by Bonnie Mann

Seven communities from West Virginia participated in a technical assistance program offered by the National League of Cities to support local efforts around affordable housing.  The cities of Hinton, Richwood, Ridgeley, Morgantown, Martinsburg and Welch, as well as Ritchie County, attended the workshop in Charleston, W.Va., last month.

NLC?s affordable housing program, Strengthening Partnerships for Housing Opportunities (SPHO), provides technical assistance to teams of elected officials, practitioners, and business leaders to create a common agenda for affordable housing.  Since 1998, more than 30 cities nationwide have received intensive and individualized assistance through this program.

NLC staff and experts in housing, community development, and organizational management helped the West Virginia community teams of four to eight members identify resources and barriers to affordable housing and then develop individualized action plans.  Each team developed a set of goals, identified specific steps, and set milestones for the implementation of the goals. 

Rick Moorefield, a participant from Hinton, spoke enthusiastically about the progress of his community team, ?we are actually going home with a viable project.? 

NLC?s First Vice President James Hunt, councilmember from Clarksburg, participated in the SPHO workshop and agreed that ?the communities that participated in the technical assistance greatly benefited from the focused approach and were excited to participate.?

This technical assistance effort is being carried out in partnership with the West Virginia Housing Development Fund and the West Virginia Municipal League under a grant from the Fannie Mae Foundation. NLC and its partners will continue to provide technical assistance and capacity building to these communities in order to help them implement their plans.

West Virginia, a largely rural state with many small communities, has affordable housing challenges that differ by city size, location, and the health of the local and regional economies.  However, even with such differences there were several challenges to affordable housing that were common to most participants. 

For example, in the more rural and isolated areas, environmental conditions such as hilly terrain and flood-prone localities increase the cost of excavation and site preparation and contribute to higher construction costs.  Also, even on land that may appear suitable for building, infrastructure costs (especially water and sewage) may be too prohibitive to support new housing. 

Many of the communities experience special housing issues with the elderly and disabled, who are more likely to live in substandard and dilapidated housing. 

Finally, most of the communities described problems with properties falling into disrepair and unsafe living conditions as a result of absentee landlords and a lack of zoning and code enforcement.  The more urban areas are finding an increased demand for quality workforce housing, as well as a lack of developers and a too-small pool of credit-ready potential homebuyers.

Details: For more information about NLC?s Affordable Housing program please contact, Bonnie Mann at (202) 626-3125 or by e-mail at mann@nlc.org.