Foundation Stories
Workforce Affordable Housing
Centre County Association of Realtors
Jerry Wettstone
As the past president of the Centre County Association of Realtors, Jerry Wettstone is primarily responsible for spearheading the Affordable Housing Fund. “We’ve renamed it The American Dream Housing Fund,” he says. “There’s a general expression, particularly in the real estate community, that all Americans have the dream of owning their own home, so we thought that maybe that [name] would be appropriate. But what we’re going to do here is to help first-time home buyers realize the dream of home ownership.”
The association’s goal is to raise a minimum of $100,000, the amount required to endow the fund with the Centre County Community Foundation.
“At that point the interest earnings would be available to begin to make what we’re calling a ‘soft second mortgage,’” Wettstone explains. “And it would be a no-interest loan to first-time home buyers who need assistance in raising funds to purchase a home. I envision it as being a help with the down payment. It’s a no interest [loan] and it would be repaid when and if the people sell the home.” Once the loan is repaid, that money is placed back in the fund where it can eventually be “recycled” for another first-time home buyer.
The “American Dream Fund,” which was launched last fall, will raise money primarily through pledges. “This is akin to what people are asked to do with the United Way,” Wettstone says. “We’re asking realtors to pledge a certain amount of money that will be deducted when they receive a commission check through their company financial office.” A pledge of between $5 and $25 is suggested for each time a commission check is cut. Then, as it’s appropriate—perhaps every three months—those funds will be forwarded to the foundation. “This will also provide the opportunity to offer our realtor donors a tax-deductible gift opportunity because of the foundation’s tax status. So we’re delighted to have an affiliation with the Centre County Community Foundation, which already has an outstanding reputation among the citizenry.”
Centre County Housing and Land Trust
George Khoury
“We’re a relatively new organization, only a year and a half in existence,” says George Khoury of the Centre County Housing and Land Trust. “A land trust focuses on housing affordability by acquiring a piece of land, then constructing a home on that land. We turn around and sell that home to a new home buyer, but we retain ownership of the land. By doing that we take the price of the land out of the cost of the home. Here in this region that’s probably as much as 30 or 35 percent. So by retaining ownership of the land, that brings the price of the house down and makes it affordable for more people. In the simplest terms that’s how a land trust operates.”
Of course, there are income qualification requirements for prospective homeowners, thus guarding against the possibility that a new buyer will “flip” the house for a quick profit. The land trust also retains control over the future sale of the home, putting a resale formula in place stipulating that, once the home is owned for a set number of years, the price can only escalate a certain percentage.
“Recently we did make a commitment to the Community Foundation to start an endowment fund for the trust,” Khoury says. “We’ve made our initial annual contribution and we’ll continue over the next couple of years. Obviously we hope that when the word gets out within the community [about] the endowment fund, people will choose to contribute to it. We’re a non-profit organization so obviously, like all non-profits, we’re looking for sources of funds. We have one project under development right now in Patten Township called Thompson Place. We’ve got five homes that are occupied, another two under construction and a few more that are about to get started. So it’s been a successful project for us and it’s continuing.”
State College Community Land Trust
Housing Transitions
Ron Quinn
Housing Transitions will celebrate its 25th anniversary this year, and for 21 of those years, Ron Quinn has been the executive director. “During that time,” he explains, “the variety of organizations that we’ve partnered with, including the Community Foundation, have assisted us with a number of projects and initiatives that we’ve undertaken. Without [that] assistance, our job would be very difficult, if not impossible. We began in our early years with just an emergency shelter that was operated out of an apartment on University Drive, and since then we have evolved to providing a comprehensive approach to housing needs for Centre County residents”
In addition to the emergency shelter, the organization has a house on East Nittany Avenue, a location from which they offer services that help people to remain in their homes, as well as housing care management. In addition, Housing Transitions offers a first-time buyer program, in conjunction with the Borough of State College. “We’ve been working on that program for about 10 years,” Quinn explains. “It targets income-qualified persons looking to buy their first home within the borough.” Although these buyers have to go through the same qualification process that a bank would require, Housing Transitions helps to reduce costs so that the mortgage “fits the house.”
Quinn is also the executive director for the State College Community Land Trust, which was founded in 1997. “It operates under a unique model that really is relatively new,” Quinn says. “By ‘new’ I mean it was established in the late 1960s. And what this model does is create home ownership and keeps that home affordable for future generations of home ownership, not only in State College Borough, but throughout the county through the Centre County Housing and Land Trust, of which the State College Community Land Trust is a member.
Like the Centre County trust, Quinn’s organization has the land appraised separately from the building of the house, and the land value is taken out of the economic equation for the first-time home buyer. “What we do is retain the land and enter into a 99-year lease with the homeowner,” Quinn says. ”They pay $15 a month, a nominal fee, which provides exclusive rights to that land. However, when they sell that home, they must sell it to an income-qualified person, just as they were. And also, there’s a limit on the amount of equity they can walk away with. So there’s a shared equity provision. It’s for people who really want to invest in the community for the long-term. Not only are we creating affordable housing with our initial sale, but basically that home will remain affordable in perpetuity. We have just put our 30th homeowner into a house, so we’re very proud of the work we do in the community.”
Between them, these two organizations have been associated with the CCCF for over a quarter century. It’s a partnership that continues to “grow and evolve,” according to Quinn. “I’ll give you an example of what the Community Foundation has typically done, especially in the area of Housing Transitions, which is undertaking a major renovation and addition onto our facility. We’re creating extra bed space and permanent housing for folks who are typically in our shelter for a relatively short period of time. We’ve found that some folks, especially those with mental health issues, require a longer-term stay, and a shelter-to-shelter environment isn’t really an appropriate place [for that]. What we wanted to do was create a place where folks who are in our shelter can have some autonomy and privacy. So we applied for funding through the foundation to provide us with security cameras for our new facilities. We will begin breaking ground in 2010, and the security cameras will be a part of what we need to create that safe environment. That’s a specific example of how the CCCF has benefited us, and we’re very happy to be partners with them.”
