A late Monday Night Football game kept Toby O’Berry out of the Twin Towers on Sept. 11, 2001.

O’Berry had stayed up late to watch the match between the Denver Broncos and New York Giants, and took a later-than-usual subway train to work. Typically, the train stopped under 2 World Trade Center, also known as the South Tower. However, the first tower had been hit by an airplane and as a precaution, riders got off at an earlier stop, O’Berry said.

“Everyone thought a small commuter plane had hit the first tower,” he said. “I was walking in the atrium area between the two towers when the second plane came and hit my tower.”

Morgan Stanley, where O’Berry worked, had told its employees to leave the building when the first tower was struck. “I think that decision saved a lot of people’s lives,” O’Berry said.

Before the terrorist attack, O’Berry said he was focused on making money. He was attending New York University at night to obtain a certificate in investment banking, something “I thought I really wanted to do,” he said. The attack “changed the trajectory of what I wanted to do with my life.”

O’Berry returned to Iowa and in April 2002, began working for Principal Real Estate Investors, where he helped manage a real estate mutual fund.

“I wanted to get into nonprofit work but no one would hire me in the nonprofit field,” said O’Berry, who did not have a degree in social work. “I applied for every position that came open.”

O’Berry began volunteering at Orchard Place and joined the nonprofit’s board of directors. O’Berry’s father was a founding board member of the Iowa Homeless Youth Centers, an organization at which the younger O’Berry also volunteered. An administrative assistant job became available in 2012; O’Berry applied for the position and was hired.

“I really enjoyed learning about nonprofit work and the youth that we served,” he said. When the organization’s director left, O’Berry was hired for that position. “I loved it and I loved the mission. But I also really believe in the need for affordable housing. I feel like [affordable housing] is one of the most important, pressing issues that the U.S. is facing. Everywhere.”

In June, O’Berry was hired as the Polk County Housing Trust Fund’s executive director, a position he assumed in July.

We recently caught up with O’Berry.

What got you interested in housing?

I pretty much have grown up in housing since I was a little kid. My father was the director of the animal disease lab in Ames. My mom was in real estate. She started with a duplex and then worked her way up to about 72 units of student housing in Ames. She would purchase the housing or rehab or convert it. She had a hotel that she converted to efficiencies for students. Some of [the housing] was nontraditional and very inexpensive. Today, it would be called affordable housing. … As a kid growing up, my brothers and sisters and I did the painting, the plumbing. I didn’t like it. We were the cheap labor. That was my first introduction into real estate.

What did you learn from that experience?

My parents had an open and thoughtful relationship with the tenants. It wasn’t like a traditional landlord-tenant relationship where it’s “We’re going to get as much money out of you as possible.” It was “These are kids going to school. They don’t have a lot of money.” … It was just a very not-normal way that a landlord interacts with tenants. It was what I saw as the right way to respect individuals; that everyone needs housing. I grew up understanding real estate, and more specifically, student housing, which is a very niche kind of sub-market.

You said that affording housing is a pressing issue nationwide. Can you explain that a little more?

There’s no community that doesn’t need affordable housing. It might be different levels. I feel like communities are yearning for solutions and answers. Ten years ago, it was “We don’t need [affordable housing] here. It can be somewhere else.” Now, city councils and city governments are saying “We really need to do something. How do we do it? What should we do?” I think that’s where the Polk County Housing Trust Fund comes in and my role is coming in to help facilitate the discussions. Let me be a resource [for a community] as they come up with a plan to address affordable housing. I loved Iowa Homeless Youth Centers, but I also knew that this opportunity as executive director of the housing trust fund doesn’t come up very often.

Talk about the need for affordable housing in the Greater Des Moines area.

There are thousands of units that we need to develop in all of the suburbs and all of the communities in Polk County. We need to normalize affordable housing so that it’s woven into the fabric of all of the communities. We can’t piecemeal it where “This one project is going to be the answer.” That project may be 30 or 40 units. We need thousands of units.

