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Babbie Jaco
By Mike Sederholm on Feb 1, 2024 in People
Complex processes with rules left to interpretation can create uncertainty about what a team should do next and fear of making mistakes. That can lead to lost productivity, stagnation and the inability for an organization to grow.
That’s a cycle that affects many affordable housing teams. As the complexity of compliance increases, the personnel required exponentially increases. It takes leadership within an organization to recognize the need for change and to seek out solutions.
That’s where Babbie Jaco, the latest in Yardi’s series of Affordable Housing Visionaries, comes into the story.
In 1984, Babbie joined a newly formed organization called Boyd Management. She was one of the first employees to be hired and as the company grew, became a principal in Boyd Management and their development entity, WWJ, LLC.
In 2020, Babbie and her partners sold their interests in both Boyd Management and WWJ, LLC to CAHEC of Raleigh, NC as a strategy to secure the properties, its 475 employees and maintain the legacy of 35 years of excellent work. While her partners are now retired, Babbie continues to lead the team today as Senior Vice President of CAHEC Management, Inc. (CMI)
Get to Know CAHEC Management, Inc.
CMI is a leading affordable housing property developer, owner and manager based in Columbia, South Carolina. Its sustained growth and successful properties are laudable. Its portfolio includes more than 370+ properties and 16,000 affordable housing units across the southeast.
As CMI grew, and as affordable housing reporting requirements became more complex, the team experienced significantly more compliance work particularly given the array of affordable housing programs the organization works under. Jaco recognized the challenge and saw opportunity to resolve them with assistance from Yardi RightSource.
CMI Reimagines Compliance
RightSource provides CMI with a dedicated team of affordable housing experts who audit applicant and resident files for compliance with all applicable program rules. CMI has since resolved many of the complexities of affordable housing compliance and created greater partnerships and cooperation within its organization and external partners.
“With RightSource, our file reviews are complete in about 24 hours. We get clear notations about what’s missing and valuable advice on how to make things right. It is much faster than our previous processes, which means we get qualified residents moved into units more quickly,” says Jaco.
The services provided by RightSource have transformed how its compliance team works within the organization. “We refer to the team as compliance 2.0 now that we have RightSource. Before, they were heads down and pencils up file auditors. There was a ton of information to go through and a lot of circumstances where one side didn’t agree with the other. That long and dragged-out process is much more efficient now,” says Jaco.
The metrics that CMI gets from RightSource are also valuable, and something they didn’t have in the past. Contracting with RightSource for file reviews lets compliance workers track how long file reviews take, and how many reviews are necessary, based on individual managers and their teams. CMI uses those metrics to establish best practices for other teams and to identify room for improvement.
These organizational process improvements have also created the important benefit of growth potential. “Affordable housing program compliance is complex, and our manual processes were challenged and costly. To grow, we needed to rethink our processes and find new efficiency. After researching all the players in the field, RightSource was the best choice,” says Jaco.
How is your affordable housing organization’s growth potential? Are more complex file reviews hindering your ability to add new properties and units? Or, is your team falling behind on the compliance requirements for your current portfolio? Consider Yardi RightSource and see how fast file reviews, often in 24 hours or less, can take your team to the next level. Call (800) 866-1144 for a free demonstration.
