Creating Community

After years of living in subsidized apartments, single mom Leona Hendricks is a proud homeowner. So proud, in fact, that she's even taken to gardening.

"I never had that green thumb," Hendricks says. "But because it's my own, I go out there and experiment."

A year ago, Hendricks moved into a new home in Orlando's Holden Heights neighborhood. The home was built through the Art in Architecture program, spearheaded by the Orlando Regional Realtor Association.

Art in Architecture, the association's signature outreach effort, creates well-designed, affordable homes for low- and moderate-income families.

Indeed, since its founding in 1921, ORRA has grown far beyond its original mission of helping its members to grow as real estate agents.

What began as a small local organization in a sleepy citrus town is now a major force in one of the country's fastest-growing, most dynamic regions. Now, in addition to promoting professionalism in the real estate industry, ORRA administers and supports programs that change lives.

For example, the organization and its 12,000 members support causes that include Toys for Tots, Canine Companions for Independence, CrimeLine, local PBS affiliates, Compassion Children's Foundation and Habitat for Humanity.

Each year, ORRA also donates $5,000 scholarships to area high school seniors. Based on essays related to real estate, four students receive $500 scholarships, and the winner gets an additional $3,000.

But ORRA's best-known program by far is Art in Architecture. With the help of local interior designers, lenders, architects and builders, the program's goal is to help ease the region's affordable housing crisis while demonstrating that low-cost homes can still be beautiful and well constructed.

"The downside of the market is the lack of affordable housing for the people we need most in the community," says Belton Jennings, ORRA's charismatic chief executive officer. "Our teachers, our policemen and our firefighters can't afford to live in the communities where they work anymore."

For 13 years, Jennings has shaped ORRA's growth. Born and raised in Ocala, he has a quick laugh and the gift of gab-especially about his family, his beloved Gators and the Orlando community.

In fact, many real estate professionals consider Jennings' "state of the industry" presentations at ORRA's well-attended quarterly luncheons to be can't-miss occasions.

Aided by Power Point charts but without consulting notes, Jennings keeps a normally fidgety crowd of several hundred type-A personalities spellbound with his humor, enthusiasm and his incredible command of issues impacting the industry.

When he was invited to become the CEO of ORRA, Jennings was living in Virginia and serving as executive vice president of the Tidewater Association of Realtors. But he jumped at the chance to move back to the region he loves.

"Thomas Wolfe was wrong," Jennings quips. "You can go home again."

Though Jennings loves being back in Central Florida, he's frequently called to far-flung locales to share his expertise.

For example, he recently traveled to India, which has no formal real estate organization, to speak about the value of banding together as an industry to encourage ethical business practices, knowledge sharing, fair prices for buyers and sellers and fair commissions for the agents who bring the two together.

Jennings also has visited China and Panama as a speaker and is a member of the International Real Property Foundation, which is dedicated to developing private real property markets worldwide.

Closer to home, Jennings has worked to ensure that ORRA supports the common interests of the community.

"That means everything from responsible land use to ensuring good water quality," Jennings says. "All the things that matter to the community matter to us."

Including affordable housing.

It was in 2002 that Steven L. Chitwood, president of Realty Showcase in Winter Park, came up with the idea of real estate agents taking it upon themselves to tackle this seemingly intractable problem.

At Chitwood's urging, ORRA created a foundation and endowed it with $60,000 to buy four lots in the down-on-its-heels Holden Heights neighborhood, where run-down homes and absentee landlords were commonplace.

"I knew that if enough people joined together toward a common goal, the result could be aesthetically pleasing new homes that people with modest incomes could afford," Chitwood says.

The American Institute of Architects, under then-president John Ehrig, signed up three firms-The Evans Group, Nasrallah Fine Architectural Design and Fugelberg Koch Architects-to design three of the four homes for free. The Young Architects Forum, a group of architects at the beginning of their careers, designed the fourth.