What needs to change is the systemic barriers to allowing affordable housing and building affordable housing and normalizing it. If you have a developer building 10 to 20 houses, every fourth or fifth house is an affordable house. The [houses] are all built very similarly. [The affordable house] doesn’t stand out. … It’s just normalized and it’s not a big deal. Then slowly, we’re going to build up the number of units that we need in all of our communities to support individuals that are working in our communities that can’t afford housing. … My role is to help be an advocate to help break down the barriers to affordable housing. … 

The trust fund has about $2 million that it can get out the door every year. But that’s not going to solve the affordable housing issue. That’s not the answer. The answer is improving the process and breaking down barriers to help affordable housing be established and created and built in all the communities by lots of other funding entities.

You talked about systemic barriers. Can you name some?

The zoning philosophy across the U.S. over the years has really just been focused on single-family homes. You’ll see such a large swath of the region is just zoned only for single-family homes. [With single-family zoning] you’re not able to have the flexibility to do infill [housing], higher density and affordable units where maybe you could put six townhomes on a parcel or do a courtyard with 16 apartments or condos. … In the 1980s and ’90s, it was all just single-family homes and the pricing was OK because most people could afford it. … That’s changed over the years, and the bottom half of society is just getting squeezed out of being able to purchase a home or rent a home [that takes up] only 30% of their monthly income. I think some communities are interested in changing or reducing that barrier.

I think another [barrier] could be called discretionary decision-making where if you want to build an affordable housing project, you have to get approval from an entity. It could be at the planning and zoning or city council where any one person could stop that project from happening. Instead, you could do a build-by-right where if you can meet the thresholds of the zoning requirements, you’re able to build the project without having to ask. That would be a big and powerful tool because a lot of developers spend a lot of time and energy and money trying to get a project across the finish line only to have a small, limited number of individuals in the community stop that project. You need the safety of the zoning requirements but not have it where you’re asking to do the project … you’re able to do it by right.

What’s at stake if Polk County doesn’t start delivering enough affordable or workforce housing?

It puts stress on families to not be able to afford housing. You might see migrations, patterns of people, going to other cities or doubling and tripling up in units, trying to be able to afford their housing costs. There’s a lot of angst and stress with not having safe and affordable housing. … There are secondary drains on the community if we’re not addressing those issues of affordable housing. Some of it is making sure city staff and elected officials understand those secondary consequences of people not having access to housing.

What are your top goals for the coming 12 months?

My first goal is learning my role. Eric [Burmeister, the trust fund’s former executive director] has done an amazing job of bringing the Polk County Housing Trust Fund to the forefront as the go-to resource for affordable housing across the state. My goal is to make sure we don’t take a step back and how do I make sure that I support all of the staff at the trust fund to do all of the hard work. The first 90 days are meetings with all of our board and committee members, meetings with community leaders and developers, supporting staff and setting our roadmap for the next year. … The next step is how do we do zoning assessments and zoning audits of all of our communities and then make suggestions and recommendations. … One thing that we’re starting to explore is the lack of single-family homes that are available for individuals of color and people with severe low income in neighborhoods because of lack of supply and because costs are prohibitive.

What do you do in your spare time?

I love gardening. We have lots of cucumbers and tomatoes and a lot of fruit trees in our yard. I also enjoy cooking. I do all of our meals and I make lunch for our kids in the morning. And this might sound strange, but I really love free diving, which is not something you can do around here. We go to the ocean a lot. Free diving is where you hold your breath and go about 80 to 90 feet underwater, look around and come back up. … You have to be as relaxed as you can so that you can hold your breath longer than a couple of minutes. It’s a reminder to me to relax.

---

At A Glance

Age: 48

Hometown: Ames, lives in Des Moines 

Family: Wife, Kelly, and daughters, Harper, 14, and Hadley, 12 

Education: Bachelor’s degree from Luther College (1997) and master’s in business administration, specializing in finance and real estate from University of Denver (2000)

Work Background: Owner, Cyclone Property in Ames; former co-owner Iowa House Historic Inn in Ames; Principal Real Estate Investors (2002-08); Iowa Homeless Youth Centers (September 2012 through mid-2023) where he most recently was director; became Polk County Housing Trust Fund’s executive director in July.

Nonprofit Activities: Member of United Way of Central Iowa board of directors and United Way of Central Iowa agency directors council; Orchard Place board of directors; and Child Protection Council/Statewide Citizen Review panel

Contact: TOBerry@pchtf.org