This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Kelly Kenoyer: Suzanne Rogers, Director of Housing for Cape Fear Collective, welcome to the studio!
Suzanne Rogers: Thank you, Kelly, it's good to be here.
Kelly Kenoyer: So you just got a grant for $837,000 from The Endowment, along with another $824,000 or so from the City of Wilmington for some houses downtown. Can you tell me what all this money is going to be doing here in Wilmington?
Suzanne Rogers: Yes. So we at Cape Fear Collective own some scattered site houses in the downtown area of Wilmington. A nd they're typically older, smaller bungalows that you see when you drive around neighborhoods. They are, as I said, older, and so they need some major rehabs so that we can keep them as affordable, quality housing in our neighborhoods. So that's what we're going to use the funding for. We're going to do major rehabilitation construction on these houses, addressing, you know, all the systems in in a house, like the structural foundations, roofs, just all the structural elements, windows, exterior interior, probably have new kitchens and bathrooms. Bring these houses up to code where they they can continue as very important affordable housing stock.
Kelly Kenoyer: Are they currently not up to code?
Suzanne Rogers: Our average house is about 85 years old, so they need some attention. We've been working with this portfolio for a few years, and have invested a little over $2 million in in repairing various issues on the houses, new roofs, HVACs, things like that. Many of them are occupied and very functional housing, but, but it's time for a little work. And some of them, unfortunately, are vacant because they're just not up to the standard that we we would put someone in them. So we've been working very closely with the city over the years to maintain the properties and, of course, try to raise this money to give them the attention that they need.
Kelly Kenoyer: So just to back up a little bit, can you tell me where all these houses came from that CFC ended up in charge of?
Suzanne Rogers: Well, CFC, as you know, was formed to look at issues in the community and statewide, around poverty, socioeconomic equity, things like that, and as part of that effort, see CFC, along with many other advocates and providers here in town, have identified the need for affordable housing. CFC, one of the founding members is with Live Oak Bank, and CFC was able to work with area banks for an investment of Community Reinvestment Act funds. And these are funds that banks have to make available in communities where they take deposits and therefore community development, economic development that benefits low to moderate income folks primarily. So that's that's how that public private partnership, came together.
And there was a major owner of single family rental housing here in the community, who was selling his portfolios. So CFC saw this as an opportunity to acquire these properties to ensure that they remained as affordable housing in the community, and they didn't get flipped for market rate or demolished and redeveloped because, as you know, Kelly and probably everyone listening knows, Wilmington is growing and there is a big demand for housing, and the folks that are getting squeezed out are typically our workforce and our low, low to moderate income households, and so we don't want to see those folks displaced.
Kelly Kenoyer: So of these 97 homes, is the long-term plan to continue renting these out at a lower rate, or is the goal to sell them to families who are otherwise not going to ever be able to get access to home ownership?
Suzanne Rogers: The plan is both. Each property is unique in terms of location, amenities, size, things like that. As I said, we have about 28 vacant units that we're starting our major rehab construction on. Some of those units will be sold. We're partnering with the land trust the Cape Fear Community Land Trust to sell them in a land trust model, but all of them will be sold to income eligible home buyers at an affordable price. Now some of them we will keep as rental housing, because they're just more suitable for that due to location or any number of factors. So it will be both.
And we at Cape Fear Collective, when we acquired these properties, they were occupied. The tenants, many tenants had been in them for years. We are not in the business and have no desire to displace people. We don't want to contribute in any way to, you know, homelessness that's already a problem in our community. So we have a commitment to our tenants, to keep them in safe, decent, quality housing, and then to improve that housing. It'll take us a while, but we're working on it.
Kelly Kenoyer: Can you tell me a little bit about the timeline, since you've brought that up so you haven't quite gotten started since you just got this funding. But when are you hoping to finish rehabbing all these homes?
Suzanne Rogers: It's going to take us several years to go through the entire portfolio. So we've identified seven units for the city funding and six units for the endowment funding, and we are starting April 1 with our first project. We'll actually have construction crews beginning to do work on a unit. We have been over the past six months or so, doing in depth assessments of the homes with folks with general contracting and construction and engineering experience coming in and looking at things. So we've developed a very detailed assessment for the homes that we've identified that we want to rehab with the city funds. So we're starting in April with our first one. We're very excited about that, and then we will do them, hopefully two or three at a time throughout the summer. We think It'll take probably about a year, maybe a year and a half, to get through this first phase, and then we'll continue, you know, seeking funding, and continue to work through the portfolio.
Kelly Kenoyer: So you talked about 13 homes that are going to get fixed up with this funding that's going to leave a lot left in this group of houses that you have that'll need more help down the line. What are you expecting in terms of ongoing funding for this project?
Suzanne Rogers: Well, we are preparing to go out and participate in grant application processes again in the next cycle. And we're constantly, you know, looking for for good sources of funding for these it's a very interesting time now, I think we don't know what's going to be available, but, but we will continue, you know, to look for funding and go back to our funders who've helped us with this first phase as well. So that'll be the process. We are starting with our vacant houses, and those are in the worst condition. So as we move forward into the rest of our portfolio, we anticipate that the cost of rehab will be less, they won't be as severe. So that should help us, you know, get more volume too. But this is, this is not a short term project by any stretch.
Kelly Kenoyer: Gotcha. And so I guess the idea is, after you complete one house, you maybe move a family into that newly renovated house, opening up their home for renovation.
Suzanne Rogers: Correct, yes. We just, you know, we don't want to displace folks. And temporarily relocating folks, as as we've seen with other projects and things, is a very disruptive as well and expensive. So we're planning to move people permanently into the renovated homes.
Kelly Kenoyer: I'm sure they'll be excited about that. Is there anything else that we should know about this project?
Suzanne Rogers: I mean, I'm very excited about the project and the potential that it has, not just for the folks who occupy the houses or potential home buyers, in many cases, but also for the impact that it's going to have in the neighborhoods. You know, our properties will be rehabbed. They're going to just add to the character of the neighborhood. You're going to have freshly painted, wonderful houses. So I think it definitely will improve the quality of the neighborhoods that they're in, and hopefully inspire other people in the neighborhoods too to do some work on their houses, if it needs to be and to keep also, to keep neighborhoods diverse in terms of the socioeconomic makeup of a neighborhood, so that folks aren't pushed out of their neighborhoods, but they can remain in their neighborhoods, and welcome in all the newcomers that are coming as well, that are buying up houses too.
Kelly Kenoyer: Well, I'd love to check in as this kind of moves forward, maybe when your first family moves into the new home, I'd love to come and check it out, and if they're willing to talk to us about that experience.
Suzanne Rogers: We would love for you to to keep watching the progress of this. We want to share what we're able to accomplish with a community. And we definitely need community support.
