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West Virginia Communities Work to Create Affordable Housing
by Bonnie Mann and Pam Plumb
 NLC is working with six West Virginia towns to help local officials and community stakeholders develop affordable housing projects.
The West Virginia League of Cities and the West Virginia Housing Development Fund are partners with NLC for this project, which is funded under a grant from the Fannie Mae Foundation.
In the fall of 2005, NLC and West Virginia Housing Development Fund identified the communities that were ready to develop or expand their local housing strategies.
NLC invited each town to assemble a team of local officials, nonprofit community organizations, housing authority professionals and business leaders for a planning workshop. For two days each team focused on the needs of its community and developed an action plan to improve housing.
Following the workshop, both the West Virginia Housing Development Fund and NLC have monitored each town’s implementation process and continued to provide some technical assistance and guidance.
Last month, a second conference was convened to focus on each community’s progress, the identification of barriers to completing their projects, revise or expand their action plans and develop more external resources for funding projects. In addition, the Foundation Center presented a day long course on fund raising and developing fundable proposals.
The affordable housing strategies that each community has adopted are as unique as their geographical and population make up.
For example, Delbarton (population 462) sits in the southwest corner of the state in coal country. Unemployment is high in the county, the housing stock is old and the downtown has lost many of its original businesses.
With the help of Mayor John Preece, the Four County Housing Authority has developed a $2 million project to replace a dilapidated downtown building with a new mixed use building including commercial use on the first floor and 36 residential units on the upper floors.
Welch, (population 2,745) just southeast of Delbarton is looking at old building stocks and is planning for increased housing demand with the construction of a new prison nearby.
Mayor Martha Moore worked with Stop Abusive Family Environments (SAFE) and the Four County Housing Authority to identify an available downtown building in need of rehab. SAFE undertook the rehabilitation of the Payne Building, into 16 housing units and several commercial units on the first floor. SAFE is also preparing some sites for new construction with home ownership possibilities.
Morgantown (population 50,000) is in the northeast part of the state and finds its older neighborhoods are under tremendous pressure to convert homes into apartments for college students.
At the first workshop in 2005, the team (including the City, the Housing Authority, a neighborhood organization and local bankers) decided to create a loan pool focused on building or rehabilitating homes for home ownership in these neighborhoods. The fund has over $4 million in it now and the Housing Authority has already built or rehabbed a number of homes.
Ritchie County (population 15,000) is working with its largest employer to survey housing needs and teach home ownership classes, as well as meeting with three other neighboring counties to work jointly on housing needs.
Ridgeley (population 782) is developing a community center and rewriting its comprehensive plan to include housing.
In Richwood (population 2,477), Mayor Bob Henry Baber and the council have passed a demolition ordinance and have begun marking the buildings that will be demolished if they are not repaired. Just the posting of the buildings is beginning to have an impact on owners and forcing some rehabilitation.
Building affordable housing takes place locally, community by community and lot by lot. These communities in West Virginia are making tangible progress in developing affordable housing for their residents.
Details: For more information about NLC’s Affordable Housing Program, contact Bonnie Mann at (202) 626-3125 or mann@nlc.org
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