Sister Susan Mika, OSB and Sister Jane Ann Slater, CDP, HOMI

[00:01] SISTER SUSAN MIKA, OSB: I'm Sister Susan Mika. I'm with the Benedictine sisters, and today's date is November 21, 2022. And we're here in San Antonio. And the name of my interview partner is Sister Jane Ann, and we are longtime colleagues and friends.

[00:19] SISTER JANE ANN SLATER, CDP: Hi, I'm Sister Jane Ann Slater. I'm a sister of divine Providence here in San Antonio, and I'm 86 years old and kind of proud of it. Today's date is November 21, 2022. We're in San Antonio, Texas, and my interview partner is Sister Susan Mika Boerne Benedictine. And we have, we are long time friends and colleagues. Susan. Sister Susan, we, we've been friends for a long time, and one of the things we've worked with for so long is with Merced housing. And as you remember, that goes back probably to about 1992 or three, when Maria Antonieta Berrio Saval, who was then a woman of our city council, called me and Sister Dodd Etling. Both of us were superiors in our respective conversations. She is a sister of charity, the incarnate word. And Maria kind of read us the riot act. She said, you have been here in San Antonio. You sisters have been here in San Antonio for years and years. You have universities, hospitals. You have schools. You have social work agency. You do all agencies, and you have, you're doing all kinds of work, and you have a lot of power, which you have never used. And she said, by that, I don't mean power over, I mean power to. And so Dodd and I were taken aback a bit, and she said to me, she said to Maria and I also, well, what do you think we should do? And she says, well, I think you could do one of two things. You could engage in housing and affordable housing because there's such a need here in San Antonio. And you also could do, it doesn't have to be an either or. You could engage in water issues, because, as you know, our aquifer is being encroached upon every day, and we are worried that it may be overused, and that is our sole drinking supply. So Maria and I began to speak with the other sisters organizations, congregations here in San Antonio, and I'll go ahead and jump. A couple of years later, I was already no longer the superior of my congregation. And our next council gathered, continued working with the other congregations, yours included, and they worked with Mercy housing out of Denver. Mercy agreed to work with us and to provide our superstructure, getting us started, legal advice, finance, and of course, we paid for that. So all these congregations, if you remember, donated so much money, we didn't come up with the million that they wanted, but we came up with about $550,000 in both grants and loans. And in 1995, we hired, they hired Susan Sheeran, who was the first president. And really, we didn't call her executive director, but she was the first executive director of Merced. Oh, and let me say why it's Merced and not mercy. They wanted Mercy wanted us to name it Mercede Mercy Housing. And we said, no, this is San Antonio, Texas. We are a predominantly hispanic city, and this is going to be Merced housing Texas. And please pick up from there, because you were very influential and you all were in those early days.

[04:21] SISTER SUSAN MIKA, OSB: Sure. That's a great way to get started in our interview today. And, yes, I think it was about a year or two when we had all of the organizing meetings to try to get ready and try to understand what we were undertaking. And you're so right. It was a new adventure for us because the religious organizations of sisters in our area had worked together on many, many different organizations, starting them and supporting them. And this one on housing was something that we had to learn more about and try to understand what we were actually undertaking, because there were different rules, different ways of looking at affordable housing and different entities that we had to learn more about. So, yes, around, I think it was like, mid 1995, the Benedictines, we had a little office on. It was called Ashby street. It was right across from the mexican american, at that time cultural center. And we volunteered to house Merced. And so I met Susan Sheeran on her very first day of her job and welcomed her into our little house and into our little building, and we became fast friends as we tried to understand more about, like, what was this new entity going to be doing and what all did we have to learn together? And it was an adventure. And she hired a person. Her name was Lou Caldwell. And I learned so much from Lou as well in those days. Just a yemenite, funny little thing, but we were all having our stationery printed and our envelopes and all of this, and Lou had this amazing ability to figure out in the computer how to make stationary for Merced. And it was beautiful. And I was just, like, taken aback because I said, well, did y'all have that printed? And she said, no, I made it. I'm like, okay, this is new. And so, you know, everyone brought their own talents and their own gifts to the office. And I, in those days, Merced was an unknown entity, put it that way, so had to make inroads with city personnel and others that were also working on affordable housing. So I'll just pause there for a moment. Maybe you want to mention some of the congregations that worked together to get us started. And, you know, we just started with this amazing small staff.

