Minutes 05-23-2011 - Laserfiche WebLink

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that range of development leaving few contractors willing to work in the Affordable Housing arena. Habitat serves a very specific population of people. They are those who earn between 30-65% of the median income for a family of four, which is $25,000-42,000. They have housing needs of some type. They could be living in housing that is unsafe, overcrowded, or unaffordable. Many of our homeowners live in housing that might be ok, but they are paying 50- 60% of their income for that housing with nothing left over for basic necessities. The other requirement of our homeowners is that they are willing to partner with Habitat. I think most people know that we have a rather unique program in that all of our homeowners invest 325 hours of labor, which is called sweat equity, helping with other homes of other Habitat families. Every homeowner purchases their home and they have a zero interest mortgage through Habitat. Like a bank, we check their credit history, their employment history, to make sure that they are going to be able to make the monthly mortgage payments. We always like to say that Habitat is not a Hand Out. Like I said, the homeowners purchase their homes and they are taxpaying citizens of the County. In order to qualify, they have to have lived in Orange County for at least 1 year before they apply. They have to be U. S. residents. They have to demonstrate stable income for the past two years, and they have to attend a series of workshops and homebuyer classes to prepare them for home ownership. The steps in becoming a homeowner involve a very careful screening process, first of all, to make sure that they make the basic qualifications. Once that screening is done, we have a Family Selection Committee that actually does home visits and goes to meet with the family and sees their circumstances and talks about whether or not they are really ready for home ownership. That committee makes recommendations to our board, which makes the final approval. The homeowner signs a letter of intent and then there is a 50-hour trial period of sweat equity. As I mentioned before, Habitat sells our homes at no profit and we use a zero interest mortgage, which is one of the reasons that the housing is affordable. Families do participate in appreciation of their homes by a shared equity arrangement and we also receive funds from Orange County and all of the homes have a 99-year affordability requirement that the homeowners have to abide by. Our homeowners, by paying their mortgage payments back to Habitat really help us to continue building homes in the future, and last year we collected over $400,000 from our homeowners. As I said, our homeowners pay property taxes. Last year, they paid over$250,000 in property taxes to Orange County. Because we collect mortgage payments, we were also able to collect Homeowners' Association dues. I know that's an issue in other homeowners' associations, that it is sometimes difficult to collect dues. Because we are collecting their mortgage payments and we make that a condition of foreclosure, I think we have a very high success rate in having adequately funded homeowners' associations. Again, most folks know that Habitat builds homes using volunteer labor from the community. We have churches, businesses, civic organizations, and student groups that come together and help us financially support the causes as well as physically help. This is a home in Richmond Hills, the homeowners have a landscape business and did a really wealthy job of landscaping their home. We are currently building in the Phoenix Place subdivision in Chapel Hill. It is a 50- home subdivision and there are about 20 homes there now. It just gives you an idea of some of the building plans of this style. We really worked hard over the years to make our homes as attractive as we possibly can while also keeping them affordable. We've really identified some things that are low maintenance over time. We've also been building in the Fairview community in Hillsborough for a number of years. We've been able to purchase lots and develop homes