Standing before Columbia City Council on the third floor inside City Hall, Elizabeth Roddey Whitener recently explained on two occasions her management techniques and security tactics at two of her properties, Ames Manor and Riverside, both catering to low- income tenants. She had tightened tenant screenings, and her maintenance crews had improved appearances and infrastructure, while her security measures were favorably reflected in a sharp drop in reported crimes.

Whitener's management style is a product of a curious mix of social, professional and family forces, and it all comes together in safe and attractive affordable housing for people otherwise without.

Whitener was born in Columbia, where her father was part of what was the Roddey Meat Packing Company. Her mother was a creative writer. Her younger brother, Frank Roddey, is a Columbia businessman.

She went to Heathwood Hall for kindergarten. Her house was on Kilbourne Road just above the Lake Katherine dam, so she walked to Brennan Elementary from the first grade through the sixth. She gradu- ated from Hammond Academy, maintaining her artsy profile the whole while.

Whitener majored in art history at Converse College in Spartanburg. She spent her junior year at the University of London, and she interned at the Corcoran Gallery in Washington, D.C.

After a short stint as a receptionist for a Columbia accounting firm, Whitener entered graduate school at USC to earn her master's of art in teaching (MAT). Her thesis was on photographic portraiture among Columbia's rising black middle- class population just after the Civil War.

With MAT in hand, Whitener taught art at Batesburg- Leesville Elementary, Jasper Johns's alma mater, and then at Heathwood Hall, where she taught all 12 grades.

She and her late husband moved to Richmond, Va., where they lived in The Fan and where she worked as an interior designer.

After two years in Richmond, the Whiteners returned to Columbia. She had her first son, Roddey DuBose Whitener, 17 years ago, and her second son, Wilson Stone Roddey, 13 years ago. Roddey DuBose is in his junior year at Richland Northeast attending the magnet program in computers. Wilson Stone is at Crayton Middle School participating in every sport.

Whitener's father taught her the principles of real estate, to include a sharp sense of timing when property values are at their lowest (time to buy) and when the values are at their highest (time to sell).

Her entry efforts into real estate were mostly with small homes in need of minor repairs and modest cosmetic improvements. Whitener completed the repairs and upgraded the appearances and flipped the houses in short order for quick, but respectable, returns.

With apartments for low- income tenants there is no quick return, only her management fees for the long term and projected profitability for her investors. The federal government helps with tax advantages.

Riverside was Broad River Terrace before Whitener took it over, screened the existing tenants, and evicted half of them in favor of the more qualified. She changed the name to Riverside as part of a positive push. The place was about to be shut down, but she obtained a HUD non- recourse loan with an especially low interest rate, and she rehabbed the whole place to attract a higher class of tenants, still subsidized by the federal government.

Ames Manor, under Whitener's control for only a month, is still in limbo with the S.C. Housing Authority while she verifies incomes and checks for criminal backgrounds. Essentially there were no tenant files or even maintenance records to speak of when Whitener took over, so she had to start from scratch.

In the meantime, Whitener has learned to buy extra cleats when she shops for her sons, and she sometimes picks up extra everything else for her tenants' kids. She has a jobs program at Riverside, and she has developed expertise in gaining grants for day camps. She even has the Clemson Extension Service coming by regularly to teach cleaning techniques. If an apartment fails a spot inspection - is found dirty - for the third time, the tenant is evicted.

One new- found problem is state budget cuts, which cuts into juvenile justice funding, which keeps bad kids in gangs on the streets and potentially on the grounds of Whitener's apartment complexes.