[07:01] SISTER JANE ANN SLATER, CDP: Exactly. And they were, they were doing everything. And the congregations, and I do want to mention those because they have been ongoing, staunch supporters of Merced, your congregation, the Sisters of St. Benedict of Boerne the Sisters of Charity of the Incarnate word, where Dot Ettling was superior, the Sisters of Divine Providence, my congregation, the Sisters of the Holy Spirit, the brigidine sisters, the daughters of charity of St. Vincent de Paul, the Marianas sisters, the missionary catechists of Divine Providence, and the sister, the Ursuline sisters here in San Antonio. So those were the beginning, the formers, the founders of the congregation. And each of us had a member of the board. So one of the first things that was set up was a board. And I was away because I was on a sabbatical, and then I had come back and I was teaching at Providence High School at the time. And sister Laura Ann, our superior, asked me if I would be on the board, and I said yes, of course. So I was on the board, and we were just constantly, when we had meetings, the people from Mercy housing came from Denver, and they supported us so well. And we realized over the years, it took about four years to realize that having a headquarters in a city outside of San Antonio was not feasible. First of all, they did not understand Texas politics, which is unique in all the world. And secondly, what they were charging us for their services was diminishing our pot of money. And we had built one little small retirement units, 28 units in Somerset, and there's a developer's fee for doing that. Well, I don't think we saw any of that developer's fee. So in 1999, with the advice of Father Rufus Whitley, an oblate of Mary Immaculate, we separately incorporated esmerced housing Texas and left the mercy overview. And I had, this is, I think, important in the story because I had to call all those superior. I was chair of the board by then. I had to call every superior and say, here's what we would like to do. And they would say, well, do we have any money? And I would say, no, we don't have any money, but we're well poised, because Susan Sheeran has networked with everyone in San Antonio. Everyone knew Susan Sheeran, and she knew housing, and her husband actually was a worker with HUD, but that was not part of the connection in those days. So they, all those that had loans, forgave the loans, those who. And so we had no money. And I said, we are poised. We are ready to move into the future.

[10:33] SISTER SUSAN MIKA, OSB: And I think little by little, that's what we ended up doing. And it takes a while for a new fledgling organization to get well known and to get our reputation going. And all of that was happening in the meantime when we were deciding to make these other major decisions, to not have mercy in Denver, be our umbrella. And just little by little, we were able to start branching out. And, you know, like you say, the first property that we were working with Washington outside of San Antonio in Somerset. And I remember going to the dedication, and I know you mentioned being on the board. I think you've been on the board ever since, off and on. And the same for myself. I mean, we watched this organization grow and develop, and really, its reputation is so amazing. In 2022, all these, like, 27 years of working towards this, it's an amazing story of a little organization that thought it could, you know, just like the little book about the engine that thought it could. We thought it could, and it has.

