To the extent that Octavia Hill is a company, he says, it is the home of ''patient capital," not someone looking for a quick turnaround. Many of its housing units are still completely self-financed and unsubsidized, though many also make use of tax credits to attract outside financing or some form of subsidy.
There are a number of organizations dedicated to providing affordable housing in Philadelphia, but Octavia Hill's structure makes it unusual. Kaufman says that, in some ways, Octavia Hill functions like a community development corporation, but with one big difference.
"We have no membership. We have shareholders," he says. "So we do answer, in a sense, to a fiduciary responsibility to those shareholders."
Like any corporation, Octavia Hill is run by its board of directors. Although its properties are largely in neighborhoods populated by minorities, its 20-member board of directors is mostly white males. Kaufman says it is trying for more diversity in filling a current vacancy.
The chief advantage of the corporate structure is that it "generates a certain positive tension" as Octavia Hill goes about its mission, says William M. Davison 4th, a longtime board member. The discipline involved in keeping the company viable also helps keeps it focused, he says.
That discipline has kept the company going since 1896, when it was incorporated by members of the Women's Civic Club "to improve the living conditions in the poorest residence districts of Philadelphia." It was named in honor of a social worker and reformer in London, which today boasts a similar company.
Its earliest efforts included documenting living conditions in Philadelphia's tenement neighborhoods, particularly Society Hill and nearby areas. The effort resulted in photographs that are valued today because they preserve parts of the city's past that otherwise would have been lost.
