“Life is good,” said Milo.
“I’d like to get back into shape physically, and I’m upset about Mary. But when I step back and assess, yes, I have a lot to be thankful for.”
“Tell me about the halfway houses you own, sir.”
Koppel blinked. “You really have been doing your research.”
“I ran into an ex-con vacuuming Dr. Koppel’s building and I got curious.”
“Oh,” said Koppel. “Well, I hire a lot of those guys for custodial work. When they show up, they do a good job.”
“They give you attendance problems?”
“No worse than anyone else.”
“What about pilferage problems?”
“Same answer, people are people. Over the years, I’ve lost a few tools, some furniture, but that goes with the territory.”
“Your secretary said properties get broken into.”
“From time to time,” said Koppel. “Not the halfway houses, though. What’s to take from there?”
“You recruit your own tenants as janitors?”
“I get recommendations from the halfway-house managers. They send me guys they think are reliable.” Koppel lifted the popcorn bowl.
“How’d you get into the parolee business?”
“I’m in the real estate business. A handful of my properties are halfway houses.”
“How’d you get into that, sir?”
“I’d never have done it on my own. I’m a bleeding heart liberal but only to a point. It was Mary’s idea. Actually, I was pretty wary, but she won me over.”
“How’d she come up with the idea?”
“I think Dr. Larsen suggested it—one of her partners. Have you talked to him yet?”
Milo nodded.
“He’s an expert on prison reform,” said Koppel. “He got Mary into it, and she was all afire. She said she wanted to do more than build up equity, she wanted her investments to do some social good.”
“The halfway houses are the properties she partners with you?”
“We’re also together on some conventional rentals.”
“Pretty idealistic.”
“When Mary believed in something, she got very focused.”
“But you tried to un-focus her.”
Koppel lifted a leg in order to cross it, changed his mind, and planted a heavy foot on the carpet. “I approached the issue like a businessman, let’s look at the assets and debits. Mary did her homework, showed me the subsidies the state was offering and I had to admit the figures looked good. Even so, I was concerned about tenant damage, so I’d look at the crowd you’re talking about. I also told her I could get equal or better subsidies on what seemed to be safer investments—senior citizen housing, historic properties, where, if you respected the integrity of the structure, you could get three separate funding sources.”
His eyes had dried, and he was talking faster. In his element.
Milo said, “Mary convinced you.”
“Mary said the tenants would be more reliable, not less, because they weren’t paying rent so they had no incentive to leave. On top of that, the state mandated supervision by parole officers and provided in-house managers and security guards. She had to work on me for a while, but I agreed to give it a try. Smartest thing I ever did.”
“Good deal?”
“The funding’s ironclad—long-term state grants that get renewed easily—and the properties can be had dirt cheap because they’re always in fringe areas. You’re not going to stick a building full of criminals in Bel Air, right? So there are no NIMBYs, no zoning problems, and once you get past financing the part the state doesn’t cover, the rents are great. And listen to this: On a square-footage basis, the income’s close to Beverly Hills, because you’re not talking multiroom apartments, it’s all single rooms. And as opposed to a senior citizen situation where the tenancy-terminating event is death so your occupancy is uncertain, you go in knowing the tenants are there on a short-term deal but they’re always going to be replenished.”
“No shortage of bad guys.”
“Doesn’t seem to be,” said Koppel. “And turns out there are fewer repairs. The bathrooms are all communal, so the plumbing’s centralized, there are no kitchens in the rooms, all the tenants get is hot plates. And their use is restricted to certain hours. There’s some paperwork, but nothing I haven’t seen before. And, let’s face it, the state wants you to be a success.”