[11:50] SISTER JANE ANN SLATER, CDP: And Susan was with, was our director from 1995 until, I think, three years ago. And she was, she is an amazing woman. She knew housing perfectly. And as I said, she was a networker. And the purpose of mercy housing, our first purpose, as you recall, was multifamily. And so we were either buying facilities that had apartment complexes and rehabbing those with tax credits and all kinds of funding that I can't even. I still don't understand, but it's really important. And we developed selection of facilities here in San Antonio. We bought a couple of small apartment buildings, and for seniors, predominantly, we built. Our first major building was here in San Antonio. It's called stablewood farms, and it's a beautiful facility. So over the years. But we. Susan saw the needs in San Antonio, as you recall, and she began to see seniors and homebound people whose homes had really fatal flaws. The floor was falling through the hot water tank. They didn't have hot water, whatever. Their homes were really not livable. And she started a program called Serve our Seniors, which has morphed into what we now know as owner occupied rehab. Merced housing over the years, in addition to multifamily, has fixed the homes of about 750 residents here in San Antonio. We are really recognized Mercedes as one of the premier owner occupied rehab providers here in our city. And in addition, she saw homes that had been abandoned by their homeowners simply because they were so rundown and they were blighting their neighborhoods. They were becoming cocaine, crack houses and so on. So she worked with the city to purchase those and rehab those and help the people find the funding, the loans to purchase those homes. So we haven't focused a whole lot on that in the most recent past, but we've rehabbed about 20 plus homes, which brought the whole neighborhood up. So that's, I think another Susan is and was for Mercedes, truly a prophet.

[14:51] SISTER SUSAN MIKA, OSB: Yes. And a gift in the sense that she knew how to do things and how to network with the city. And we now have other, you know, affordable housing in other cities. It's been an amazing journey, and I think that just little by little, the city and others have seen the, the amount of good work, good repairs. You know, we stand for the highest in the sense, like, you know, and I think that these repairs, we are very blessed because as board members, we see these repairs. They give us the before and after pictures in our packet for the board meetings, and we are just amazed at how the space can be transformed. And we've worked with the city to be able to get these grants, to be able to do this work and hire persons through merced to actually do the work and oversee the quality of what's being done. And, you know, Jane Ann, I see this so many times when you're driving down a city block, what a coat of paint or what a few repairs would do. And that's what we're witnessing, you know, for these homes that we're, that Merced is working with. You just see them transformed and the seniors are so, they're just so happy. There's such a big smile like, oh, now my house. I'm not going to fall or I'm hopefully not going to, you know, something happened to me because my water heater doesn't work or, you know, when we had those really cold freezes and different things, too. So many ways that, you know, I think we were able to help.

[16:41] SISTER JANE ANN SLATER, CDP: Right? And, you know, as the, actually, we celebrated our 25th anniversary in 2020, however, and we were going to honor Maria Antonieta Dodd Etling. Sister Dodd Ettling, God rest her soul, passed away from stroke a number of years back. So she hasn't been around to celebrate with us, but her name is very much in our thoughts and in our prayers and in our gratitude, our hearts. So we were wondering, as, as the years have passed, what was going to happen when Susan Sheeran decided that she needed to retire. And she really took, she sacrificed to make this happen. She didn't take a very big salary over the years, we were gradually able to bring her salary up. So not only was she did she understand housing, she was dedicated to Merced, and she had the ability, as she hired more workers, to find people, she wasn't able to keep all of them because some didn't fit. And Lou finally retired, and she hired young women and men, mostly women, over the years, who were resident managers, because Merced. I forgot to mention that neither of us has thought of that, but Merced is dedicated to providing resident services, support services, so that people, the people who come in are supported in their. In their ongoing intersocial or interpersonal or business needs. And one of the young women whom she hired about 15 years ago is Kristin Davila. She saw great potential in Kristen, so she, over the years, cross trained Kristen and the other workers at Merced so that there would be. They could all work for each other, they could take over for each other if someone was out, someone was on maternity leave or had an illness or whatever. And Kristen was on maternity leave one of the times. And when Susan retired, we had a seamless shift in executive director presidents. Kristin Davila has been our president and executive director for about three years now. And one of the things. One of the first things she did was we had rented space on Laurel street, and it became less and less healthy and feasible to keep that rental property well.

[19:49] SISTER SUSAN MIKA, OSB: And it was just too small, you know. I mean, the same thing happened with the Benedictine sisters. I mean, our house was very small, and when they had more than three people on the staff, we couldn't handle it because it was just a small little house there. And the same thing happened with West Laurel. You know, the staff was growing, and they just needed way more space.

