County Corp Focused on Neighborhood Needs

Dayton and Montgomery County, like so many other places in the U.S., continue to face a shortage of low-income housing. For nearly 50 years the private nonprofit development corporation County Corp, has been creating generational wealth by adding new housing and working to revitalize neighborhoods. How is the organization doing it and can it be replicated?  

Interview guests: President of County Corp Steve Naas; County Corp Vice President of Housing Adam Blake; Homeowner Chris Voltz; Dayton YouthBuild Executive Director Dr. Jerry Farley; YouthBuild Instructor Mackenzie Johns; Greater Cincinnati Realtist Association President Felicia Bell; and Cora Diggs with Howard Hanna Realtors.  

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Transcript

Ann Thompson:

What does a city like Dayton do when it loses half its population and seamlessly needs to get federal money to buy and rehab vacant homes?

Adam Blake:

It's too cumbersome to go through your city council or city commission or county commission to do those activities. So they set up these separate private nonprofits to contract with that unit of government to get those housing dollars and deploy them in neighborhoods.

Ann Thompson:

46 years later, County Corp is going strong and adding housing in Montgomery County, Dayton, and beyond.

Steve Naas:

We work within communities where there's infill lots, homes that have been demolished from the past and looking to essentially rebuild or revitalize specific neighborhoods.

Ann Thompson:

In the process, people are buying homes who never thought they could.

Chris Voltz:

And I told him like, "Bob, there's no way I can afford a house. I can't afford a down payment, nothing." And he told me about the program. He's like, "No, there's this program through County Corp where you actually, I know you don't make very much money. I know you can qualify to buy this house. That's why you should try to buy it. "

Ann Thompson:

Come along as we take a closer look at the organization and find out how it does, what it does, and what kind of a difference it's making.

Adam Blake:

Watching a family become homeowners who have never had anyone in their family ever own a home is another life-changing thing that we get to be involved in.

Ann Thompson:

Let's get into it. This is Brick by Brick, solutions for a thriving community.

Ame Clase:

Brick by Brick is made possible thanks to leading support from Greater Cincinnati Foundation, AES Foundation and George and Margaret McLane Foundation, with additional major support from Laurie    Johnston, The Robert & Adelle Schiff Family Foundation, Murray and Agnes Seasongood Good Government Foundation and more. Thank you

Ann Thompson:

Hello, and welcome to Brick by Brick, where we're highlighting solutions for a thriving community in Southwest Ohio. I'm your host, Anne Thompson. In this episode, we dig into the unique Montgomery County organization known as County Corp. It's a private nonprofit development corporation that often acts as a problem solver for local governments with housing issues. Adam Blake is vice president of housing.

Adam Blake:

Yeah, the goals are pretty simple. It's enriching the lives of the residents of Montgomery County by providing safe, decent, affordable housing.

Ann Thompson:

And affordable housing was and is desperately needed. In 1980, when County Corp was formed, Dayton had lost half its population. Thousands of homes were boarded up and many of them fell into disrepair. Even today, a recent housing survey raided the exterior of every single Dayton home, showing more than a thousand homes needed to be demolished and another 5,000 were on the brink. County Corp uses federal, state, local, and philanthropic funds to create affordable housing and turn around entire neighborhoods with the help of partners.

Adam Blake:

It doesn't make sense for us to take a dollar and invest where nothing else is going on. What we try to do is leverage any funding that we have with other successful, positive existing programs.

Ann Thompson:

In this way, County Corp can be a catalyst at all economic levels, creating more than a thousand housing units since its inception. One example is Wolf Creek, where dozens of new homes are under construction. Bick by Brick’s Emiko Moore reports, the nonprofit and others are focusing on this West Dayton neighborhood, which has one of the highest rates of homes in poor condition.

Emiko Moore:

In the heart of West Dayton, Chris Voltz finds the historical neighborhood a great place for his family of six.

Chris Voltz:

So our neighborhood is the Wright Dunbar Village, right across the river on the west side of Dayton, downtown. And it's just a great community where the Wright brothers grew up and then Paul Lawrence Dunbar also grew up.

