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https://reasonstobecheerful.world/housing-repair-affordable-rentals-new-mexico/>
"The apartment complex had been condemned. Nicole Scarpa and her kids were
given a week’s notice to vacate. She was afraid she would soon be homeless, and
not for the first time.
About 10 years ago, one of Scarpa’s children, a two-year-old daughter, passed
away. She went through what she describes as some “mental health issues,” and
wound up living in her vehicle.
But she did find housing, and settled in with her children.
From that experience, she says, “I got the desire to serve. And I wanted to
get involved in the community, help meet unmet needs.”
Scarpa became a community support peer worker, but found that housing was the
main issue many were dealing with.
Then, in 2018, came the notice to vacate. She counts herself lucky that she was
able to find another apartment soon after but, she says, “That was
traumatizing. It was a bad situation. I grinded. I called rental agencies, was
very persistent. I knew a couple of landlords, called them. There wasn’t much
out there. My neighbors, a lot of them went to live with other family.”
In 2023, Scarpa helped form a Roswell chapter of the nonprofit With Many Hands.
One of the first things she did with the new organization was knocking on doors
to ask people about their struggles in finding an affordable place to live, and
seek input about potential solutions.
“And in Roswell, it seems there were boarded-up houses in just about every
neighborhood,” Scarpa says.
Many of those homes, though, weren’t dilapidated. Maybe they needed a new roof,
maybe an HVAC system. Many were owned by people who wanted to rent them out but
needed help getting them fixed up.
She eventually teamed up with a friend, Roswell native Jeneva Martinez, founder
of the Roswell Homeless Coalition.
“Bringing in new development could take years,” Martinez says. “But if we could
do home rehabilitation, if we could work with property owners to bring them up
to HUD standards, we could get some people housed.”
With Many Hands obtained a $40,000 grant from the Tides Foundation. “At first,
I thought ‘$40,000 isn’t going to go far,’” Martinez says. “What are we going
to do with $40,000? Have a conversation? But a lot of these houses we saw
needed just a little bit of work. And a lot of people were letting us know they
had a HUD voucher, but no housing. So I thought, ‘Let’s go talk to some of the
people that own these vacant houses.’”
Organizers at With Many Hands identified four houses for a pilot project in
2023, and lent $10,000 to each homeowner, Martinez says. Those landlords would
have the loans forgiven if they rented out the refurbished units to
voucher-holders for two years. With Many Hands fixed the four properties within
45 days, thus setting the pattern for Rehab-2-Rental."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