[20:11] SISTER JANE ANN SLATER, CDP: Exactly. And so anyway, she began the process of purchasing a building, and now Merced has its own office building on mistletoe, just off of McCullough, I believe. Or is it Maine? One of the two.

[20:31] SISTER SUSAN MIKA, OSB: Both of them are right there.

[20:32] SISTER JANE ANN SLATER, CDP: Yes, they're right there together. And it's got wonderful space for more staff. And the staff is growing, I believe we have 21 staff persons now, and we need to hire more resident services coordinators. So we are just so proud of Merced, and we're proud of the fact that we still do fundraising, we still do outreach. We put out a newsletter to keep, to highlight the folks who have been helped by owner occupied rehab. And we also want people to understand Merced. So why don't you tell us a little bit about what has happened recently with the city's bond. Bond action and also grants.

[21:24] SISTER SUSAN MIKA, OSB: Yes. Well, let me back up just a little bit, too, when we were saying that about, you know, like, getting more staff and everything over time, you know, we've really seen, like, we need to do data, we need to produce, you know, some figures in order to keep getting the grants and to do that. So the staff has, you know, taken up different programs where we quantify what we're doing because we were always impressed with what the staff was doing, but it wasn't necessarily quantified for, you know, in order to get grants and things like that. So we're doing a much better job now of, like, telling the stories of how many people we're helping or, you know, how many repairs that we've done. And all of that is, it's amazing. But we also have it quantified. So, you know, like, sometimes you don't have both. And so, like, now we do, you know, much more so. And I think that that is what is, you know, bringing up our reputation with the city. And the city has made more grants towards us for this very type of work that we're talking about with the owner occupied repair, because they see us, they recently put out like an RFP or whatever and started interviewing people like, what repairs do you need for your home? And they were overwhelmed with how many people were asking them for these funds and what was needed. So Merced is trying to work with the city in order to receive funds so that they can carry out those repairs that some of the persons came forward to mention. So, I mean, these are, I don't have the exact numbers, but they're large grants, you know, to us over a period of time so that we can do this work because I think at some points in time, they were very limited to, like, okay, well, you could only do $5,000 or only $10,000 per household. Well, as you know, if you have ever tried to renovate anything in your house that doesn't go too far these days between getting the labor and the parts and, you know, what is what is needed. So I see that this is just an area where over the next years, we're going to continue to shine and have more grants coming our way because it is so needed. And people just can't always do it on their own. You know, you're blessed if you can get these things done, but many people can't. They don't have the knowledge or they don't have the way or they don't have a computer or, you know, to try to figure out all of the pieces of it. And when you were saying that about the resident, I wanted to just add a sentence here to say, too, that many people look to us because we do have the affordable, we do have the resident services for our affordable housing. Some groups don't do that, but we have taken a commitment that that is part of who we are. And it's not easy that, you know, we hire resident services coordinators for the different properties that we have, and then all of the ones, they try to work together, too, because some are outside of San Antonio and other counties and other places inside Texas. And so, you know, it's a way of sharing. Well, what about statewide? What about, you know, countywide, etcetera? And when you say, well, what would they do? Well, they can do classes. They can bring in people from, like, the county or the city to say, these are some of the programs that you could be participating in, or here's a fun, a food drive, or here's, you know, a way to work on something with other people that have the same problem. So little by little, we really stand behind that program, you know, and I'd.

