Westhab CEO Discusses Housing Options at Hitchcock Church

Rich Nightingale, the affable President and CEO of Yonkers-based Westhab, Inc., since 2014, on Wednesday, January 15th, inspired and engaged an extremely interested and highly educated audience in Hitchcock Presbyterian Church’s Clark Room on Greenacres Avenue in Scarsdale about the sometimes-misunderstood subjects of affordable and other housing.

As the give-and-take discussion ensued right on the dot of 6 p.m., comments began to flow easily about how affordable housing is one of the most important issues facing our nation these days. And, it didn’t take long before the conversation switched to a definition-comparison of two sometimes misunderstood real-estate terms, the previously mentioned affordable housing and public housing.

In addition, without waiting to be asked, the group willingly moved into a discussion about how those subjects may or may not affect the residents and leadership in the various towns and villages in Westchester and Rockland counties, and even a few areas in nearby New York City where Westhab has also made itself a needed humanitarian part of the community with its offerings that sometimes include youth and employment services and moving homeless households into permanent housing.

According to PublicHousing.Com, the affordable housing network, there are a variety of low-income housing options available, including: Public Housing: Public housing is owned and operated by your area Housing Authority. The internet item also noted, “Public housing units are rented to low-income households at below-market rates. Section 8 Housing Choice Vouchers: Section 8 is a federal program that provides rental assistance to low-income households. Vouchers can be used to rent apartments, town houses, or single-family homes from private landlords.”

Fueling His Passion for Social Justice

During his somewhat informal presentation, Nightingale, who joined the Westhab organization in 2001, proudly credited his early years on the frontlines at Westhab for fueling his passion for social justice and his deep commitment to Westhab’s overall mission. At the Hitchcock event, he also provided brief updates on some of Westhab’s newer housing projects that indeed have helped the underserved and other people in Westchester and Rockland counties and a few areas of New York City.
Those in the audience had come-in from the extremely cold weather outside into Hitchcock’s warm Clark Room in order to listen to Nightingale’s stories, joining those bundled-up at home in front of their computers.

It all seemed like a fireside chat, reminiscent of the late 32nd U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s reports to the nation during the 1930s and 1940s, well before the advent of television when 90 percent of American households owned a radio and could listen to FDR. Interestingly enough, if you checked your history books, FDR was not actually sitting beside a fireplace when he delivered those series of radio addresses between 1933 and 1944.

Nonetheless, the Hitchcock event wasn’t a conversation about the 1930s or the 1940s. It was 2025 and the church’s first Kairos event of the new year.

Differences in Housing Options

With his notes in hand that he never used, Nightingale led a discussion about the differences between affordable housing and public housing and what effects those differences may have on the various Westchester and Rockland towns and villages. Some of the attendees joined in with their individual knowledge about those two subjects, and a few even gave their version on how those two housing ideas might affect the various villages and its residents today and in the future. Someone in the audience even offered, “A lot of people living in Westchester today now couldn’t afford to purchase the house they bought 30 years ago.”

According to Olympia Management on the Internet, “The terms ‘affordable housing’ and ‘public housing’ are frequently used interchangeably, causing a lot of confusion in the process. They are actually two very different types of housing with different qualifying criteria. The problem is that by confusing the terms, many people who are struggling to afford rent don’t realize they may actually qualify for help under possible dozens of different programs. Many people also mistakenly think government help is only available to the most impoverished.”

Nightingale cited that “the Westchester County Housing Needs Assessment of 2019 reported that a whopping 41 percent or 141,570 of the 345,885 households in Westchester, are housing-cost burdened and pay more than 30 percent of their income in housing costs. Furthermore, there is no municipality in the County where the market-rate trend for a two-bedroom unit, averaging at that time $2,495 per month, is affordable to households earning the local hourly renter-wage.” Nightingale went on to share that rents have only gone up in the five years since the study, and the gap between housing costs and what workers in our economy can afford is only growing.

Proud of Dayspring Commons in Yonkers

As the long-time leader of the mission-driven nonprofit developer and service provider, he is justifiably proud of all his Westhab projects and said so. Nightingale highlighted in his slide program for the evening, among others, Dayspring Commons, located on Nodine Hill in Yonkers, that launched in the past few years, and eventually created 63 apartments and a newly rehabilitated Community Center that once was a 140-year-old church. “Our vision for the Dayspring Campus—the Community Center together with the Commons—had long been to become a real anchor for this community as well as a real catalyst,” he said. That particular Westhab project was financed by early seed money from the JP Morgan Chase Foundation and financial support from the City of Yonkers and Westchester County.

In an essay by Nightingale in a marketing brochure that was provided to the attendees, it said Westhab “has continued to grow its impact to meet needs in our community, while staying true to our values and ensuring quality services for everyone who passes through our doors.” Time and again the organization has created “a more equitable community where everyone has the opportunity to thrive.”

By his warm smile throughout his Hitchcock 60-minute talk and Q and A, you could readily see and hear that Nightingale is heavily engaged in his role as president and CEO of Westhab, “Building Communities. Changing Lives,” the organization that has been providing a bushelful of offerings for 40-plus years. The slogan is the organization’s “on the money” marketing message to the general public, governments, and its mountain of supporters.