October 27, 2005

Cathleen Tong and her son, Cayden, at their new house that Home, Inc., constructed. An open house will be held at the home, 1211 Xenia Avenue on Sunday, Oct. 30.

By Diane Chiddister

While affordable housing continues to be a topic of debate in Yellow Springs, some groups and individuals have quietly and steadfastly moved ahead in an effort to provide homes affordable to lower- or middle-income people. This weekend, villagers will have the opportunity to visit two of those homes.

On Sunday, Oct. 30, John and Maria Booth will host an open house from noon to 2 p.m., at their home, 409 Dayton Street, and from 2 to 4 p.m., the new home of Cathleen Tong and her son, Cayden DeFusco, will be on view at 1211 Xenia Avenue. The Booths’ home was built through the efforts of Suzanne Clauser, and the Xenia Avenue house is the fifth house to be constructed or refurbished by Yellow Springs Home, Inc.

A sixth home by Home, Inc., at 503 Dayton Street, was scheduled to be open this weekend, but that event has been postponed due to construction delays.

Another affordable housing project, by Starfish, Inc., while not yet ready for an open house, is nearing completion on Suncrest Drive.

Marianne MacQueen, the executive director of Home, Inc., said affordable housing meets needs in the village in a variety of ways.

“Yellow Springs has always said it values diversity, and with housing prices as they are, the only way to have economic diversity is to have homes that lower- or middle-income people can afford,” MacQueen said.

Affordable housing will attract more young families with children, which is critical to a shrinking school population, she said. And more young people who grew up in Yellow Springs will be able to move back, providing a “historical sense of community,” she said.

With a potential energy crisis looming, more local people will need to be able to both live and work in the village, which will also enhance those individuals’ sense of community, she believes.

“People who both live and work here have more of a stake in Yellow Springs,” she said.

A beach cottage in Ohio
People who think an affordable house is a boring house should think again, or come to the open house at 1211 Xenia Avenue. The house was designed by Bruce Parker and constructed by Tom Noftle.

The new home of Cathleen Tong and her son, Cayden, the blue house has a unique shed-roof design. While it measures 1,200 square feet, the home’s high ceilings and many windows create a feeling of light and space. Beyond that Tong, who worked as a sailor in the Caribbean for 10 years, has painted her home the colors of the ocean.

“I wanted a beach house in Yellow Springs,” she said.

Toward that end, the living room is painted the color of the reef waters at Key West, where she crewed on a schooner for a decade, and a variety of shades of ocean blue cover the home’s inner walls. Light fixtures also reflect a nautical theme. Tong chose the design from several options, as well as the fixtures and paint. Her house also benefits from sustainable energy practices.

She has put about 200 hours of volunteer labor into the house, Tong said, and was assisted by about 20 to 30 volunteers, who helped paint, sand and lay the wooden floor. The extent of the volunteer help amazed her, she said.

“I’ve never lived anywhere where people came to help who didn’t even know me,” she said.

Raised in Tipp City, Tong lived for 10 years in Key West and then on Prince Edward Island. After a divorce, she wanted to be closer to her family but decided to move back to the area with Cayden only if she could live in Yellow Springs, she said. So she rented for six years, studied for her masters in education at Antioch University McGregor and now works as a teacher at a Springfield charter school.

“As a teacher and a single parent, without Home, Inc., I wouldn’t have been able to buy my own house until I’m senior citizen,” she said.

In the midst of moving last weekend, Tong said she still could not quite believe her good fortune. She said she loves the independence and creativity of homeownership and wants to fill her yard with flowers. But even more important, she said, she’s grateful to have the stability of a home for herself and her son, who attends Mills Lawn School.

“This way Cayden will always have somewhere to go back to,” she said. “It’s security for us.”

Owner’s dream home
When Jonathan Brown unrolled a house plan and asked home buyer Peggy Barker how she felt about Cape Cod homes, she couldn’t breathe for a moment, Barker recalled. She was breathless because she had always wanted a Cape Cod.

“It was my dream house,” she said.

The new house that Barker is purchasing with her son, Nathan, at Dayton and High Streets, should be completed by the end of November, she said. The scheduled completion date was Aug. 1 but unexpected setbacks delayed the house’s progress. For that reason, the home will not be included in this weekend’s open house. Designed by Brown, the home is being constructed by Phillips-Brown Homes, which is working for Home, Inc.

