Agenda - 10-04-2011 - 7a - Laserfiche WebLink

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14 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 which are used to further affordable housing. I'll just read this very briefly for those that are facing forward. As mixed use/mixed income communities continue to add amenities to new home construction, home costs continue to rise in Orange County despite the current housing market slowdown. As the population of Orange County continues to grow, the lack of affordable land has become a major barrier to the development of Affordable Housing, especially when taking into account that the Town of Chapel Hill and the County will not develop infrastructure beyond the Urban Services Boundary. There are a limited number of developers and builders who are capable of buiiding Affordable Housing. The profit potential for middle and upscale housing draws most builders to 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, who 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.