Former major league baseball player Maurice Vaughn has made a new new career of buying, then rehabilitating public housing projects. The Times describes Mo's life and transformation as well as that of his six-year-old company, Omni New York LLC.
"Mr. Vaughn, a (42-year-old) star slugger for the Boston Red Sox who quit baseball in 2003 after a lackluster run with the Mets, decided to build what he called his "afterlife" from the ashes of his baseball career."
The Times chronicles the start of his business, teaming up with his attorney and a low-income housing expert. In 2004, the three purchased two deteriorating projects near foreclosure that the City wanted to unload.
"Omni New York LLC is on its way to becoming a major player in the low-income housing world. It has acquired 4,000 apartments, most of them in New York State's scrappiest neighborhoods, housing the poorest of tenants (98 percent of them qualify for Section 8 rent subsidies). It has bought and rehabilitated 23 sites in New York, Massachusetts and Wyoming for a total of $503 million."
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