Kent Continues Upkeep to the Community
By Alexandrea Rehner and Mike Mann
With a house nearing a century old, Jim Lambert, 66, is the latest participant in Kent’s Owner Occupied Housing Rehabilitation program.
The program aids those who have lived in their home for at least a year and meet Kent’s Housing Program income requirements get up to required health and safety codes, and add value to their property. The updates can even find and eliminate any possible safety risks in older homes.
“They hired a fungal company for mold, and had them check for lead because the house was built back in 1920 when there were no codes,” Lambert said. “They found some lead stuff but did testing and it wasn’t as much lead to be any danger to anyone.”
For Lambert, the cost to update common lead problems in older home didn’t cut into the budget given by the project. However, even modern updates that have been done since 1920 can still pose a risk and need modification.
“There’s a window if you’re standing in the bath tub about 5 or 6 feet up and that window by code has to have safety glass in it,” Lambert said. “It’s a brand new window, but it has to have safety glass if you would slip and rammed your head against that window it could break.”
Including code and safety required upgrades, what work is done to Lambert’s 1072 King St. address is carefully considered by the city and guidelines provided by the state of Ohio.
“It’s a grant, and the state is strict,” Lambert said. “Just like with any other grant and you have to spend it exactly like the state wants you to spend it. Sometimes they don’t cover certain things, […] especially cosmetic things.”
Ideally, Lambert would look to have some things taken care of like some outer stucco areas and trim around the house but those are not within state guidelines and cannot make the list of things to be worked on.
“They’re putting a new toilet in, putting a new floor in, some drywall on the walls,” Lambert listed. “They’re pulling the tub out and doing new plumbing, more plumbing in the basement, some kitchen things, and new cabinets in the kitchen.”
Lambert’s initial amount of aid estimates at $40 thousand dollars before the final scope of work and bidding process to contractors finalizes. Lambert will be required to pay back 25 percent of the assistance given with zero percent interest charged. The remaining 75 percent is forgiven over a five-year period as long as the owner maintains the house as residents.
“Our assistance is in the form of a loan,” Dan Morganti, Kent’s Grant and Neighborhood Programs Coordinator said. “We’ve been running these programs for years, so when the loans get paid back we operate what’s called a revolving loan fund […] so we can lend out more money.”
The city has worked for 15 consecutive years within the community and the revolving loan fund is often vital to the amount of people that can be impacted. The funds allotted to work on Lambert’s home comes from otherwise “two main sources” of governmental help.
“The city receives a yearly community development block grant application through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, which is a federal agency,” Morganti said. “We also receive a CHIP allocation which we recently received through the state of Ohio. […] CHIP is an acronym for Community Housing Impact and Preservation.”
The CHIP grant comes by way of the Ohio Development Services Agency and was recently awarded to Kent after an application was submitted by the city.
Kent is currently one of 38 recipients of the CHIP grant that the ODSA states it gives “competitively” in order to “strengthen neighborhoods through community collaboration.” Financed by the Federal Community Development Block Grant and HOME Investment Partnership Program, over $23 million dollars was distributed across Ohio in to the applicants of program year 2015.
Kent ranked 6th in the application process which scores city and counties’ community housing improvement strategies and consolidated plan. Kent’s current award amount of $300 thousand dollars breaks up into three parts: Owner Occupied Rehab ($100,000), Non-profit Rental ($175,000), and Administration ($25,000). Morganti adds that “the amounts allocated to each of these may be adjusted in the future.”
The city ultimately decides how much money can be spent on individual projects within the Owner Occupied Rehab portion.
“We can now spend use up to forty-six thousand on a house in the form of rehab assistance,” Morganti says. “We typically like to have a scope of work fall between twenty-five and thirty thousand just because the funding stream will last longer and we’re able to assist more people.”
Lambert is just one participant of the program this year so far and has had a great experience.
“They’ve been really nice, and I’ve kept in contact with them,” Lambert says. “It’s really important to keep in contact and keep the communication so I know what’s going on and where all this is going.”