When she moved into Yellow Springs to rent a house as a single parent with two sons, Barker pledged to herself that her next move would be to their own home. But she didn’t know it would take quite as long as 30 years.

“Home, Inc., has done a beautiful thing,” she said. “This is the only way we could afford a house in Yellow Springs.”

Barker said she is especially gratified because homeownership, to her, means security for her sons. Nathan, now in his 30s and an employee at Wal-Mart, will always have his own place, as will her son David. Barker also feels grateful that Brown designed the house with Nathan’s health concerns in mind — because he sometimes has seizures, the rescue squad needs easy access, and consequently the home has wide hallways.

“He’s been in our corner,” she said of Brown. “I deeply appreciate that.”

After three decades as a renter, Barker, who previously worked as a paralegal and as director of Meals on Wheels, looks forward to doing things in the house her way. Although her financial agreement doesn’t require sweat equity, Barker, who has also struggled with health concerns, said she and her sons have so far worked about 150 hours on the house, equity they plan to donate to some other Home, Inc., home buyer who may not be able to do the work themselves. People have been good to her, Barker said, and she wants to pass it on.

Home, Inc.’s latest two homes were made possible by a $364,000 grant from the Ohio Housing Finance Agency, which was awarded to the local organization in spring 2004, according to MacQueen, who said the grant money has been used to purchase lots. Since then Home, Inc. has refurbished one home on High Street and constructed another, also on High Street, and it will soon close on the Xenia Avenue and Dayton Street homes.

The grant will also fund six affordable homes in the Thistle Creek neighborhood, which is scheduled to start this fall and which is being developed by Phillips-Brown Homes. Home, Inc., has identified buyers for the houses, MacQueen said. When the Thistle Creek homes are completed, Home, Inc., will have added 12 affordable homes to the housing stock.

New Home, Inc. homeowners, who must make no more than 80 percent of median income, will pay from $400 to $700 per month in mortgage, taxes and insurance, MacQueen said. While the houses have cost the organization from $130,000 to $150,000 to build, the new owners pay less, an amount that is based on their ability to pay. The new homeowners have low-interest loans from the Fifth Third Bank and grants for down payments from the Greene County Department of Development.

Home, Inc., homeowners purchase the homes but not the land, which is kept in a land trust. In most cases, the homeowners are required to volunteer at least 50 hours of “sweat equity” on their homes, although most do more, said MacQueen, who also said that extensive volunteer help has allowed the group to save from $3,000 to $5,000 per home.

Of the 10 new Home, Inc. home buyers, all but one family were Yellow Springs residents, MacQueen said. She also said that the organization is seeing “increasing interest” from prospective home buyers, especially young families.

One villager’s efforts
John and Maria Booth knew they loved Yellow Springs, but up until last year they didn’t know they would stay here. The house they were renting had many problems, and, now that they were starting a family, they wanted to buy their own home.

With their combined incomes — John is a teacher and Maria is a physical therapist assistant — they earned too much to qualify for a Home, Inc., house, but they also couldn’t afford any of the market-priced homes in town that had enough room for their growing family.

All of that changed in December 2004 when they purchased the $150,000 Dayton Street house constructed through the efforts of Suzanne Clauser.

“We’re going to be Yellow Springs lifers,” said Maria Booth, who is expecting the couple’s second child. “This is the place we will raise our family.”

Their three-bedroom house is the right size for their needs, and they love the location — when her children are old enough, they can walk to Mills Lawn, Booth said. The couple said they also love the house’s high ceilings and decks, along with the willow and maple trees outside their windows.

“It’s a blessing to us,” Booth said. “It’s wonderful what Suzanne has done to help people have an affordable house.”

The Booths are opening their home on Sunday to promote the concept of affordable housing in Yellow Springs.

Clauser describes the three houses she has either had constructed or refurbished over the past four years not as affordable but as “below-market-value,” or “reasonably-priced.” She is aiming, she said, for people like the Booths, who fall through the cracks of the housing market, making too much money to qualify for affordable housing but not enough to buy a decent home in Yellow Springs. Clauser said she is trying “to do something for those who make 110 percent to 115 percent of median income.”

A Yellow Springs resident for almost 50 years, Clauser said she always supported green space. But after the efforts to preserve Whitehall Farm several years ago, she became concerned that green space around the village was linked to housing prices, which were rising so much that lower- and middle-income people had difficulty affording to live here.

“I fear that the village I love and moved into is rapidly out-greening itself,” Clauser said. “I think the village is out-pricing itself in housing and becoming gentrified. We are turning into an elite village.”

