Program offers chance of a lifetime

Nonprofit housing developers give low-income families a chance for homeownership.
By MARALINE KUBIK
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
YOUNGSTOWN -- Three months ago, Veronica Poole and her family were in dire straits.
The ambulance company that had been transporting her husband to dialysis three times a week told her it wouldn't do it anymore.
The steps leading to her front door were too dangerous to carry a man in a wheelchair up and down.
Poole agreed. Her husband rolled off the porch of that house three times, and her mother, who also uses a wheelchair, refused to visit because she was afraid her family wouldn't be able to carry her up those steps.
Although she suffers from muscular dystrophy and wears braces on both legs, Poole managed to get her husband to the dialysis clinic without the ambulance company's help, but she knew she and her children couldn't do it by themselves forever.
How she searched: She tried to find an apartment designated for low-income people who are disabled, Poole said, but the ones her husband qualifies for are designated for senior citizens and do not allow children.
Other apartments and houses the family can afford on their limited income wouldn't accommodate her husband's wheelchair, Poole said.
"I had friends tell me I should put him in a nursing home, but I said until death do us part, not until sickness. We didn't want to be separated."
The couple's 11-year-old daughter, Lena, and 5-year-old son, Bennie, also have health problems. Lena suffers from diabetes, and Bennie has a heart condition and sickle-cell disease.
Poole approached Jubilee Urban Renewal Corp. and Community Housing Options Involving Cooperative Efforts, Youngstown's two nonprofit development companies, for help in obtaining suitable housing but was turned down by both organizations.
Perseverance: Families living in houses built by those organizations must have good credit and regular income substantial enough to pay the rent and utility bills; the Poole family did not meet guidelines.
But Poole refused to give up. She called Sherry A. DeMar, the real estate agent who manages Jubilee homes and Common Wealth's Campbell Commons. After the Poole family secured a co-signer, Jubilee approved its application.
"Within two weeks, I had my home. It was a true blessing," Poole said. Because the house on High Street in the city's South Side was built to accommodate a resident who uses a wheelchair, Poole said life is much better for her husband and the rest of her family.
"He can just roll right into the shower. He can get to the light fixtures. In the summer, he can sit out on the porch and have coffee," she said enthusiastically.
For the first time in more than eight years, Poole said, "my mother came to my house and she didn't want to leave."
Motioning to her spacious living room, she said, "if you can imagine that -- two of them rolling around here and they didn't bump once."
The two women are already planning a family celebration for next Christmas -- the first time in years they will be under one roof for the holidays.
Safety factor: The location of the home also adds to the excitement, Poole said. It's in the same neighborhood where she grew up and where three generations of her family lived for decades.
"All the old neighbors are still here," she said with a smile. "I feel safe letting my kids walk up the sidewalk. If I can't see what they're doing, I know one of the neighbors will."
Another family: Theresa Mims is just as happy with her Jubilee home on Forest View on the East Side. Mims, who is rearing her three grandchildren, ages 2, 4 and 16, was one of the first residents to move into a Jubilee home in her neighborhood four years ago.
Mims was forced to move from her home on the North Side when Youngstown State University bought the house she was renting.
At the time, she said, Jubilee had just broken ground for new houses on the East Side. She applied to move into one of the homes designed for families with young children and was accepted almost immediately.
"Thank God everything worked out for me. It truly was a blessing," Mims said.
Neither family ever expected to live in a brand-new home, let alone have the opportunity to own one.
Thanks to the nonprofit development companies, whose goals are to rebuild the inner city, they, and more than 100 other families like them, have that chance.
Housing funds: Jubilee and CHOICE build most of the houses using a combination of funds received from selling federal tax credits to investors, taking mortgages and using state and city money. The homes are then leased to qualified families.
After 15 years, families living in the homes will have an opportunity to buy them.
Residents are required to maintain the homes, pay rent on time and keep utility bills current, or risk eviction. That not only maintains property values for the new homes, but serves as a catalyst for the neighborhoods.
How this helps: "By building these houses, they brought the neighborhood up so much," Mims said. "People have more pride now. If they see you taking care of yours, they want to take care of theirs."
Once, the neighborhood where Mims lives was plagued by what she calls "drugs and riffraff." Today, she said, "it's a very neighborly neighborhood."
Thus far, Jubilee has completed 115 new homes and renovated five houses on the East and South sides; CHOICE has completed 122 new houses on the East and North sides; and Common Wealth Inc., a regional nonprofit development company, has completed 68 single-family homes in Campbell.
All three organizations have major projects in the works.
On South Side: Jubilee will break ground this spring for 10 houses on the South Side, said Star Dominick, director. Five of those will be tax-credit homes similar to those Jubilee has completed, she said, and five will be market-rate homes.
Unlike the tax credit homes, which are open to low- and moderate-income families who earn no more than 50 percent or 60 percent of the area's gross median income, the market-rate homes, she said, "will be open to any family."
This fall Jubilee will break ground for 50 houses on the city's upper South Side.
East and North sides: CHOICE has 40 homes under construction, 20 on the East Side where Youngstown Metropolitan Housing Authority demolished several housing units in what was the Kimmel Brook area, and 20 in the Westlake Terrace neighborhood on the North Side, said Phillip E. Smith, CHOICE executive director.
That project, in cooperation with YMHA, has been 21/2 years in the making, Smith said, and will result "in a whole new development" where Kimmel Brook once stood.
Common Wealth will build 10 single-family houses on scattered sites throughout the North Side. Construction on those will begin this summer and be completed early next year, said Jim Converse, community development specialist.
Campbell projects: In addition, Common Wealth will complete a 56-unit apartment building for senior citizens in Campbell and renovate 17 units of Youngstown Sheet & amp; Tube Co. housing there.
Renovation of the company housing, built from 1917 to 1920, is in accordance with historical preservation standards, Converse said.
Long-range plans are even more ambitious.
In addition to building a similar number of new houses each year in an attempt to meet continuing demand -- some 200 families are on CHOICE's waiting list and between 50 and 100 families are on Jubilee's -- the two organizations plan to rejuvenate the crumbling commercial strip along Market Street between Indianola Avenue and the Market Street Bridge, Smith said.
A consulting firm has been hired to study that proposal and could have a report in as little as six months, he said. How soon construction could begin is uncertain.