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Housing development gives hope
By Molly Parker
Staff Writer
When North Charleston officials cut the ceremonial ribbon earlier this month on the multi-million-dollar Horizon Village subdivision located between Rivers and Spruill avenues, they helped usher in a new era in public housing in the United States.
“What we’ve built, it is a community,” said Mary Lynn Sox, coordinator for the new North Charleston Housing Authority developments. “This is not a public housing project anymore.”
In North Charleston and elsewhere, the government and private investors have collectively sunk billions into overhauling the nation’s public housing system during the past decade. Old high-rises and barrack-style residences, many of which long outlived their prime, are being torn down and upscale government-subsidized neighborhoods are going up in their place.
Once it’s fully completed, some 484 families will call the pastel-colored Horizon Village home. It replaces North Park Village, the state’s largest housing project, a deteriorating and crime-ridden community that seemed to belie North Charleston’s attempts to redefine its image as an unsafe city.
In bringing down the old buildings, housing officials are also attempting to debunk stereotypes and stigmas associated with the so-called “projects,” and break the cycle that traps families in poverty for generations.
HOPE VI, which stands for Housing Opportunities for Persons Everywhere, is a $6 billion-plus federal program aimed at creating more stable neighborhoods by mixing homeowners and renters with varying incomes, and operates under the theory that poor decisions are often simply a byproduct of one’s environment.
This new generation of public housing is about much more than roofs.
The federal grants, including the $30 million the NCHA received in 2001, is primarily brick-and-mortar money, but a significant portion also goes toward programs such as child care, transportation and counseling to support residents who are working, going to school or trying to improve their credit scores, Sox said.
Moving on up
Like others, Susan Kammeraad-Campbell had her doubts when she became the lead investigator for the final evaluation of NCHA’s HOPE VI program through her role as a research associate with the Joseph P. Riley Institute for Urban Affairs and Policy Studies at the College of Charleston.
She wondered if it was simply a Congress-backed program that allowed communities to steamroll public housing and take advantage of prime real estate.
But after conducting extensive interviews with the residents who were moved from North Park Village, she said the redevelopment and forced relocation of some 500 people gave a few the push they needed to move on with their lives.
“The interesting thing is the HOPE VI program is set up to improve economic self sufficiency, to make people self reliant, and as a social program it’s a lofty idea … The question is, ‘Did it work?’ Did it make a difference in people’s lives?” Kammeraad-Campbell said.
“I can say definitively that those people who took advantage of the services, their lives were profoundly affected, transformed.”
One of those people was Ellen Smalls, who had been living comfortably in North Park Village since 1994 and was not happy when she learned six years later she would have to leave. Nor was she enthusiastic about taking advantage of the HOPE VI program offerings several case managers presented to her.
But through tears, she told her story earlier this month.
After being in and out of public housing all her life, Smalls was recently approved for a $100,000 loan and will soon join the ranks of first-time homeowners at the age of 55.
“God is good,” she said. “Don’t worry about the tears because they are tears of joy.”
The house that HUD built
In 2001, the NCHA was the recipient of the largest HOPE VI grant awarded in South Carolina by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. The money was used in part to bring down the old North Park Village, a 533-unit brick complex that had roots dating back to 1933; it was originally a prison farm.
Before being converted into public housing, the site was also home to hundreds of employees of the nearby Charleston Naval Base during its wartime boom years.
“It gave me a sad feeling to see them being torn down,” said NCHA commissioner Keith Thompson. “But I’m delighted to say we’ve made unprecedented progress.”
Horizon Village is a $73 million public-private development that will eventually include 354 rental units and 130 homes sold for between $135,000 and $185,000, Sox said.
Of the rental units, 126 will be traditional public housing for which a family of four qualifies if their household income totals or is below $16,900, or 30% of Charleston County’s median income (the income limits vary based on the number of family members).
Another 99 units are available to families of four whose income totals or is below $33,840, or 60% of the median income, and 25 units will be rented at market rate, meaning anyone is eligible. Another 104 units are set aside specifically for seniors of various income limits.
Most of the homeowners will be first-time buyers, Sox said. Eighty homes are considered affordable units, meaning the housing authority will assist buyers in making a down payment of up to $10,000. The remaining homes will be sold without government assistance.
“I want to tell you, this is as good as it gets,” North Charleston Mayor Keith Summey said. “This is a beautiful, wonderful neighborhood.”
Gone is the barbed-wire fence that once made the North Park Village seem as if it had reverted to its early prison days, though this particular fence served to keep criminals out, not in.
For future residents, a background and credit check typical of any rental situation will be conducted before a resident is approved. No one with a criminal history can live there.
How it works
Horizon Village is the largest and final of four constructed or renovated developments in North Charleston under the Hope VI program.
The housing authority also has recently built Birchwood Apartments on Stokes Avenue and Alston Lake Apartments on Alston Avenue near Midlands Parkway and renovated the Phoenix Apartments located on St. Johns Avenue.
The total combined cost for the projects is about $102 million, Sox said. In a city with a population of about 82,000, that would equate to more than $1,200 a resident, though it’s not as if people were asked to directly fork over a check.
The project was funded primarily by three sources. The HOPE VI grant allowed for the development to include public housing units. The remainder of the project was funded by a Federal Housing Administration mortgage to be paid back over 40 years, and through the assistance of a financial investor.
In this case National Equity Fund Inc. fronted about half of the development costs. When the project is completed, the state will award federal tax credits worth 4% of the project to the company, which, acting as the syndicator, can write off the full value of the tax credit for a decade. The project developer, TCG Development Services LLC, is allowed to earn a HUD-established fee of 9% of the total development cost, said David LaRoe, senior development construction manager with TCG.
He summed it up as complicated and “creative financing.”
“You do whatever you can possibly do,” he said. “That’s the only way you can build affordable housing anymore.”
Horizon Village is jointly owned by the housing authority and TCG. The private company involvement also puts the development on the city’s tax rolls where it had been previously exempt.
Molly Parker is a staff writer for the Business Journal. E-mail her at mparker@charlestonbusiness.com.
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