Clauser said she would like to see Village Council legislate affordable housing by requiring that a certain portion of new developments are affordable housing. She said she does not understand why Council has not taken such action already, thus allowing developments like Glenwood Springs on Birch III to build only high-priced homes. She applauds the efforts of Phillips-Brown Homes, whose Thistle Creek development will include affordable housing.

But in the meantime, Clauser took matters into her own hands. A novelist and former screenwriter, Clauser purchased several years ago a home on West Center College Street, had it fixed up and gave it to Home, Inc., which repaid her when the home was sold at an affordable price. With that money, Clauser built the Booths’ home on Dayton Street and sold it for below market value. She has finished a third home, the former Perry house at 775 Dayton Street, and put it on the market. Clauser said she hopes next to purchase land in town for a “tiny development” of small-sized homes.

While she is selling the Perry home at $169,000, which, she said, is $30,000 below market value, Clauser said she is sorry that the cost is that high. However, she said, the expense of remodeling and adding an addition proved more than expected.

Although she hoped to sell to someone living in Yellow Springs, she recently began advertising in the Xenia Daily Gazette, Clauser said. To be eligible, a buyer needs to have an income below $70,000 and be willing to follow restrictions on reselling the house at below market value should it be resold within 10 years, to maintain the affordable housing stock. Interested persons can call Clauser at 767-1130.

Joseph Giardullo standing on the front porch of the home on Suncrest Drive that his organization, Starfish, is building. The house is expected to be completed in a few weeks.

Starfish finishing third home
For the last several years, Joe Giardullo, Denise Swinger and Joe Nickoson have worked together to add three affordable homes to the local market, and have thus provided homes for three families.

Their third and latest affordable home, a new house on Suncrest Drive, should be finished within weeks, Giardullo said. The home’s new owner is a longtime village resident, a single parent and an employee of Antioch College, said Giardullo, who declined to identify the home buyer out of concern for her privacy.

Giardullo and his wife, Denise Swinger, comprise Starfish, Inc., a nonprofit organization they began when working for 10 years in Sierra Leone. When they lost everything in that country’s civil war, the couple moved to Yellow Springs, and turned their attention to addressing affordable housing needs, Giardullo said. Their effort has taken longer than they would have liked, Giardullo said, since there’s a small number of people involved.

Swinger, a current member of Council, handles Starfish’s finances, Giardullo deals with prospective buyers, and Nickoson has volunteered his time as the contractor, Giardullo said. Their efforts have also benefited from extensive volunteer help, he said.

Several years ago Starfish refurbished a home on High Street, which was sold to a single mother with two children, then extensively renovated a different home on Suncrest that was sold to a couple with two children. In its third effort, Starfish in the past six months has been constructing a home in the lot next to the renovated Suncrest home.

The three-bedroom, 1,400-square-foot home, which was designed by architect Ted Donnell, will sell for $98,000, considerably under its market value of about $150,000, Giardullo said.

Unlike Home, Inc.’s efforts, Starfish buyers own their home’s land as well, and the guidelines for reselling at below market value are less restrictive than are those of Home, Inc., he said, because he and Swinger believe that homeowners should be able to benefit more from the equity in their house. But Giardullo said both approaches to affordable housing are important and valid, and they work well together.

As well as offering an affordable price, Starfish wants new homeowners to benefit from sustainable energy practices, Giardullo said. The new home’s walls are tightly insulated panels with built-in foam, and the house is heated by heat blown from the hot-water heater, rather than a traditional furnace. Heating costs should be considerably lower than average, Giardullo said.

Starfish was able to build on the Suncrest lot after Council passed new zoning legislation that allows building on nontraditional lots, said Giardullo. He said Council’s move has increased the potential for in-fill development and building houses on smaller than normal lots, which can keep costs down. He described Council’s action as “a good move” that has increased the potential for building affordable housing.

Giardullo said he believes that some villagers may not be aware of the affordable housing efforts that are taking place. He cited these efforts, including Thistle Creek, as evidence that Yellow Springs is addressing the affordable housing issue.

“A wide range of housing stock is available” now, he said.

Giardullo also said he believes the high-end houses in Glenwood Springs are balanced out by the affordable houses that will be built in Thistle Creek.

“I want both people making $10,000 a year and $400,000 in town,” he said. “I think we’re moving in the right direction with housing.”

Contact: dchiddister@ysnews.com