The Scoop with Tanya Flanagan

Wesley Knight 0:00
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Tanya Flanagan 0:19
Good morning, and thank you for joining me for the scoop with Tanya Flanagan, I'm so happy you decided to wake up and start your day with me here on the scoop, where we talk about life, joy, funny moments, trending topics and so much more. We promise to keep you in the know and find out what you know. So let's get started.

You Good morning Las Vegas, and thank you for tuning in once again to the scoop with me. Tanya Flanagan, right here on 91.5k U, N, V, jazz and more. As always, I'm delighted to wake up with you on a Sunday morning, and also super excited about the guest I have today. We're going to talk about something that you either love or you hate, HOAs, yes, I said it, HOAs, it's the first Sunday in February, so we are it's amazing how the year gets off to such a quick start, and before you know it, you have 31 days behind you, and you have moved into the second month of the year. I remember being a child, and it seemed like it would take forever for time to pass, but as an adult, you mark things much differently, and time moves forward. And so speaking of time, we're going to get into it, because when we have a little bit of time this morning, I'd like to welcome to the studio with me Ken jail Rankin Lynch and her husband, Osiris Lynch, and they are husband and wife, writing duo, authors of hustle of America, play on words for HOA. Hustle of America, when the American Dream turns to nightmares. Welcome to the show, both of you.

Kengel Lynch 1:54
Thank you for having

Osiris Lynch 1:55
Hello. Hello. Thanks for having us. Tanya, thank

Tanya Flanagan 1:58
you. I appreciate your you know, getting up and joining me. People often say they're going to write a book, and it's not always that a husband and wife do well, decide to sit down and put their thoughts pen to paper, but when you do do with the collaboration, working together, channeling your thoughts to get everything down and expressed the way you want to your book is about home ownership in communities that are governed by HOAs. Yes. So what first neither one of you are writers prior to this book, right? Right now. So this is a first time endeavor, until your creative juices began to flow to write this book, and I began to read some of the beginning pages. And it's a good read. It's feeling like it's going to be a really good read all the way through. Kendra, what's your background before you decided to do this?

Kengel Lynch 2:50
Well, I'm in the health field. I'm in health information management. I've been with the county for about 22 years now, and so I'm in the finance department of health care. Awesome,

Tanya Flanagan 3:05
awesome. We share our county space together with the same number of years. I know that Osiris a little bit about who you are, because I want to kind of paint a picture of how you guys are regular people who wrote a book like you're not traveling book conventions and conferences and readings and unveilings and things like this. It wasn't a passion where you were sitting there, growing up all your life, going I have this burning desire. I just know I have these stories so Cyrus, what were you? What do you do prior to becoming author?

Osiris Lynch 3:39
I've been a licensed barber since 2005 you know, we also have a nonprofit organization called called Barbara's Art Foundation, and which, you know, we've worked we've talked about that part before. Yes and no, we we never had any plans on writing a book, per se. This is something just had happened. And we kind of like, Hey, let's go with it.

Tanya Flanagan 3:58
So now that we know who you are, a little bit about your everyday lives, what happened that made you want to write this book.

Osiris Lynch 4:08
It wasn't that anything happened. Ever since we moved into our new home, we've been there three years. We've been dealing with issues with our Hoa, and sometime last year, in the beginning of the summer, you know, after researchers filing complaints against the whole HOA abuse by the management company and targeting, I looked up at my desk, and I'm like, hey, you know, look at all this information we've gathered from fighting these individual, these companies, management companies. And why don't we put together, you know, make a book out of it? She said, Yeah, let's go. And that's when the idea just ran off. So

Tanya Flanagan 4:43
who did the writing? Did you write it or did did you both write it together? Did you together? Take pieces of take pieces of your experience, and then turn the piece, you know, different pieces of the experiences that you had, into chapters. Because it is a how many chapters did you guys? Right? 27 chapters. So, 27 chapters so, and some of them are the pros and cons. How HOAs got started. So you really delve into the history of HOAs in the country, or is it the history of HOAs in Nevada in the whole country? In the country? Okay, so enlighten us. For those who don't know, how did HOAs get started in in this country? Well,

Osiris Lynch 5:27
it started in the mid 1920s 1920s 1930s and after the post World World War Two, when soldiers were coming back from war and decided to start a family. So the idea of a HOA was to create these neighborhoods that are appealing esthetically, you know, well, in order and things like that, for the middle class family to start, to start. And while those ideas were good, ideas also came a dark side behind the HOA, and in particular to target and redline African American soldiers who were who had the right to buy homes but couldn't buy homes because HOA communities were not allowing them to move in, so to speak.

