Seated cross-legged in a mustard-colored button shirt, blue jeans and rectangle shaped eyeglasses, John Martin, a Denver landlord and property manager, listens attentively to Brittany Katalenas explain her approach to dealing with the issue of homelessness in Denver.
The two of them met back when Katalenas worked as a housing navigator for the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless, placing formerly unhoused people in Martin's buildings. Some 10 years later, the two still work closely to find housing for people. However, now it's through Katalenas' company, B-Konnected, an agency that helps landlords like Martin manage caseloads and provide wrap around services for new tenants.
"(Katalenas) is a genius and I don't think there's anybody that I've ever met that has a more full understanding of the landlord-tenant-business relationship," Martin said. Katalenas credits Martin for encouraging her to start the company in the first place.
B-Konnected has housed 23 people in buildings managed by Martin, intercepting would-be evictions with a 90% prevention rate. Only one tenant has ever left.
Among the most recent placements includes Cesar Pulido, a barber that has been giving out free haircuts to unhoused Denverites, who moved into one of Martin's buildings within the affluent Washington Park neighborhood. Katalenas met Pulido while getting her own haircut at Game 7 Barbershop where he worked.
"Sitting in his chair, (Pulido) was expressing some instability that he was going through and mentioned barriers to getting housing because he has a criminal background," Katalenas said.
Despite his record, Katalenas helped Pulido put together an application that would eventually land on Martin's desk and gain him access to housing in the area.
"We are supposed to meet our people where they are at," Katalenas said. "You need to know who your landlord is. You need to be able to talk to them."
Kalatenas launched B-Konnected, a small woman-, queer-owned business, in 2018 to specifically address the issue of homelessness and housing retention.
B-Konnected operates as a landlord social worker service, equipping landlords with the tools they need to both stabilize their properties and meet the needs of their tenants. The goal is to create a safety net, preserve stable housing situations and prevent the catastrophic outcome of an eviction.
"It's a way for (Katalenas) and I, the landlord, to be connected and stay on top of potential problems because what we're really trying to do is avoid an eviction," Martin said.
Evictions are not only devastating for renters, they are also really expensive for housing providers who can lose about three months of rent in the process.
"Once we do a placement, we continue to follow up with that person every 30 days to see how they're doing," Katalenas said. "We conduct a survey and measure their social determinants of health: their environment, social, emotional, physical and financial health."
Based on these indicators, anytime they notice a tenant need in the data, they alert social workers, case managers and landlords about a risk of instability.
"Those alerts could be as simple as, 'Hey, their phone is out.' We know that's the first sign of housing instability, when a phone isn't working," Katalenas said.
Case managers from partnering agencies will also receive the alerts, such as Denver faith based non-profit Bridge of Hope. Their focus is eliminating homelessness for single mothers and their children. Part of their approach is enabling people to become self-sufficient over time.
"We found B-Konnected as we were searching for housing for our moms," said Veronika Clark, executive director of Bridge of Hope. "We place them into an apartment right away, and we pay their rent on a decreasing basis over a period of one to two years."
Clark mentioned how the data collected by B-Konnected helps them provide early intervention support for the people they help house.
"The reality is once someone has an eviction on their record, it's really hard to rent again," Clark said. "We try and stay in constant communication with (tenants) so they never get to a point that they've missed a week of work and now they've lost their job. The metrics that (Katalenas) is able to provide helps us just be more aware of things."
Part of B-Konnected's success relies on the trust and relationship that they develop with mom and pop owners like ones Martin represents.
"Imagine (mom-and-pop owners) almost as small businesses," Martin said. "We have a seriously tight bottom line with all of our bills. Taking a chance on somebody that otherwise might not qualify, it's a big chance because you need the rent, you need happy neighbors. If you don't have happy neighbors, they move out and it affects our business."
Every time a person gets evicted and rehoused, Martin said it alienates the landlord community because they don't want to work with those agencies anymore.
"It gets harder and harder to house new people who are in distress and it creates more homelessness because there's less landlords that are willing to work" with the unhoused and those with criminal records, Martin said.
"Our mom-and-pop owners are doing really great work with little resources. They know more services create steady leases and that protects their bottom line," Katalenas said.
Currently, B-Konnected has about 3,200 units within Denver proper that it works with. The group also offers affordable home and housing quality inspections and operates as a third-party placement service for local government and non-profit organizations.
"People need to know that [B-Konnected] is a resource that's available and out there because her company will give a landlord the courage to take a chance on someone," Martin said.
When Kalatenas and Martin first worked together, they'd often discuss the issue of what they called "warehousing."
"I would say, you know, this housing first model is broken because it's really just housing only," Martin said. "And all they're trying to do is put people in apartments. We started using the term "warehousing people." How are you gonna maintain sobriety when you have no friends, no family, no social support network at all? Placing someone is easy, but keeping them housed is really the challenge," Martin said.
"You can house people all day, but if six out of 10 are coming right back through our doors, what are we doing?" Katalenas said, reflecting on her early experiences working in homelessness. "We thought there's got to be a better way to get not just people off the street but actively out in the community."
Denver eviction filings have nearly doubled since last year. But, according to Martin and Katalenas, the issue isn't always financial distress.
"Money usually works itself out," Martin said, "Imagine if you lived on Mars and they just dropped you into an apartment here. How would you know how to behave?"
An example that Martin and Katalenas use is the issue of plumbing. Someone who has been homeless for years might not use a toilet the same way others do and instead they're used to using paper towels that they got from a gas station, causing damages to the pipes. Plumbing is one of the most expensive repairs for a property manager according to Martin, so simply teaching or reminding someone how to use toilet paper can help avoid a lot of problems.
"That's not just going to affect you, that's going to cause an overflow all over the building," Martin said.
Clark also mentioned the importance of teaching basic life skills to people who have never known what it's like to live on their own.
"Sometimes they've never actually had to have a budget," Clark said. "They don't know how to save or plan for the future. That's a big part of our program, is teaching them how to plan for the future and expect success for themselves, and that they don't have to live a life of survival for the remainder of their time as a single mom."
Getting people off the street isn't the end goal, for Katalenas. Homeownership is the goal.
"Can we get that renter population into home ownership and map out, data-wise, what that looks like and then really tell that story? That's where we want to go in 2024," Katalenas said.
Her hopes for B-Konnected is to continue to develop their database to embrace a tech lens that is focused on measuring outcome and housing stability. This includes items like making sure that landlords, based on resident feedback, are made aware of the health and safety of their buildings, or helping them see their buildings through data and allowing people like Martin to get ahead of problems before they happen.
"There's no one that I've come across that work for any of the committed housing agencies that doesn't have a heart of gold," Martin said. "All those people should be making two and three times what they make, and their caseload should be a third of what it is. Then the whole city would be better for it."
"As a person with lived experience myself, you can't just get us in housing and be like, 'OK, good job.' How do you get us to thrive? I'm tired of surviving," Katalenas said.
