Investing for Sustainability: Our Stories Merge

[Susan Huizenga]

Oct 10th, my 71st birthday, I will be the Investor Guest Speaker at the Captial For Change's Annual Meeting.

Diane Smith Introduces Me

Susan Huizenga retired into the role of volunteer Executive Director of WPAA-TV and Media Center fifteen years ago because any person or organization could be empowered using its tools & stage.  Her community service began 45 years ago with two years of VISTA. Subsequent roles have included foster mom, President of the League of Women Voters of New Haven, Chairman of a Cable Advisory Council, Prison Chaplain’s Toy Drive Coordinator, Fantasy of Lights Holiday Team Lead, and church treasurer - all with two things in common: cherishing family and staying out of the limelight. Finally, heeding the advice of her VISTA supervisor, she agreed not to keep her light under a basket. Susan Huizenga, her friends call her Adele, will share how she came to be a C4C advocate.

Our Story Together Begins in 1971

In 1971, a few months before Ned Coll's 'Free the Beaches' fame, the Founder of the Hartford North End Revitalization Corps was my high school commencement speaker.

I was on the speaker selection committee. In my send-off to college, My dad gave me a brick and placard. He suggested I was radicalized by Ned Coll. My Dad had more in common with the tenacious Mr. Coll than he knew. They both had a fundamental belief.

Having a home is essential to stability, which is essential to all other opportunities.

I adopted this belief as a core value.

As a business systems analyst of 30-something years, I am a fan of solutions with process improvement. The 2016 merger forming Capital For Change elevated my awareness and appreciation of what I knew about the Greater New Haven Community Loan Fund (GNHCLF).

The loan fund was incorporated, in part, as a result of a two-year interfaith collaboration that supported people temporarily housed by the state in the motel near Merit Parkway Tunnel. We funded security deposits, found furnishings, and moved families into their new apartments ~ many times after cleaning them.

It was there that I met Mr. Harris and his two grandchildren. He was at the motel for 18 months. He provided Social Work Services to motel families without compensation. He had lost his home to fire. The kids lost their mother to opiates. He was relocated to Newhallville. We kept in touch. When I relocated from the Beaver Hill neighborhood in New Haven to North Branford for my growing foster family, Mr. Harris moved into my section 8-approved house.

With these stories, I am not suggesting that to be an investor in Capital For Change you need to be radical in any way. However, I believe the values of equity & solution-driven strategies are critical to the engagement of prospective C4C investors.

Investing reconnected me to housing advocacy. I will add to my investment annually until the modest return can pay for the taxes on my Wallingford home. WPAA-TV will soon make at least one more recurring loan as part of its long-term sustainability strategy for 28 S Orchard St.

I do not know if some version of C4C was operating in 2009. The property owner had agreed to hold the paper with terms of ‘no down payment, 15 yrs. for 6 percent’. A few days before our closing, the terms changed to $40,000 down and 6.5 percent interest. It felt impossible and the rationale was disturbing.

It turns out WPAA-TV would be rescued by my dad's secret love: Violin Music.  The man I excavated out of a dilapidated trailer park in Florida because to quote him ‘He only needed shelter” was a secret fan ClassicArts TV played after midnight on WPAATV. He offered us a C4C-style solution. He loaned us the down payment at 5% interest. He suggested we do an interest-only loan for our 1st year to help with our cash flow. Within 12 years WPAA-TV was debt-free.

We, the Board of WPAA-TV, and I know the value of a good investment partner and are proud to be part of C4C's mission as investors.