Tanya Flanagan 6:13
So we're getting a little bit of an unexpected history lesson in Black History Month, kicking off Black History Month, a little piece of because housing is a really big issue in the African American community, and redlining practices and discrimination when it came to housing loans, and even still today, people still struggle with qualifying sometimes for housing opportunities and where they're able to afford to live and why They're able to afford to live in those different neighborhoods. There's also a push to get back, in some ways, to neighborhoods of color, African American, culturally enriched neighborhoods, but this piece of history is one that I don't think many of us know. That HOAs were born out of the attempt to create esthetically pleasing neighborhoods in places where middle class families after World War Two would want to settle and raise their children and commune together. But during that period, African American soldiers who served in the world weren't as Welcome to these communities. No, not at all. Wow.

Osiris Lynch 7:17
And that was the darkest side of it. And you know, it was even deeper than that, as we did our research, because you would see neighbors, you know, in the surface, it's a neighbor not liking another neighbor. However, the more research we did that it was really systematic, because loan corporations wouldn't allow or approve a loan to a home builder unless it's in the property deed that none of these homes in this community will be sold or rented to a person of color. So not only that, the prominent black family who could afford the home couldn't buy because neighbors didn't want them there, it was also in the property deed. Wow.

Tanya Flanagan 7:53
Okay, so we're getting a good history lesson as we kick off February. Yeah. Okay, I'm liking that, liking the surprise of not liking that it happened, but I am liking it. We are sharing this moment to share, to tell other people some things that they really didn't know, and the empowerment of what you uncovered. So from there, you got into the history of where HOAs came from. What did you see as you uncovered it, in terms of, if this was in the policy? How did it progress? Because this is back to the 1920s

Osiris Lynch 8:28
right from the 30s to what

Tanya Flanagan 8:31
the 50s or exactly. So, what did you see as it progressed going forward? Because I don't think a lot of people even knew homeowners associations dated so far back because I don't think I knew that. I thought you hear of them. You hear of them in modern times, or you hear of them when you become a homeowner, and it becomes a relative term to you. Well, you know, as so in the middle, so in the middle of this. Now we're to 1950s but just what else came along after the evolution that you uncovered or discovered in this

Osiris Lynch 9:01
well, you know, so along with home, banks wasn't ensuring the loans the Water Works Company were also targeting minority neighborhoods. So the difference was in the suburban homes, they would charge less per square footage on water usage versus the black and Latino neighborhoods. They would charge more. So the Battle of the poor people trying to get ahead was was really deep rooted in the system. It wasn't just, you know, a white family didn't like

Tanya Flanagan 9:30
so how did you find how did you uncover this information? Like, where did you guys do? What did you do to do the research, just to see the bias that you're sharing you uncovered in writing this book between you know, bills for water usage and construction development arrangements and agreements like, how

Osiris Lynch 9:53
did you find, of course, Google, the Library of Congress, and really before, when we first moved into our home, I. Have a good friend that I mentioned in the book, Marcus Tillman posted a video of a man speaking about his real estate career, and the book's called the color of law, and he dug deep into the racism in the real estate, you know. And as we were going through the battles with Hoa, it was resonating in my mind of what was going through. I'm like, wow, it's stuff. They really do this stuff till this day. And, you know, through the researches and things like that, you know, would we would respond to the management company on what they were doing, we were kind of, you know, putting these little case laws to kind of let them know we know what we're talking about.

Tanya Flanagan 10:36
Okay, so you started researching the law and really digging into, were you looking at Nevada State law, or

Osiris Lynch 10:43
Nevada and the Supreme Court, which oversees everything, right? Federal Supreme Court?

Tanya Flanagan 10:49
Yes. Okay, so what was the most interesting thing that I guess you uncovered when you were doing the research? What was the most like? Shocking or took your breath away. I really made you feel like we need to say something. We have to do something with this information that we found

Kengel Lynch 11:07
well for me, you know what happened was I felt that my neighborhood was targeting my son, so it made me think about Trayvon Martin's story, and I got nervous, and I said, oh, sorry. So we have to do something. We have to start alerting people that this is still happening. We need to wake up our community. We need to let them know. They need to get involved. Know who you stand around. I just did not want my son to be outside plan and then be targeted by neighbor because he's just doing what kids do, throwing a ball in the neighborhood. And then, oops, the ball goes into the neighbor's yard, and then he goes get his ball, and then here comes the neighbor yelling, Get out of my yard with his gun, you know. So we just started to experience things like that, and it's like

Tanya Flanagan 11:58
a vivid nightmare, really, especially for, you know, for a mom of a young boy, see 11,

Kengel Lynch 12:04
He's 11 now, but when it started, he was eight. Oh, wow, yeah.

