Changing of the guard at NeDA

Executive director retires after 25 years; successor on board

Jake Spitzack
Staff Writer

Although a few vacations under the warm sun and swaying palms were interrupted by urgent business phone calls, Karen Reid’s 25-year career as executive director of the Neighborhood Development Alliance (NeDA) was a rewarding one for her. In her tenure with the nonprofit she expanded financial counseling services, oversaw the construction and management of 188 affordable rental housing units on the West Side, and spearheaded the Centro de Finanzas, NeDA’s lending program.

“For me, it has a societal purpose,” said Reid. “I’m not just making money and going home at the end of the day, and I think all NeDA’s staff feel that way. We’re assisting people in housing, whether it’s providing affordable rental housing, or building or rehabbing single family homes for homeownership, or counseling to get people squared away financially so they have options to own or get a better rental. Our staff could all go work in the corporate field because they’re all bilingual and very knowledgeable, but this gives their life a purpose besides just a paycheck.”

Reid officially retired in mid-July, and Maria Steffel succeeded her, becoming NeDA’s fifth executive director. She was selected by the 8-member NeDA board of directors following a search by KpCompanies. Originally from Coahuila, Mexico, she has a public accounting degree with a focus in finance and business administration from the Universidad Autonoma de Coahuila, and past experience includes several leadership roles including two years as director of finance for Neighborhood House.

Founded in 1989, NeDA offers free financial workshops and one-on-one financial counseling services, with an emphasis on helping people buy or keep a home. Services are offered metro wide in English and Spanish and include first-time homebuyer workshops, foreclosure prevention counseling, personal finance for ages 18-22, and debt management planning in partnership with Lutheran Social Services. It also offers matched saving accounts allowing low-wage earners to receive $3 for every $1 saved – up to a total of $2,880 in matched funds – as well as credit-builder micro loans.

The nonprofit is a licensed general contractor and works to create affordable housing on the West Side by rehabbing homes or creating new ones. Projects that Reid has spearheaded include the Bluff Park Apartments, Villa de la Sol, 35-townhomes known as the Terraces and the recently completed Stryker Apartments. Overall, the nonprofit oversees 215 rental units which are available at 80% of the area median income. It can provide home improvement Fix-Up loans through its Centro de Finanzas, established in 2018, and the Minnesota Housing Finance Agency.

Among Steffel’s first orders of business is securing a license for NeDA to offer small consumer loans, and determining if there are any major developments she’d like to begin. Additionally, a comprehensive assessment of the Terraces was completed last year, and it was found that improvements are needed, including kitchen upgrades and driveway repair.

“There’s not a lot of land for us [to develop],” said Reid. “There’s stuff on the flats, but it’s for [Steffel] to figure out if she wants to go against some of the bigger developers. There’s not a lot of vacant land here up above the flats. I think there’s opportunity if NeDA wanted to reinvigorate their single-family housing program – purchase a house, rehab it, and sell it to low-income homeowners at 80 percent of area needs [Area Median Income].”

Reid mostly stayed out of the house rehab game during her tenure because many homes on the West Side were built before World War II and required costly repairs. In recent years it has been cost-prohibitive to purchase properties due to bidding wars that have jacked-up home prices. It’s worth noting that NeDA owns two lots on the West Side but has no plans to build anything on them at this time.

“Since we work with a lot of federal, state and city dollars, we have higher compliance than the market does,” said Reid. “It costs more because I think on the whole – not every time – we provide a better quality product because we try to get sustainable materials as much as can be afforded. It’s not that we don’t do vinyl siding, but we do quality vinyl siding, and we have Energy Star appliances and very high efficiency heating and cooling systems and windows. We try to make sure that people don’t have to do anything to the house for, frankly, 25 years. It’s making sure it’s very energy efficient so you have lower utility costs.”

The nonprofit wrapped up its fiscal year at the end of June and the board approved funding to hire three additional staff to assist with lending, management of rental properties and more. Reid had highly recommended this before her departure, as she and the seven other NeDA staff members took on additional responsibilities after losing several staff amidst the pandemic.

In retirement, Reid will finish out the final year of her last term as a volunteer with the Mississippi River Watershed Management Organization. A St. Paul appointee, she completes weekly water sample testing from Ivy Falls Creek and Interstate Valley Creek, checking for everything from phosphorus levels and dangerous bacteria such as E. coli to clarity and temperature. In August, she’ll visit family in western New York, marking her first vacation in more than two decades that she won’t be on call.

For more information about NeDA and its services, visit nedahome.org.

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