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Sunday, November 4, 2007
By David Mcgee
ABINGDON, Va.
– Seven months after moving in, Eula Wyatt couldn’t be happier with her
apartment at White’s Mill Point.
"I moved here to get closer to my work and
where I could afford the rent," Wyatt said. "It’s a lot more
affordable here, and it’s nice being close to town."
Previously, Wyatt lived in a mobile home in Emory
and commuted to her job as an aide at an Abingdon retirement center. After her
husband died, the combination of her trailer payment, lot rent and utilities
was more than she could afford.
"This is almost 50 percent cheaper,"
Wyatt said of her current apartment. "It’s more economical for me and,
with the lower mortgage, I save enough money and can do things I couldn’t do
before."
But Wyatt’s success story is the exception in Southwest Virginia, according to a report by the Virginia
Housing Coalition, a nonprofit group that wants a state housing trust fund
created to spur affordable housing.
Across the region, 20 percent of homeowners and 25
percent of renters live in mobile homes. And because of the shortage of
affordable housing, many workers live in Tennessee,
Kentucky or North Carolina and commute to the region to
work.
In addition, the number of renters paying more
than 30 percent of their monthly income for housing – which is the government’s
recommended ceiling – increased from 29 percent to 33 percent, according to the
report.
"The problem is bad and getting worse,"
said Bob Adams, a housing consultant and member of the coalition’s board of
directors.
"Affordable housing is always a moving
target. There’s not one single problem, and there are a unique set of needs in
every region of the state," Adams said.
Despite some inroads, affordable housing –
property for sale or rent below the market average – remains in short supply,
housing experts say. Other challenges in Southwest
Virginia range from substandard structures to rising prices in
areas that remain economically depressed.
People Inc., an Abingdon-based human services
agency, opened White’s Mill Point in January. The 32-unit affordable housing
complex currently has 85 people on a waiting list.
It was designed for the Eula Wyatts of the region
– hard-working people who can’t afford to pay market rate for housing, said
Mike Rush, People Inc. housing manager.
"White’s Mill Point features rates about $100
less than the market," Rush said. "They’re designed to provide nice,
adequate, affordable housing for people who work in the Abingdon area."
Monthly rent is about $380.
"Homes they’re building there [Abingdon] are
selling for $250,000 to $400,000" he said, "and that prices out many
who work in Abingdon."
People Inc. currently operates three such
apartment complexes, with a total of 160 units in Washington, Russell and
Buchanan counties. The group is planning or developing 160 additional units in
Lee and Buchanan counties and in Norton, Rush said.
More such affordable housing is needed in Southwest Virginia, said Ron Flanary, executive director
of the LENOWISCO Planning District Commission. Adequate and affordable housing
is "as critical to economic development as broadband, water, sewer, roa ds
and sites, he said. "It’s the closest thing to the most critical piece of
economic growth – people."
A lack of suitable housing is prompting many who
work in the region – at Wise County’s Tech
Park, the Duffield
Industrial Park and the Lee County
federal prison – to commute long distances each day, many from Tennessee, where housing
options are more plentiful.
"Most of the management ranks at the firms in
Duffield live in Tennessee,"
Flanary said. "A number of employees at the federal prison in Lee County
also commute from Tennessee.
I would estimate 5 [percent] to 8 percent of the 1,800 employees at Duffield
come from Tennessee."
There are several reasons for the problem, Flanary
said.
"We have a significant shortage of
market-rate housing throughout the region," he said. "We don’t have a
sufficient culture of housing-site developers in our area, compared to the Tennessee portion of the
Tri-Cities."
A lack of new Virginia subdivisions, Flanary said, can be
traced to property owners and some counties, both of which resist mandates for
zoning to protect property values and to avoid land-use conflicts and streets
that must be built to state Department of Transportation standards.
That leaves few options for people who otherwise
might move to the region.
"We’re dealing with an area that is
frequently in conflict with itself – wanting new economic growth, but often
unwilling to do the things necessary to get there," Flanary said.
The number of people living at or below the
poverty level in Southwest Virginia increased from 61,600 in 2000 to more than
72,000 in 2005, according to coalition statistics.
During the same five-year period, the number of
renters who pay more than 30 percent of their income for housing has increased
by 4 percent – from 29 to 33 percent.
"Affordable housing needs vary as counties
and cities succeed with economic development efforts," said Rob Goldsmith,
executive director of People Inc. "It has impacted [the cost of] a lot of
rental housing."