Emiko Moore:

History is the backdrop of his surroundings. His home exterior, a replica of Neil Armstrong's childhood home and the Wright brother's legacy just down the street.

Chris Voltz:

My son will probably have this as a fun fact. He learned to ride his bike in the parking lot of the Wright Brothers bike shop. It's like, that's a cool thing. No one will really care probably about that stat, but it's a fun fact that you share with people.

Emiko Moore:

Eleven years ago, Voltz, a pastor and leader of a nonprofit ministry and his wife, Grace, were renters, squeezed into a 900 square foot space when a friend recommended buying a home three times the size they lived in.

Chris Voltz:

And I told him like, "Bob, there's no way I can afford a house. I can't afford a down payment, nothing." And he told me about the program. He's like, "No, there's this program through County Corp where you actually, I know you don't make very much money. I know you can qualify to buy this house. That's why you should try to buy it. "

Emiko Moore:

With the help of County Corp, Voltz was able to become a new homeowner.

Chris Voltz:

All we had to do was have a thousand dollars that we brought to closing to put down, and they didn't just pay the down payment for you, but they pay it and then they roll it into your mortgage payment sort of to help you get over some of those costs.

Emiko Moore:

Steve Naas is president of County Corp.

Steve Naas:

County Corp's mission has revised over the years, but it's really stayed true to the same ultimate goal, which is to deliver safe, decent, affordable housing in the communities that we are operating within.

Emiko Moore:

Today, that investment in the Voltz family is paying off.

Steve Naas:

We are really pleased with our work there, helping first-time home buyers get into the transformational wealth opportunity that home ownership really can facilitate.

Emiko Moore:

For homeowner, Voltz, in just 10 years, the value of his home has shot up.

Chris Voltz:

The market has definitely swung up, but I mean, our house is probably four times what it was when we bought it. The value has shot up drastically since we bought it. And the same thing is true of other houses in the neighborhood.

Emiko Moore:

Using America Recovery Plan funds, County Corp is now helping spark the nearby Wolf Creek neighborhood with four market rate homes. Cora Diggs with Howard Hannah Realtors listed two of the four homes for County Corp and relies on their quality of work.

Cora Diggs:

Oh, it's been wonderful. They're very good. I know I got a nice house when I walk in. I don't have to worry about does the furnace work and is the electric okay? Are the electric box updated? I don't have to worry about all that. All I have to do is just walk in and show the property and the property will sell itself.

Emiko Moore:

One of her listings is priced at 275,000, the other at 325,000, and both have tax abatements. County Corp also recently broke ground in Wolf Creek for single family homes funded with low income tax credits.

Steve Naas:

We're right at Broadway and West 1st, and this is one of the sites for Wolf Creek Homes, affordable housing development that's coming just started a couple weeks ago. Eight of them will be right here. And then we have the remaining 19 that'll be in the next few blocks as we make our way through the neighborhood.

Emiko Moore:

The city is working to connect these historic areas to the multi-use trail network across the area.

Steve Naas:

This is a slope that is very easily navigable, equitable with other areas along the Miami River and other places where the trail network connects.

Emiko Moore:

As the neighborhood continues to revitalize, Chris Voltz shares the difference County Corp has made for his family.

Chris Voltz:

I am not sure how long it would've taken us to own a home if it had not been for County Corp 10 years ago. I can't know how things would've panned out, but it would definitely have been at least five more years. And at that point, the market had been changing, so it may never have happened for us if it had not been for County Corps. Such a blessing for our family, continues to be a blessing for our family to have been able to go through that process, and we are so grateful.

Emiko Moore:

For Brick by Brick, I'm Emiko Moore.

Ann Thompson:

The four new market rate homes in the Wolf Creek neighborhood Emiko mentioned are now for sale and have a 15-year tax abatement. Meanwhile, a Dayton suburb to the north is getting help from County Corp. Seven years after a series of tornadoes blew through Trotwood, there's a home ownership program underway and dozens of much needed apartments are preparing to open, where even now Trotwood desperately needs affordable housing. Drive around the city and you'll see. After the tornadoes, some apartment owners decided not to rebuild. County Corp heard about it and got funding to open workforce housing. Adam Blake and I step into a new apartment complex County Corp developed and is being built. And I don't know whether you've seen any architectural drawings, but I wonder what the apartments are going to be like.

