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Housing trust gives $1 million in affordable housing grants
By Dennis Quick
Senior Staff Writer
Charleston Area Community Development Corp. plans to build three houses in the Silver Hill area with help from a $60,000 grant it recently received, plus funding from other sources. Then the CDC hopes to sell the houses for $94,000 each, according to Charleston Area CDC Executive Director Lenore McKenna.
The nonprofit organization serving poor neighborhoods received the grant from the Lowcountry Housing Trust, which distributed $1 million in housing grants to 10 Lowcountry agencies planning to build roughly 250 affordable housing units throughout the tri-county area.
The aim of the grants from Lowcountry Housing Trust, a nonprofit organization funding and promoting affordable housing, is to make it easier for the region’s working poor to buy or rent a place to live.
The other agencies receiving grants are the Douglas Co., East Cooper Habitat for Humanity, Edpao Properties, the Humanities Foundation, Nehemiah Corp., the North Charleston Hope VI program, Metanoia, Sea Island Habitat for Humanity and the United Methodist Relief Center.
Formerly known as the Charleston Housing Trust, the Lowcountry Housing Trust raised the $1 million in funds through grants and donations from the Bakker Family Foundation, the city of Charleston’s Department of Housing and Community Development, the S.C. Housing Finance and Development Authority, and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Local banks, builders and private donors also contributed to the funding.
The grants were awarded Aug. 29 during a ceremony at the Silver Hill community, a neighborhood in peninsular Charleston’s “Neck” area populated mainly by poor and working-class households.
“We need affordable housing because we need places for our workers to live and for them to live near where they work,” Charleston Mayor Joseph P. Riley Jr. said.
HUD considers a housing unit affordable if no more than 30% of the household income goes toward the mortgage.
The funding finances housing developments for residents whose incomes are below $31,304, which is 80% of the region’s median income.
More than 45% of Lowcountry households earn less than $44,700 a year, according to the trust.
Affordable housing is a “tough” issue in the Charleston area, said Vince Graham, the trust’s board chairman and a local real estate developer. During the past decade the average Lowcountry home price has soared 100% while wages have risen only 40% Graham said.
“The real estate boom has left many deserving individuals behind,” Graham said. “The trust seeks to secure and distribute funds that make it possible for hardworking families to purchase their own homes in this desirable community.”
Cutbacks in U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development programs have proven an obstacle for affordable housing initiatives, said Tammie Hoy, the trust’s executive director.
“As existing federal and state funding sources continue to decline, local communities must find creative ways to raise funds to finance area housing needs,” Hoy said.
The funding saves affordable housing developers as much as $30,000 in architectural and engineering fees, environmental assessment fees and other pre-development costs, plus site acquisition and construction costs, according to the trust. Relieving developers of such costs, which often hamper affordable housing development, enables developers to build less expensive homes.
Dennis Quick is senior staff writer for the Business Journal. E-mail him at dquick@charlestonbusiness.com.
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