Two Powerful Tools for Preventing Eviction
The Flagstone Team • September 26, 2023
The Flagstone Initiative News, September 2023
Greetings from your nonprofit Flagstone friends!
For those of you just tuning in, The Flagstone Initiative is a nonprofit working to prevent eviction and homelessness.
We focus on prevention because we believe that it’s way better to help people upstream rather than waiting until problems have piled up.
We do this by improving financial stability for low- to moderate-income renters who are living paycheck to paycheck.
Over the past year, we’ve seen very encouraging results from our ongoing demonstration projects with Rent Splitting and Rent Loans. Residents and housing owners/operators alike have recognized the benefits.
Rent Splitting helps with tight cash flow.
Most people get paid weekly or bi-weekly, and rent is by far their biggest expense.
In recent surveys, over 80% of residents reported that most or all of their first check of the month goes to rent—”Rent eats first.”
“Do I want to pay my rent, or do I want food in the house?” —J.S., Kentucky
With Rent Splitting, residents can pay rent in two installments, which smooths cash flow and enables people to keep food on the table and stay current on their other bills.
“I feel like if I didn't have rent split and I had to literally pay the whole thing and then pay bills, it would be a struggle to eat.” —S.G., Oklahoma
Rent Loans help when life happens.
We all experience small financial shocks from time to time—things like car repairs or missed hours due to illness.
These common shocks can lead to bigger problems if you don’t have savings. Unfortunately, 60% of the residents we serve report having zero savings.
“It can be the smallest thing. It can go from $200 today to the start of a real bad downfall.” -—E.M., Kentucky
To help residents absorb these shocks, we offer $500 Rent Loans with no fees and no interest. Residents repay with automatic $20 weekly transfers for 25 weeks, spreading out the impact of the shock.
The money is applied directly to rent, which helps avoid delinquency, late fees, and the specter of eviction.
“I appreciate the loan, you know. It helped my family extremely. We wasn’t put outside for it, so it did good.” —J.S., Kentucky
Rent Splitting and Rent Loans are more powerful together.
For 60% of Americans who live paycheck-to-paycheck, tight cash flow and lack of savings to handle life’s little shocks are common problems.
Rent Splitting and Rent Loans each do a good job of addressing one of these common problems.
Rent Splitting helps with tight cash flow.
Rent Loans help handle life’s little financial shocks.
These two solutions complement each other and are a powerful combination for preventing people from falling behind on rent and other bills.
“It’s juggling, sweetheart… I’ve been robbing Peter to pay Paul, and it’s been working until last month… I could handle things, but then the unexpected things came up.” —A.S., Chicago
Together, the combination of Rent Splitting plus Rent Loans prevents small problems from becoming big problems like eviction and homelessness.
We currently reach 2,500 residents of workforce/LIHTC housing in five states (AL, IL, KY, OK, and NY), and we’re adding more partners to extend our service to more struggling renters. Eventually, we want to offer these solutions nationwide, and change the way that Americans pay rent.
How you can help:
Please connect us with anyone who can help us scale our impact -- especially foundations and landlords. We are keen to grow and provide more help to more people!
As always, we are sincerely grateful for the help and support we receive from our incredible network of partners and friends. We couldn’t do this without your help.
Thank you for your support!
The Flagstone Team
Chip, Grace, Gregor, Keith, Shashank, and Shin
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Flagstone is thrilled to continue our work in Louisville, Kentucky with the support of the Louisville Affordable Housing Trust Fund! This will be LAHTF’s second contribution to the Flagstone Initiative, and we can’t wait to see the impact of our continued collaboration. We are thankful to have support from the Louisville Affordable Housing Trust Fund to make Rent Loans in Louisville, so we can prevent eviction for vulnerable families there. The Rent Loans provided through this grant will help renters keep their homes.
We are excited to announce that the William Josef Foundation has committed to supporting the work Flagstone does in Georgia! Their generous contribution will go towards making Rent Loans to families that are vulnerable to eviction in the Atlanta area. The William Josef Foundation, an organization that supports service, advocacy, and policy strategies aimed at expanding access and reducing barriers to affordable housing for individuals experiencing homelessness and housing insecurity in Georgia with a focus on Metro Atlanta. We’re grateful to begin a new partnership with the William Josef Foundation!
