The Lotus Model: Market-Rate Housing as a Solution for Homelessness in Neighborhoods of Opportunity

Beth, to begin, introduce yourself to our readers and reflect on the path that led you to serve as Executive Director of Lotus Campaign.

I’m Beth Silverman, one of the co-founders and Executive Director of Lotus Campaign. We’re a nonprofit focused on unlocking stable housing for people experiencing homelessness by bringing together unexpected allies from the private sector and the social service sector.

My path to Lotus was not linear. Throughout my career I’ve worked across the public, private, and nonprofit sectors—in real estate, economic development, community development, and policy. But when I look back, housing was always at the root of the work. Whether it was helping developers build during the Great Recession when banks weren’t lending but cities had financial tools to bridge the gap, or traveling across the country working with communities—urban, suburban, and rural—it became clear that two issues consistently surfaced: disappearing workforce housing and rising homelessness.

Housing really is the key to everything. And what also became clear was that solving these challenges requires bringing together people who don’t traditionally work together.

On a more personal note, I often think about my own family’s history. My great-grandparents fled Europe during the rise of fascism and antisemitism. When they arrived in the United States and Central America, they survived because communities stepped in to support them when they were at their most fragile. That idea—that no one gets through life alone—has shaped my perspective. 

In many ways, Lotus is about building that kind of network of support for people today.

For those encountering Lotus Campaign for the first time, share its origin story and evolution.

You’ll appreciate that Lotus actually has its roots in Los Angeles. An Urban Land Institute advisory panel was convened to examine homelessness and real estate, and at the time I was working at ULI. I initially didn’t want to staff that panel because I assumed it would be a heavy topic and bring up a lot of strong emotions.

Instead, I sent Philip Payne, who is now my co-founder and chairman of the board. He had spent his career as a market-rate multifamily developer. After the panel, he called me and said something that really stuck with me: there was no one on the advisory team from the private sector, and none of the people interviewed as community stakeholders were from the private sector either.

Launched in 2018, Lotus was born out of both optimism and frustration. The optimism came from the belief that if you bring the right people to the table, meaningful change is possible. The frustration came from recognizing a persistent gap: the people who understand investment, asset management, and property management are often invited to the conversation last.

That led us to ask: What if we applied an economic lens to solving homelessness and created an easier way for the private sector to participate in the solution? 

We spent several months speaking with developers and property owners across the country. The feedback was remarkably consistent. Rather than treating their concerns as dead ends, we designed an approach to address them directly—turning the many “no’s” we heard into a framework that could ultimately lead to a “yes.”

Lotus Campaign is truly a partnership of unlikely allies: landlords, developers, investors, and social service organizations working together to house people in existing market-rate housing. 

Over seven years, the results speak for themselves. More than 90% of the nearly 800 residents we’ve helped facilitate housing for have remained in stable housing after one year—well above the roughly 75% national average. Just as importantly, the model was designed from the outset to be replicable across the country.

What’s the shared value proposition for your “unexpected allies”—developers, landlords, and social service providers?

That’s an important question because we often carry stereotypes about each other. In nonprofit circles, the real estate industry is sometimes viewed as a group of greedy villains who don’t care about anyone. In the private sector, nonprofits are sometimes seen as well-meaning do-gooders who don’t understand economic realities.

Lotus operates in the middle of that Venn diagram.

Homelessness is both a real estate issue and a social issue, which means the solution requires those sectors to work together. Our role is to bring those groups together to open doors and ultimately help people move into market-rate housing.

Through our Landlord Participation Program, property owners partner with social service agencies to place individuals experiencing homelessness into existing housing. Lotus provides payment in lieu of a security deposit, a year of renter’s insurance, application fees, expedited voucher inspections when vouchers are involved, and guarantees against rent loss or tenant-caused damage. If a problem arises that cannot be resolved with our service partners within thirty days, Lotus will even cover court costs and legal fees associated with an eviction.

These guarantees reduce the financial risk landlords face when renting to someone who might otherwise not qualify because of poor credit, limited employment, or unstable housing history.

Another critical element is where the housing occurs. We’re not placing people just anywhere—we focus on what Raj Chetty and others describe as “neighborhoods of opportunity”: mixed-income communities with access to green space, grocery stores, transit, good schools, and proximity to employment. Research shows that when people from lower socioeconomic backgrounds are able to live in neighborhoods with strong opportunity structures, their chances of upward mobility increase significantly, a finding reinforced by recent work from Opportunity Insights. 

Because Lotus works within existing market-rate housing rather than developing new units, how do you evaluate the market opportunity? 

There are dynamics in every market that change—occupancy, affordability, and overall housing conditions. But Lotus was built from the start to be replicable and scalable, as long as three core elements exist. 

First, there needs to be a real estate sector that wants to be part of the solution. Second, there needs to be a strong social service ecosystem—organizations that can provide ongoing support to the individuals or families they serve. Third is community courage, which includes business and philanthropic leaders, and eventually, elected officials, willing to test new ideas and different approaches, rather than expecting every initiative to be a guaranteed success from day one.

Another important feature of the model is that Lotus does not rely on government funding. That independence allows us to remain nimble during periods of volatility—whether in real estate markets or in political priorities. Over the past year many nonprofits experienced serious funding instability. Lotus was able to maintain momentum because our model is built around private-sector participation, allowing us to bypass the need for government support.

