Goodwill hawking: Mark-Taylor Residential
Although the financial gurus didn't officially declare the recession until last December, apartment developers have been virtually frozen out of construction financing for more than a year and acquisition loans have been hard to obtain.
Dale Phillips, president of Mark-Taylor Residential, one of the largest apartment developers and fee managers in Phoenix, believes that perfect opportunities for charitable donations present themselves in periods of slow development growth.
For the past two years, Mark-Taylor has partnered with the Save the Family Foundation to provide a rent-free apartment to a client of the 21-year-old, Phoenix-area non-profit that helps homeless families become self-sufficient.
This year, with so many Americans facing financial ruin, the Scottsdale-based apartment firm decided to do more, donating 12 apartments to families in crisis. "The need is certainly great and we wanted to do what we could," said Phillips.
Nearly 3,000 people are living on the streets in Phoenix -- an increase of 20 percent from the year before, according to a recent count of homeless people conducted by the Maricopa Association of Governments in January. And that doesn't include the number of homeless people living in shelters.
The total number of homeless families increased 370 percent over the past year in Maricopa County, to an estimated 12,000 people, ten percent of them children. Many agencies serving homeless and low- income people, including Save the Family, report a large