[25:31] SISTER JANE ANN SLATER, CDP: Like to pick up on that. In the early days, Susan did a lot of driving through neighborhoods. So west side, San Antonio and east side and south side really have a lot of, they were a lot of the, particularly the west side and eastside were redlined in the past. So those homes were really small and not poorly built, but certainly not sturdy by way of bricks or that sort of stone or that sort of thing. And many of the homeowners in those areas have currently inherited their homes from a grandmother, a grandfather, a great aunt, so and all. And they, they came down through the ranks, and a lot of them did not have the titles to their homes prior to getting owner occupied rehab. Merced helped them get their titles. And a lot of them are elderly. If they're over 65, you know, they get a homestead act and their rents or their taxes reach a cap. And so there's been some, not only, not only the actual building and creating homes or repairing homes, but there's been advocacy. So in helping those homeowners get those documents that they need. And that's not an easy process because, you know, in establishing ownership sort of like wills, you have to find everybody who was intended descendants and so on. So that's been another thing that Merced has been able to do over the years. So it has become not only do we oversee, like, provide resident services, but also the management of those homes. So we don't, there's not one manager. Sometimes Merced is overseeing, but over the years, different managers have been hired, some when they simply don't manage well or they don't provide, you know, the feedback that we require to, they've been replaced. And resident services, the resident services, people who provide resident services are in touch with them. And now financially, I'm so happy. We're so happy. We celebrate Merced, the multifamily dwellings, multifamily complexes that we own, and we own about a few more than almost 1800 individual units. And we keep the resident services coordinators stay in touch with the residents, the managers and the, to make sure that they are kept, maintained. And now we have enough funds coming in and we're not for profit. Those funds go back into resident services and maintaining the facilities. So we're on top of that. They don't run down. And if there are issues with vandalism or we've had some hurricane damage and some flooding, a couple of fires in Houston, no loss of life. But that means that facilities are shut down. Some of them are. Some of the rooms are shut down for a while, and Susan and Kristen were on top of that, and they've been just amazing leaders. We are really blessed.

[29:31] SISTER SUSAN MIKA, OSB: We are. And we take that very seriously as a board. Also, if there are, you know, issues that happen due to weather or other circumstances that, but we need this housing to be in good shape because we're out there saying this and we want the units that we have to be excellent and that type of thing. So I think you're very right just how to do that. And as the homeowners that are listening to us today, you know, how difficult that is for one house, much less for 1800 units in that sense. So it's an ongoing thing to be looking at and to be providing for. And when you mentioned about our 25th anniversary, we were trying to have a big party. We had a party for our 20th anniversary and we were trying to have one for the 25th. And the pandemic intervened. And so we keep saying, well, we're 25 plus two right now, so 27 years, you know, a party or not, you know, we've come a long way in these years that we've been working together, all these groups, and then, you know, all of the people that, whose lives we've touched over all this time, not only in our affordable housing, but also through all of these home repairs and different, you know, things that Merced has tried to do in the neighborhoods, I just think that, you know, we can't lose sight of all of the persons that we have touched their hearts and their lives and made their homes safer, put it that way.

[31:19] SISTER JANE ANN SLATER, CDP: And, you know, when you have a reputation, and Merced has an excellent reputation here in San Antonio and beyond, not only does our city support us, but we also get support from banks and foundations and other organizations here in the city, city foundations or business foundations who respect the work and respect the integrity and of not only Merced, but the sisters who founded Merced and that they trust us and we are, you know, a lot of us are live in, well, our convent is in the, probably one of the poorest council districts in the city, our lady of the Lake. And we provide, my presence on the board shows that we are Westsiders and also the sisters of the Holy Spirit and others. And we have people from other neighborhoods so that we've had some residents who are, have on the, on the board and offer. We're in touch. Let's just say we're in touch with the communities where the, the people have, have benefited from Merced's work with owner occupied rehab and, and also recently about, well, it's, you know, time flies, but we have a facility called Casitas de Villa Corona, which is on the deep west side of San Antonio. And it's for the elderly. It's a beautiful facility. And Merced manages that and provides resident services. So that, and brings in, brings in groups that can provide, like they bring in an art group and they do art with the seniors. They do all sorts of other activities around feasts and around holidays and children. They make sure that food, that they get food, access to food from the food bank of San Antonio. So the resident services is just a key part of our mission as women, religious, as sisters, and it's also part of the mission of Merced housing. So we are, we're just grateful.