The Flagstone Initiative is happy to share that we have received support from Zillow For Good (Z4G) , a program dedicated to making a meaningful impact through support of nonprofits focused on housing security. Z4G’s contribution will help us make Rent Loans to paycheck-to-paycheck renters across the country! We’re thankful for the opportunity to reach more renters who need support to keep their homes. The funds contributed from Zillow will allow us to make Rent Loans across the country to families struggling to maintain financial stability.
Gregor, as you rotate out of your board seat, we want to thank you for crucial contributions as a co-founder and for serving the last four years as our inaugural Chairman. You were instrumental in founding and standing up Flagstone. We wouldn’t be where we are without you. How do we appreciate you? Let us count the ways: You fostered innovation and helped us achieve product/market fit. You gave us access to properties where we could learn, test, and pilot different upstream prevention approaches. You also gave us the freedom to explore and iterate quickly—“Do what you want.” You also raised the capital needed to launch the Flagstone Initiative. In addition to the generous support that you provided, you also found like-minded funders to join you. Without that initial funding, there wouldn’t have been any runway to get this thing off the ground. Most importantly, you believed in us and in the win-win vision that upstream prevention would prevent both renters and housing providers. You publicly advocated for the idea of upstream prevention and helped put the word in the street. We will miss you, Gregor, but we will continue to build on what we’ve created together and carry on with your vision of using scalable technology solutions to become the "biggest nonprofit ever." Thank you, Gregor, from the entire Flagstone team!
We are pleased to announce that t he Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta has given us their support for Rent Loans in Atlanta, GA, playing a critical role in making Rent Loans available to Atlanta renters at risk of eviction, helping to keep them in their homes. We are extremely grateful for the support of the Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta. Their early leadership in supporting eviction prevention is key to our efforts in Greater Atlanta, and we deeply appreciate the support of the community.
We are pleased to announce that The Gheens Foundation has renewed their support for Rent Loans in Louisville, KY, playing a critical role in making Rent Loans available to Louisville renters at risk of eviction, helping to keep them in their homes. We are extremely grateful for the support of The Gheens Foundation and other generous foundations dedicated to helping Kentucky renters. With their collective support, we have made hundreds of Rent Loans to Kentucky renters, stabilizing their finances so they can remain stably housed.
Happy summer from your friends at Flagstone! We’ve been busy helping paycheck-to-paycheck renters stay in their homes with our no-fee, no-interest Rent Loans. We’re growing fast: We now reach 6,500 households, on pace for 10,000 by year end Over 330 loans made in 2025 so far, already more than double all of 2024 We’re on track to make over 1,000 Rent Loans annually
We are excited to announce that the Community Foundation of Louisville (CFL) has made a multi-year project-related investment supporting Rent Loans in Louisville, KY. With this loan capital from CFL, we will be able to make thousands of Rent Loans to Louisville renters at risk of eviction, and help keep them in their homes. We are extremely grateful for the support of CFL and other generous foundations dedicated to helping Kentucky renters. With their collective support, we have made hundreds of Rent Loans to Kentucky renters, stabilizing their finances so they can remain stably housed.
We are proud to announce that the Mike & Gillian Goodrich Foundation has renewed and extended their support for upstream eviction prevention in Alabama, with a multi-year grant. Their support helps enable Flagstone's no-fee, no-interest Rent Loans for renters, improving housing stability and helping people stay in their homes. We are extremely grateful for the support of the Mike & Gillian Goodrich Foundation and the many other generous foundations dedicated to helping Alabama renters. With their collective support, we have made hundreds of Rent Loans to Alabama renters, stabilizing their finances so they can remain stably housed.
We are happy to share that the Louisville Affordable Housing Trust Fund (LAHTF) has contributed to our upstream effort to improve housing stability with Rent Loans in Louisville, KY. We are extremely grateful for the support of LAHTF and the other generous foundations dedicated to helping Kentucky renters. With their collective support, we have made hundreds of Rent Loans to Kentucky renters, stabilizing their finances so they can remain stably housed.
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