Tanya Flanagan 12:08
So this has been a three year journey for you and in the same neighborhood. And some would ask, and not that you should, but was there ever like a moment the frustration was so heavy you thought, Should we move? Of course, the market doesn't really compliment right, that, you know right now

Kengel Lynch 12:26
for me, I was like, let's fight back. No move,

Osiris Lynch 12:30
yeah, I wasn't talking. No Till, no.

Tanya Flanagan 12:34
Okay. I wasn't talking. Okay. There's a moment when I think, as we sit here in black history month and we realize the things that the people who've gone before us had to go up against to, you know, for voting rights, for education access, for Job Access, for transportation access. I mean, like, there's always been this journey, right? So now you have your story within the tapestry of American history, here in the city, in your space, but as a mom and having a son, that's a really vivid picture, because parents are always afraid, regardless really, regardless of color. Parents are always afraid when their children are out of their care, for the most part, because you anything could happen to them, regardless of why it happens. If something is happening to your child, but to being your neighborhood where you should feel safe, welcomed. I mean, unless your neighborhood is not safe, right? But if you feel like you have a and that's relative, because all neighborhoods can any neighborhood, can have a situation. But when you try to work and you purchase a home, and you try to buy that home in a in a nice neighborhood, a nice community, it's esthetically appealing. Scout walkways that has trees, that has all these things you know people who invest in themselves and their property, and you don't feel safe worrying about your child, that's a horrible feeling. Yeah,

Kengel Lynch 14:04
it really is so. And I felt that way about my child, and you know, so many other children in the neighborhood that he was playing with. So we started reaching out to other parents.

Tanya Flanagan 14:15
Were they expressing some of the same fears? Or what? Or did you feel like you are the island yours? Was your it was your anomaly.

Kengel Lynch 14:21
Well, they had some fears. You know, it was a social media page, and we noticed they were posting a lot of brown kids. Let's put it like that, make sure you tell your kids not to walk, you know, in the yard, it was always something geared to the black children, and

Tanya Flanagan 14:43
you felt it was petty? I did. I really did. Felt it was petty and targeting. Yes, okay, okay.

Kengel Lynch 14:50
So I said, let's, let's start researching this. I think it's deeper, and it was so what do you

Tanya Flanagan 14:56
mean when you say it was deeper? I. It because we have a book, and we want to invite you to read the book called hustle of America. When the American Dream turns to nightmares, I'm assuming it's available Amazon. Okay, any other spaces that, any of the platforms where people could secure a copy of this book that they wanted to read it?

Osiris Lynch 15:18
We're working on Barnes and Noble right now and Etsy, but it's right now on Amazon, Amazon,

Tanya Flanagan 15:23
okay, and you self published? Yes, yes. I had another guest on, and I think self publishing is so cool because it empowers you to do something that before people weren't able to do. Did you also have to get editors for the book? Or did you do that? Okay, so you invested in editor relationship, then you self published. How long from beginning to end did it take you guys to put your thoughts into this book?

Osiris Lynch 15:49
About a good year and a half to two years, but it took Dr Nicola Mitchell and her team about four months, because I kind of messed up the book. I lost it online somehow, and somehow can Jill manage to find it from another proofreader who sent it back?

Tanya Flanagan 16:05
Oh, so by the time the book has taken a journey, yeah, by the time I

Osiris Lynch 16:09
sent it to Dr Nicola she she was like, it is messed up. Thanks to her and her team. They were, they was able to kind of figure

Tanya Flanagan 16:17
out the order, and you were able to say, yes, that is where we were and how we should be, yes, so you made them really work for whatever it is you contracted with that. She

Osiris Lynch 16:26
said it normally takes only about three weeks to a month. It took about four months.

Tanya Flanagan 16:30
Oh, wow. Yeah,

Kengel Lynch 16:31
you but this is the beginning of our journey, because we're going to tell the full story. Yeah, this we wanted to give a background on HOA.

