providing the opportunity for independence and creating a vibrant supportive community for people facing similar circumstances, ultimately empowering individuals to embrace life again.
Past Award Winners:
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Disclaimer: Properties that meet the COQ National Recognition criteria may hold themselves forth to the public as such. However, NAHMA and the AHMAs do not assume and hereby disclaim any and all liability to any person or entity for any claims, damages, liability or other loss including, without limitation, any liability for injury or other damage resulting from any use of or reliance on the information provided through the COQ National Recognition and Awards Program. NAHMA and the AHMAs do not make any express or implied warranties, representations or endorsements whatsoever, or in any way, regarding the properties listed as COQ National Recognition or Award Winners.