[34:00] SISTER SUSAN MIKA, OSB: Yes. And I want to mention Sister Imelda Gonzalez. She was also very, very instrumental in all of these years. I know she's passed, but her memory stays with us and it stays with us here at Merced because over all the years, she was just an advocate for this affordable housing structure and getting things done. And I know many years ago I filmed her talking about some of the early days as well, and she just had that commitment of like, we're going to do this and we're staying with it. And she modeled that herself and we definitely miss her energies and, you know, all of the energy that she put into all of this. But I just don't want to leave the interview without mentioning her I know she was part of the sisters of Divine Providence, and she just was a catalyst for so many things, you know, sometimes behind the scenes, but sometimes upfront as well.

[35:04] SISTER JANE ANN SLATER, CDP: Yes. And I want to highlight Sister Carol Ann Jokerst who was the first chair of the board, said she was a past superior of the Sisters of charity, the incarnate word. And she was a really stabilizing force at the beginning, if she was wise. And then she was, finally, she had gone out. She had been out of office as well and was working in Corpus Christi and found it more and more difficult to come back for meetings and eventually retired from the board. And then I became the chair and whatever that was. And we, I just think that we've been blessed by not only the sisters who have been on the board, but also the board now is a much more, I won't say sophisticated, but professional people, lawyers and contractors, and I just, people who understand business and you understand business very well, Susan. I've been on boards, and I can go so far with it, but I also, I think that Rufus Whitley, Father Rufus Whitley was very significant. And when we, way back in 1999, when we, when we separated from mercy housing, we didn't know. We didn't really know. But, you know, I was never pessimistic. I was always hopeful because I knew the connecting, the networking, how strong Susan Sheeran was in networking and meeting people who could come in for a while and help us make a purchase or give us a new way for, oh, I remember at the beginning, Henry Cisneros was the director of HUD with Bill Clinton, President Clinton's tenure, and we thought he would be amazing helping us. Well, the whole tax credit system or something changed. So that didn't play out the way we had thought. So Susan was finding alternate sources, alternate consultants who could work with us to make Merced be able to grow the way we knew God wanted it, to grow the way in the plans of Providence that it, that it could happen. And it's just been a, you know, it's been a great story, and we've, we've hung in together, and we're happy where Merced is now, and we're very happy with the staff we have and the board we have. And, you know, the thing that is true in a lot of not for profits, which Merced is, and particularly in this, which is based in catholic, really catholic beliefs, because we're all catholic nuns, the whole thing of social justice and bringing about right relationships and working for the poor. And so I just think we've done with much collaboration, strong collaboration across our city and beyond, Merced has bloomed and grown.

[39:01] SISTER SUSAN MIKA, OSB: I think, too, that I wish we had more time to lift up all those who have helped to build us through our board, through our staff. And I know we've tried to mention a few, but we are just amazed at how much has been achieved in 27 years. And here's to the next 27 and more in that sense, because we know the need for housing, for affordable housing and for seniors and for everyone is extremely critical. And coming out of the pandemic, we've seen the need even like, raised up higher because rents are raised and so many things are militating against families. And so we know that this ministry in its time has touched so many people's lives and hearts. And that's what I kind of want to end with today in the sense of like, it was a mustard seed, and they always, you know, in the Bible, it talks about the mustard seed growing into a tree. Well, we have grown into a tree with strong roots. We're nowhere near, I think, full potential because there is so much more that could be done. We're learning every day, we're networking every day, and this is how I think successful ventures go. And this has been a very successful ministry, a very successful organization. You mentioned several times, nonprofit, you know, in that sense. But just to see out of that little mustard seed what has actually come about, I am so proud and I am so happy.

[40:50] SISTER JANE ANN SLATER, CDP: This is next to Thanksgiving is in few days, and we are so grateful. So we are thankful to all those who have supported us, and we hope that Storycorps will continue to tell our story and we will continue to forge ahead.

[41:10] SISTER SUSAN MIKA, OSB: Thank you so much.