$2.17 million grant funds projects to house low-income families, homeless

Brandi Tyler is a divorced mother of two children who is on the list to move into the Huntington Housing Authority's new Artisan Heights condominiums on 28th Street in June.

Her children are her top priority in moving to Huntington from Lesage, W.Va., where she rents a home provided by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

She said she was reluctant at first about the new location for her children because the condos are close to 16th Street, which has a negative connotation of violence and drugs. However, she decided it was a good place to live after she visited the condominiums.

"It's like a neighborhood in that area," Tyler said. "I liked them because they were brand new and because of the amount of space upstairs and downstairs. Right now I'm on a one-floor plan."

Tyler commutes 30 minutes twice a day, five days a week to Chesapeake, Ohio where her 6-year-old is enrolled at Chesapeake Elementary, but if she moves to Artisan Heights, her drive would be cut to just six minutes. It would also cut her commute to Marshall University where she is a senior elementary education major.

Artisan Heights is just another step in Tyler's path to becoming a teacher and being able to raise her children in a good environment while she is at school. It wouldn't have been possible without the project being partly funded by a $2.17 million grant under the Neighborhood Stabilization Program. This program is part of President Barack Obama's stimulus package under the Emergency Assistance for Redevelopment of Abandoned and Foreclosed Houses.

The money will be split among three projects. Artisan Heights will get $966,000, a single family two-bedroom home on Artisan Avenue will receive $65,000 and the Historic Barnett Apartments on Seventh Avenue will get $928,952. The rest of the money, about $200,000, will go toward administration fees to make sure the money is spent correctly, said Bill Dotson, executive director of the Housing Authority. The authority entered into an agreement with the state of West Virginia, which will govern the administration and use of the grant.

The grant made it clear that funds need to be spent by March 2013, but in the authority's January meeting, the staff said they would have the money expended by the end of 2010. To make this goal happen, the authority chose sites that Dotson called "shovel ready." These are places that were already starting to be developed or were ready to start. Artisan Heights, the home on Artisan Avenue and the Historic Barnett Apartments fit that description.

The single family home on Artisan Avenue was selected because the city designated its location as a blighted area. This means the area is run down and the city wanted to put extra resources into it, Dotson said. The authority will buy the structure for $10,000 and refurbish it for $55,000.

Dotson also chose this particular site because it's a "shotgun house."

"It's unique to Huntington in that it is very narrow and very long, which was an old method of building on narrow lots," he said.

The Historic Barnett Apartments, which will include three two-bedroom units and six one-bedroom units, was chosen for renovation because it is a historic black hospital. The apartments will be used to house the chronic homeless. Dotson said the area is perfect for that purpose because it is down the street from the Huntington City Mission, which offers services to the needy.

Artisan Heights will mainly house low-income families making 30 to 60 percent of the city's $46,000 median income, Dotson said. The grant specified that no less than 25 percent of the funds could be used to house people whose total income did not exceed 50 percent of the area's median income.

About 49,500 people live in Huntington and 40 percent make below the $46,000 median income, Dotson said.

"We are a poor town," he said. "There's no trouble right now finding people to fill empty units. It's always been like that since I became involved in 1985. There's plenty of need out there."

Section Eight is the authority's subsidy program where money is administered to private landlords who rent to low income people. The authority's Section Eight waiting list has more than 1,600 people.

Another waiting list is for public housing and has about 600 people, Dotson said. This list is for units that are owned by the authority.

People qualify for these lists in three categories, he said. Individuals or families can be low income, which is making 80 percent of the city's median income, very low income, which is making 50 percent, or extremely low income, which is making 30 percent. For a four-person family, this means making $38,000 per year for the low-income category, making $24,000 for very low income and $14,400 for extremely low income.

These lists have been closed for three years because Dotson said he doesn't want to add more people and give them false hope. Individuals already on the list have a waiting time of at least three years. Dotson said it would raise people's hopes if they were put on the waiting list because then they would expect to be moved into a new place soon, but that just wouldn't be the case.

Artisan Heights will take people off the Section Eight waiting list and put them into 22 large family units. The three-bedroom apartments will cost $635 in rent per month and the four-bedroom units will cost $645 per month. The low-income families will only have to pay 30 percent of their income toward rent. The authority will provide subsidy for the rest of the cost.

"There are very little four bedroom units being built in this town, if any," Dotson said. "I think we're the only ones."