By Paul Dribin of Dribin Consulting
For 30 years Paul Dribin worked with the Department of Housing and Urban Development in which he assumed leadership positions in the fields of Public Housing, Housing Management, Housing Development, and Section 8 housing. While working for HUD in St. Louis, his most notable projects included the Chase Park Plaza, the demolition and redevelopment of the Laclede Town area, the Darst Webbe Hope VI project, and the Vaughn-Murphy Park mixed income development. Since retiring from HUD, Mr. Dribin has led Dribin Consulting, a company specializing in providing FHA and other financing for multifamily projects. Dribin Consulting also performs grant writing, provides services to troubled multifamily housing, and participates as a member of a team administering the State of Missouri Neighborhood Stabilization Program. Mr. Dribin is married, the father of two adult children, and resides in Webster Groves.
There is a program that would positively improve the quality of life in St. Louis City neighborhoods and place working families in homeownership.
The idea is really quite simple. Properties in certain neighborhoods would be provided to selected homebuyers. The properties would be provided from the Land Reutilization Authority (LRA) inventory or other sources. The homebuyers would be households who are employed and need not be low- or moderate-income. These households could not presently own a residential home in the city.
The purchaser would be provided with a low acquisition price and receive up to $25,000 toward the rehabilitation in the form of a forgivable loan. The family would need to live in the property for at least five years for the loan to be forgiven.
The rehabilitation would be done by a qualified list of contractors provided by the City. To insure high quality, sweat equity would not be allowed to substitute for professional rehabilitation.
The neighborhood, property, and homebuyers need to be carefully selected. Properties should be in good enough condition to be repaired at a reasonable price and should be located in neighborhoods with other urban development activities going on that strengthen the area. Homebuyers must be employed and able to qualify for the loan amount they have requested. The rehab loan of up to $25,000 would be in the form of a soft second mortgage requiring repayment upon sale. After five years the loan would be forgiven
Initial funding should come from donations by banks, civic groups, unions and other interested parties. Because urban homesteading would create jobs in the homebuilding industry, construction unions may be interested in helping to fund it. Some of the funding would be repaid.
This program can be a major tool to attract young working families to the cities, stabilize neighborhoods, and provide jobs for the construction industry.
There are several important advantages to an urban homesteading program. First, it brings middle-income tax paying households into the city. Several important efforts are already underway trying to do just that; this adds to the mix. Second, it will help revitalize neighborhoods and provide the needed stabilization to add other redevelopment efforts. Third, it will improve the tax base of the city. Finally, the effort will help provide jobs to workers in the construction industry.
New York City has operated an urban homesteading program for years that has encouraged people to occupy and fix up vacant properties. Cities across the country are offering incentives to retain college-educated people. The Urban Homesteading Program is one tool that can help achieve that goal.
Articles in “From the Field” represent the opinions of the author only and do not represent the views of the Community Builders Network of Metro St. Louis or the University of Missouri- St. Louis.