The Home Builders Association of Metro Orlando also offered a formal endorsement, and three builder-members-Bel-Aire Homes, The Watson Group and Westar Homes-agreed to build the homes at cost.

"Everyone just rolled up their sleeves and jumped in," says Larry White, founder of Westar Homes. "It all came together with a lot of good momentum."

Finally, three interior designers-Builders Design Studio, Carolyn Franklin Interiors and Socco Interiors-donated their time to decorate the homes with a meager $1,500-per-house budget and hand-me-downs from timeshare mogul David Siegel's Westgate Resorts Foundation.

ORRA was able to recoup its investment, plus a little more, from the sale of the Holden Heights homes-at prices ranging from $112,000 to $130,000-then plowed the money back into its endowment pot.

Now ORRA has bought eight more lots in conjunction with the Orange Blossom Trail Development Board, says Kevin Fritz, the association's vice president of communications and marketing. Under the Art in Architecture umbrella, ORRA will build 60 townhomes on the site and price them at $150,000 to $160,000.

Meanwhile, Art in Architecture has already completed and sold 10 single-family homes in pricey Winter Park's once-forlorn Canton Park neighborhood.

To mitigate soaring land costs, the city deeded an entire city block to a community trust. The three-bedroom, two-bathroom homes built there sold for about $125,000, but the price encompassed the structures only. Buyers received 99-year leases for the land, which continues to be owned by the trust.

Amanda Scheid of Coldwell Banker Residential Real Estate in Winter Park watched Art in Architecture's Canton Park redevelopment project unfold from her office. "I was amazed how beautiful attainable housing could look," she says.

The rejuvenation of Winter Park's previously run-down Westside has picked up speed since the project was completed.

"Since new families moved into the Canton Park homes, a new sense of pride surrounds the Westside," Scheid says. "The boutiques, the restaurants, especially the [Hannibal Square] park-they all stem from the families that have moved here."

Building community family by family is a cornerstone of ORRA's mission, its officials say. Enhancing its members' professionalism is another, and no one is more dedicated to that mission than Beverly Pindling, president of the association for 2006.

Asked about her ideas for the coming months, Pindling's response is rapid fire: education, education, education.

"Education in our profession is key, because our business changes so often," Pindling says. "The laws change; if we have a buyer's or a seller's market, the way we do business changes."

To foster ongoing education for Realtors, ORRA publishes a monthly magazine and holds workshops on everything from contract law to risk management. Recently, the association began offering Spanish language classes to its members.

"Members should try to learn something every day," Pindling says. "They should try to make education a focal point of their everyday business, because without that, they can't work effectively out there."

For evidence of ORRA's own effectiveness in the Central Florida community, one need only return to Leona Hendricks' garden in Holden Heights, where her hibiscus is starting to show signs of life.

After staying in a shelter upon her arrival in Orlando and living in subsidized apartments for years, Hendricks found the idea of owning her own home unthinkable until she heard about ORRA's Art in Architecture program.

Now it's a source of pride and achievement.

"It boosts my self-esteem," Hendricks says. "It means a lot to me."

A HELPING HAND

• Scholarship Contest: Awarded yearly to four high school seniors, this essay contest grants $500 each to the winning entrants from northwest, northeast, southwest, and southeast Orlando. Of the four winners, one will be awarded an additional $3,000.

• Art in Architecture: In partnership with the Home Builders Association of Metro Orlando, local lenders, architcts and interior designers, this project builds affordable housing in the Orlando region for moderate- and lower-income families.

• Hispanic Summit: ORRA supports this program, which fosters understanding of the strength and potential of the Hispanic community in the Orlando region.

• Myregion.org: ORRA was one of the founding members of this organization, which brings major community organizations and municipal officials together to find solutions to issues related to growth.

• Holiday Open House: The price of admission to this annual event is a toy for the U.S. Marines' Toys for Tots drive. Over the past five years, ORRA members have donated about 2,000 toys to the program.