Tanya Flanagan 16:39
So this is book number one that's gonna be so what, what do people find in this book? A background on HOAs, and what else we've talked about, the history, yes. And then what? What else I'm looking

Kengel Lynch 16:50
how to fight your HOA, the steps you need to take,

Osiris Lynch 16:53
how to fight it correctly. And, you know, I made it clear that in the book that I don't, we don't want to, I don't, personally, don't want to target our white neighbors saying white people are racist. They're not, because history shows that it was a white family, Shelly versus Kramer, who the family rented a home to their black friends, and the HOA sued the family because, remember, it was in the deed not to rent none of these homes to black or Latino families. So the HOA sued the family, but the family took it to Supreme Court, and Shelley versus Kramer was the most notable case that started turning things around, because the Supreme Court says pretty much this is this man's home. He does what he wants to do to his home. And then comes the Civil Rights Act of 1968 and things like that, or the Fair Housing Act. You know, I'm kind of probably getting my dates, but they're all in here. So I wanted to show the contrast between the beginning and how the Fair Housing Act kind of changed now to where now fair housing act as an advocate for civil rights? Absolutely. Yeah. So, you know, it turned around, and all the good things are showing out of it. But you know the old method of blockbusting we talked about? Here it was when real estate company would hire African Americans to drive around white neighborhoods, to scare white families into selling their homes and much cheaper value. You know what I mean, because I'm looking

Tanya Flanagan 18:22
at you, not because I don't know what you mean. I'm looking at you because, again, these pieces and these nuggets, as we sit in on the first Sunday in Black History Month, are pieces of history that I don't know. You're telling them in a way that it's not that we didn't know, but who's involved behind but you're making it a different type of relevance and a different type of Right, right? Because you would hear, but, but when you get to 2025, it can feel like so long ago, but we're right now in a climate that it feels like, is this so long ago? Is it, was it yesterday? Is that the age of reincarnation is on its way back? So when you talk about, oh no, they paid black people to get in cars and drive around certain neighborhoods, yes, to

Osiris Lynch 19:11
scare the white family into selling their homes much cheaper, because so then the average white family would say, here goes the neighborhood. Blacks are moving in. It's time to sell and get out what we always use, you know, it was flight. It was called, then the wife like so the whole, the whole thing, when they say, you know, the neighborhood's values going down, is actually a myth, because then black families were willing to pay more to get out of their congested neighborhoods, to move into these suburban neighborhoods. So by the time the white family sold their home for much lower value to get out of the neighborhood, they the real estate company would then turn around and sell that home to a black family, way more than the value. So who's winning, then the real estate company? So that was called Block busting, and it is now against the law, also for real estate companies to do that.

Tanya Flanagan 20:01
Yeah, wow. So all of this is in the so basically, if anyone is super curious about kind of the history of housing, in a way in this country, this is a really good book to read. And Osiris Lynch and Ken jail, Rankin Lynch are really great people to follow, get to know, because you're going to you're telling the story. People are living this. I mean, working in government for a number of years, I see a lot of concern. Used to see a lot of constituent concerns come across the desk over the years with the different roles that I've had in my work place, and a lot of times it would be HOA related questions. People were very frustrated that are struggling. They're dealing with some aspect of policy related to the H away. And people always think, of course, everything is County, but it's not so. Some things were the state and the county doesn't have jurisdiction over homeowners associations, and so a lot of times, people don't even understand the separation of powers as it pertains to these organizations. And some you either love them or you hate them. And we were talking about a little bit how when you on the outside, as I live in a neighborhood, my neighborhood does not have a homeowners association, which sometimes is good and sometimes feels bad, right? It all depends on how well your neighbor, how neighborly your neighbor is in terms of esthetics and upkeep. And so I've been blessed and fortunate to live in a neighborhood with people who really do care about their properties. And so, on their own, they keep things together. There are times when someone may have decide to paint their home, and you're like, Hmm, and you know, you think of a homeowners association as the regulation of the colors aren't too crazy. The landscaping isn't ridiculous. Things are in order. Vehicles work, blah, blah, blah, you know, but you don't. And then you hear the horror stories of, oh, I got a letter because there were weeds and I didn't get them up in whatever period of time. Or you hear these strange these stories that sound like intrusions that are not fair. They are very intrusive. Are the same, just excessive for weeds. But then you see the neighborhoods that are so pristine and well maintained, you think that's what you think. This is what they do. This is what they're for. But you never really think until you start to hear that someone out there feels intimidated or attacked by a group of individuals. So what are you hoping to accomplish by writing? And you said, This is book number one. This is book number one. Yes. So how many more books do we see in the future of hustle of America? When, and do you have titles for the sub, the sequels? When?

