Housing Group’s New Leader Builds on Experience

There was a time when Rick Schroeder paid little attention to affordable housing needs in cities such as Thousand Oaks or Simi Valley. It’s not that he didn’t care. But like plenty of others, he figured low-cost housing was provided by someone else in some other community.

That isn’t true anymore.

As the new executive director of Thousand Oaks-based Many Mansions, Schroeder spends his working hours thinking of nothing but ways to meet Ventura County’s growing demand for affordable housing, especially in the affluent east county, where rents are high and vacancies nearly nonexistent.

Although he has been on the job for about a month, the 41-year-old father of two is already very familiar with the organization, thanks to his years as a volunteer and board president with the nonprofit group. Many Mansions provides housing and social service programs to the poor, developmentally disabled and mentally ill in Thousand Oaks and Simi Valley.

And Schroeder comes with a laundry list of goals. Chief among them is to build support for the organization with local residents, who he believes will offer their time, money and other resources once they understand the area’s low-cost housing crunch.

“I want to reach the typical person who was like me, the person who really doesn’t give much thought to where people with low incomes are supposed to live,” said Schroeder, a Wisconsin native and UCLA law school graduate who settled in Oak Park 10 years ago.

“Frankly, my attitude was like that of a lot of people: I lived in a very nice area with very nice homes, and affordable housing was something that other communities had,” he said. “The more we are out there [and] the more people become aware of Many Mansions and the work we do, the more I think they will be willing to support our mission.”

Schroeder points to his own path to Many Mansions as evidence.

He began volunteering with the group in 1995, helping a family pay its rent through the group’s Adopt-A-Family program.

By then he was living in Oak Park and had opened a law office in Agoura Hills, concentrating on business, bankruptcy and real estate litigation. He had met people involved with children with special needs after learning in 1994 that his daughter, Sarah, was autistic.

It was someone in that circle who introduced him to Many Mansions, and before Schroeder knew it, he was providing free legal help to the agency’s clients and shifting much of his practice to affordable housing issues.

Schroeder joined the board of directors in 1996 and served as president from 1999 through 2001. When the executive director’s post came open earlier this year, he decided he might as well try jumping in with both feet. He beat out more than 40 applicants for the post.

Ventura County Supervisor Frank Schillo, who was responsible in 1979 for gathering the civic leaders who launched Many Mansions, is no longer on the board of directors and didn’t take part in the hiring process. But he knows about Schroeder’s work and believes he was an excellent choice.

“He’s already proven he’s really interested in the organization; he served on the board and gave of his time, and that counts for a lot with me,” Schillo said. “I’m impressed by his background and his willingness to serve. He’s truly giving back to the community.”

That is what Many Mansions has been all about for more than 20 years. Besides providing about 350 apartments to low-income residents in the eastern part of Ventura County, the group provides housing education, homeownership counseling, summer camp for children, after-school programs and a range of health and social service programs.

With a $2-million annual budget and 35 employees, Many Mansions owns and manages seven housing projects and has two others at various stages of development.

The average rent for a two-bedroom apartment in Thousand Oaks is $1,367, well out of the reach of low-income residents. For Schroeder, that reality was driven home in January when he attended a dedication ceremony for Esseff Village in Thousand Oaks, a complex of studio apartments for the disabled, seniors and small families.

Speakers talked about how much the housing meant to them. They were able to live on their own and had finally found a community to call their own.

“I was so moved at that dedication that I thought this is what I want to do,” Schroeder said. “I just wanted to be more deeply involved in this process. Here as executive director, this is exactly what I can do.”