The best example, Goldsmith said, is Grundy, Va.,
where a typical two-bedroom apartment now rents for twice what it did just
three years ago.
Apartments that rented for about $350-$450 per
month now are fetching $700-$900.
"With the development of the law school and
pharmacy school, people need housing. And that has really driven the rents way
up," Goldsmith said, adding that the town’s terrain limits the land
suitable for adding housing.
Housing also is an issue in Russell County,
where new employers CGI-AMS and Northrop-Grumman are hiring about 800 employees
– many from outside the immediate area.
But Lebanon
and Russell County are without sufficient housing to
accommodate workers who want to avoid commuting an hour each day, he said.
"Most of the housing that’s been developed
there is the high-end stuff, which is not meeting the needs of the lower end of
the housing market," Goldsmith said.
The Gardenside Village condominium project going
up in Lebanon is being marketed primarily to employees of those new industries,
but isn’t classified as affordable housing, said Ken Markwalter of the Russell
County Development Group.
"We have several floor plans to meet a
variety of needs up to 3,500 square feet with a two-car garage,"
Markwalter said. "But we’re priced from $155,000 up to $300,000."
About 150 units are planned on the site, which is
just down the street from both new industries, Markwalter said.
"CGI and Northrop were the impetus for this
undertaking in the first place," Markwalter said. "Not everybody
wants to commute 30 miles each way."
Housing was also an issue for some of the more
than 400 employees of a federal prison near Jonesville earlier this decade,
said Frank Kibler, senior planner with the LENOWISCO Planning District
Commission.
"When it was first announced the prison was
coming to Lee County, there was much discussion that
the local housing market could not handle the influx of several hundred
jobs," Kibler said. "We were hoping housing developers would pick up
the ball and run very far with it. But that never happened."
The quality of some existing housing also is often
a problem, said Adams, the housing coalition consultant.
"Quality is sometimes an issue in Southwest Virginia. But there are efforts under way to
finally solve the problems of adequate indoor plumbing and heating," Adams said.
According to the 2000 census, nearly 1,900 homes
in Southwest Virginia lacked complete indoor
plumbing.
That number has been reduced in the past seven
years, Goldsmith said, but not eliminated.
"There is still a lot of owner-occupied, very
poor quality, old housing in need of substantial work," Goldsmith said.
"The number is smaller, but there are still far too many."
The region also has an abundance of aging
manufactured homes, according to Andy Kegley, executive director of Office of
Hope in Wytheville.
"In Southwest Virginia,
70 percent of the single-family homes purchased in the past 15 years have been
manufactured homes," Kegley said. "That raises questions about how
they depreciate as they age, what does the financing look like and do the
owners have the means to repair them if they need substantial repairs,"
Kegley said.
His agency performed major rehabilitations on 15
homes this year, but Kegley said it would take years to meet the repair needs
of everyone on the current waiting list.
The Cumberland Plateau Planning District
Commission – which covers Buchanan, Dickenson, Russell and Tazewell counties –
also has some rehabilitation programs for low- and moderate-income houses in Lebanon,
Dante and Clinchco, said Shane Farmer, of the planning district.
"The need is growing and the money we used to
receive is no longer available. It gets shorter and shorter every year,"
Farmer said. "Many structures are in such poor condition, it’s easier and
less costly to tear them down and build back a new home."
Cumberland Plateau’s waiting list for housing rehab includes about 60 homes,
but the agency is able to complete only about eight or nine each year, Farmer
said.
At the opposite end of the spectrum, the national
"meltdown" in the housing mortgage market also is being felt in Virginia, Adams said.
"People are losing their homes, their credit
is destroyed because of a foreclosure and they’re out on the street," Adams said. "These are people who will need some
kind of affordable housing as they try to get back on their feet."
People Inc. also has programs to help potential
homebuyers make down payments, arrange low-interest loans and provide other
assistance.
"People should be able to spend 30 percent –
or less – of their income on housing. That’s the philosophy of the
government," Rush said.
For someone making $10 per hour, that equates to a
monthly house or rent payment of $520.
"Finding a home to rent or buy for $520 a
month is a real challenge," Rush said.
"There are a lot of people working at jobs
making $10 an hour. A lot of manufacturing, construction and service jobs pay
that, and those people have to live somewhere," Rush said. "It’s
difficult when you add in $3 a gallon for gasoline, when you have to drive 20
miles to get to work."
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