Osiris Lynch 22:48
Everything, I want everything, but this takes you up

Tanya Flanagan 22:51
to how it starts, how to properly address an issue when you have it, what you can expect to have happen, and pretty much putting in a complaint, and who, what organizations will take your complaint, respond and help you navigate through a situation if you feel you have a valid issue with your homeowners association,

Osiris Lynch 23:13
governing agencies. And you know what? Majority of homeowners don't know, that the IRS is who governs Hoa, because Hoa is a nonprofit corporation, so that's an tax exempt code that they have. So being that they're governed by the IRS, they must fall they must follow the rules. So there's a tax form, tax form 1309, is the complaint you file against your HOA, and that could cause the HOA to lose their tax exempt status. So that's just put it out there. It's in the book. But you know, with them continually harassing you, and you can prove that there's discrimination targeting, etc, etc, the IRS will

Tanya Flanagan 23:54
take a look at it and do an investigation. Yes, do their due diligence if you file Nourse this form, 13 909 13 909 Okay, so it's in the book, yeah, hustle of America. When the American Dream turns to nightmares, I have Ken jail, Rankin Lynch and Osiris Lynch in the studio with me this morning, spending a little time talking about this book that you can find on Amazon if you just Google. I like the title because I like the way you played the play on words, hustle of America, Hoa. And it's written in black, but the HOA is in red, so it pops out, and you immediately get, you know what the story is and what's going on. And you popped American and nightmares. And I think that is significant, because we live in America where it's the American dream, but then you flipped it to the nightmares and put this

Osiris Lynch 24:44
focus on that, because it is a nightmare we kind of you know in your dream

Tanya Flanagan 24:49
home that you're not leaving because can tell us hunker down and you're not tucking your tail, so we're gonna fight right? Well,

Osiris Lynch 24:54
you know the president of that Hoa, moved out after HOA started doing their investing. Education. There you go. The

Tanya Flanagan 25:02
fight. And so you won the

Osiris Lynch 25:04
small victories. It's not over. It's not over.

Tanya Flanagan 25:07
How is it? How did it feel that you feel validated? No, not yet. I don't know, right? Some small because there's a lot of work that went into saying. Someone asked me the other day, how did you and we're getting into the to the down stretch, but how did you come to be who you are? How did I come to be this public servant, servant leader, type of person who answers the call, and I think there's that pivotal moment that hits you where something moves you because it's not right, or you want to help someone else, and you see a way forward, so you begin to do the work to help yourself, but also to help other people, right, right? And so there has to be some similarity there, because there's a motivating for I mean, we're getting to the last two minutes. I want to make sure that if anyone wants to track follow. Is there a website? Is there social media?

Osiris Lynch 26:04
Yes, yes, tick tock at Hoa, underscore info, okay, our website, hustle of america.com. Okay, can jail at hustle of america.com or Osiris, O S, S, I R, I s at hustle of america.com

Tanya Flanagan 26:21
Okay, so we are building a brand on hustle of America in a minute. I have t shirts

Osiris Lynch 26:29
now. We're already working on it, yes,

Tanya Flanagan 26:33
but it's good to invest in yourself and to have the exponential reach and then the education. Do you see yourselves going around. Have you gotten any I mean, maybe we have more time for a conversation. But any pushback from people who are like you're affecting our and we're going to take out this may be a yes or no, but any pushback from people who feel like you're affecting not in any way. This affects home ownership, because it doesn't. Because I want to buy a home, I'm going to buy a home, but maybe it's a really great citizen, citizen governance space where residents are involved in helping us, because lawmakers don't know the intimate details of what happens in the neighborhood. They think, like I just talked about, the lawn is pretty, the houses are decent color, the streets are clean. Things are in order, and that's what you you see most of the time, until you start hearing the stories of the overreach and the leaning and things of that nature on people's hard earned properties that you could lose this you put 1000s of dollars down, and you want to come tell me, because whatever you want, the whole thing. Oh, stop. I mean, it becomes, you know, crazy, but we are in our last few minutes, and I want to thank you both. To be

Osiris Lynch 27:49
fair. To be fair. You know, when there's a there's a lawmaker that lives in the neighborhood, these people aren't going to mess with the lawmaker, you know, they're going to mess with the they think who's a little person. So they pick and choose and who they they just chose the right couple at this point.

Tanya Flanagan 28:07
Well, folks, you heard it right here on the scoop with me. Tanya Flanagan, they chose the right couple. If you want to know how the right couple, Ken jail and no sir Lynch dealt with them, consider looking at this book hustle of America when the American Dream turns to nightmares, it's available on Amazon. That's pretty much our time today. Thank you for joining me. Thank you for tuning in. Stay safe and have a good week. I'll see you next time. Bye. I want to thank you for tuning in to the scoop with me. Tonya Flanagan, and I want to invite you to get social with me. I'm on Facebook and Twitter. My name is my handle, T, a n, y, A F, l, a N, A, G, A N. You can also find me on Instagram at Tanya almond eyes Flanagan, and if you have a thought, an opinion or a suggestion, don't hesitate to shoot me an email to tanya.flanagan@unlv.edu Thanks again for joining in. Stay safe and have a great week. You.