At its core, who is served by Lotus’ efforts?

Well, the model is really designed as a win-win-win. Landlords gain a practical way to be part of the solution without jeopardizing their business. Social service organizations expand their reach and impact, and most importantly, our sponsored residents gain access to housing opportunities that were previously closed to them.

For example, one of our partners, the Charlotte Rescue Mission, helped house fourteen clients through the program. Six of those individuals have already transitioned to signing leases independently.

We also invest directly in multifamily properties. Most recently, we recapitalized and joined forces with a new equity partner, LEO Impact Capital, to acquire Sharon Crossing, a 144-unit apartment community in Charlotte. As part of that transaction, thirty units—about twenty percent of the property—will be set aside for Lotus sponsored residents.

How does Lotus entice developers concerned about the risk of rental loss or tenant-caused damages?

Once the guarantees are in place, the risk becomes far less concerning for property owners. We are currently operating in Charlotte and Raleigh, and exploring opportunities in another city outside North Carolina. These are relatively tight housing markets, so when we began we heard a lot of skepticism. 

One common reaction was: “There’s no vacancy here—how is this going to work?”

Conditions have shifted slightly with trends in the multifamily market, but there will always be a segment of the industry willing to test new ideas. One of our partners had previously had a very negative experience working with a well-known national nonprofit. They described what amounted to a “drop-off service.” Someone was placed in a unit with no furniture and the organization never followed up again. Experiences like that understandably make landlords hesitant.

I convinced them to try just one unit. I said, “Let’s check in after six months. If it doesn’t work, we’ll figure out an exit.” Six months later they expanded the program across their entire portfolio—five communities—with up to fifteen percent of their units participating.

That experience illustrates something important: When you treat partners like true business partners, with accountability for what you promise, you can bring people along. Too often housing and social service initiatives fall short because of the lack of follow through.

If Lotus were to explore Los Angeles as a future market, what opportunities and challenges stand out?

The good news is that I’ve actually spent quite a bit of time in Los Angeles.

Every city, regardless of size or location, faces challenges when it comes to addressing homelessness. In LA those challenges are compounded by the sheer scale of the population and the region’s vast geography. As I understand it, there are about 88 separate jurisdictions across the county, public transit is still evolving, and there appears to be a fair amount of NIMBYism as well.

Those constraints are real. But at the same time, Los Angeles may actually be a place where a model like Lotus could work precisely because the scale of the problem is so large, and there is growing recognition that multiple approaches are needed.

From what I’ve seen, LA has a strong network of social service organizations already doing important work. What is sometimes missing is the platform to access housing while continuing to receive ongoing services and support. Without ongoing support and services for residents, our model simply wouldn’t work.

If resistance to density helps preserve the neighborhoods Lotus targets, how do you reconcile that tension?

Lotus is not trying to solve every issue in every community. But we often forget that there is existing housing inventory that can be activated right now while longer-term solutions (like new construction) are underway. We don’t necessarily have the luxury of waiting two or three years for new housing to come online while homelessness continues to grow. 

We need a broader toolkit, and Lotus is one piece of that toolkit.

When people with fewer resources are concentrated in under-resourced neighborhoods, their chances of upward mobility are limited. Highly segregated communities, whether economically or racially, are rarely environments where people thrive.

Can Lotus solve that structural issue alone? Of course not. But we can begin to chip away at it. Part of our role is also myth busting—challenging assumptions about what makes a neighborhood healthy and what actually helps communities succeed.

The Abundance thesis, popularized by Ezra Klein, argues that housing affordability is fundamentally a supply problem. Yet the “neighborhoods of opportunity” Lotus prioritizes are rarely produced by supply alone and often require deliberate stewardship to remain healthy communities. Thoughts?

Everyone has to come to the table. When debates become siloed—when people can no longer talk to others who disagree with them—we run into real problems. Through this work I’ve had the opportunity to collaborate with people who hold very different views from mine about development, neighborhoods, and housing policy. Yet many of them genuinely want to be part of the solution.

We may disagree on certain approaches, but we can still meet in the middle—again, at the center of that Venn diagram, with a shared desire to help people get and stay housed. 

If a city simply builds without considering opportunity, integration, and community dynamics, you may end up creating a different set of problems.

Beth, after nearly eight years with Lotus, what does long-term success look like? Beyond geographic expansion, are you hoping the model also influences national policy or broader social change?

I would absolutely love that outcome, and I hope we can get there by continuing to do the work of myth-busting and inviting a much broader cross section of people to the table to learn about the model and participate in solutions.

Of course, success includes numbers—facilitating more housing placements. But it’s not just about getting someone into housing. The real measure is whether people stay there: lease renewals, and eventually individuals graduating from our support and being able to maintain housing on their own.

Expansion is also part of the picture, but not necessarily in the traditional sense of Lotus operating everywhere ourselves. Ideally, we would teach other communities how to do what we do. This work is slow, hard, and long-term. People often want a quick fix or a silver bullet when it comes to housing affordability and homelessness, but that doesn’t reflect reality. 

These are complex issues with many different drivers. If Lotus can help communities address some of the upstream causes of homelessness—while continuing to myth-bust, house more people, and see more individuals renewing their leases and building stable lives—then that would be real success.