Adam Blake:

They're going to be beautiful. All of the modern amenities that you would expect in any apartment will be featured in these. And it's exciting for us to be involved in a project where we are bringing people back to Trotwood that had to leave because they lost their housing. And those are households. So that's children that were in the schools, but those households had to move out of the city because there wasn't an apartment for them to live in. So this will help bring all of that back. In total, we have 63 units in this development, ranging from one to three bedrooms. This is one of the larger three bedroom units. You have a nice living room, kitchen area, and then the bedrooms and bathrooms.

Ann Thompson:

Nearby, there are two other multifamily developments as well as a 50 unit complex for seniors built five years ago, and that's not all. We're looking at one of the homes that County Court built, and there were quite a few people displaced, as we mentioned. You realized that not all of them wanted to remain renters, and there was a lot of interest in homeownership. So what did you do next?

Adam Blake:

So we began working with the disaster lists that FEMA had, and we identified all of the tenants who were displaced by the tornadoes, realizing that those apartments were not going to get immediately rebuilt. If at all, we needed to create a home ownership program for some of those residents that would be able to obtain a mortgage.

Ann Thompson:

County Corp built 19 homes in phase one and so far five in phase two.

Adam Blake:

We're helping people create generational wealth through home ownership. Very often, the people that are purchasing these homes are the first person in their family ever to own a home. A lot of people like myself have benefited from the equity that homeownership provides, and that's exactly what we're trying to transfer here.

Ann Thompson:

This home ownership program is so successful that County Corp has expanded it to Fairview and is eyeing other neighborhoods. Coming up on Brick by Brick, one of the most impactful programs for County Corp is creating change for youth.

Mackenzie Johns:

It's very fulfilling. It was kind of a just, I jumped in and did it and then ended up loving it.

Ann Thompson:

And an update on a different project run by Cincinnati's The Port. It bought a portfolio of homes from an out of town investor. The effort is gradually allowing more people to become homeowners.

Felicia Bell:

So the CARES portfolio, ultimately, that's a finite number of homes. What my hope is that the relationship continues.

Ann Thompson:

That's ahead on Brick by Brick.

Ame Clase:

Brick by Brick is made possible thanks to the generous support of so many, including Diane and Dave Moccia, P & G, The Camden Foundation,  The Stephen H. Wilder Foundation, TJ and Susie Ackermann, Patti and Fred Heldman, a donation in memory of Frank and Margaret Linhardt, and more. Thank you. We couldn't do this work without you.

Mark Lammers:

We all know it's going to take more than one developer, more than any one city building department to create the housing and shelter our community's desire. And that's why looking at solutions like the efforts from County Corp and other responsible developers is so important. Hi, I'm Mark Lammers, executive producer for Brick by Brick. We want to help everyone learn about the solutions happening out there, examine them, and understand the work required to scale them up, because that's where most of us can play a role in our neighborhoods, on the solution side. If you are working toward a more thriving future in your community, we want to hear about it. We try to make giving feedback and ideas as simple as possible. There's a link in the show notes of this podcast that will take you to a short questionnaire. It will only take you a few minutes to fill out, or you can email our team directly at brickbybrick@publicmediaconnect.org.

That's brickbybrick@publicmediaconnect.org. We can't wait to hear from you, but for now, back to the solutions.

Ann Thompson:

Welcome back to Brick by Brick. For more than a decade, County Corp has received a government grant to help young people. With the money, it supports YouthBuild, an organization which recruits low-income young adults ages 16 to 24 who aren't in school or don't have a job. In some cases, they have a diagnosed disability and are justice involved. For this story, we went to West Dayton to see them building a house on a Habitat for Humanity site. Executive Director Jerry Farley uses the government term opportunity youth to describe program participants.

Jerry Farley:

Never met a young person that didn't want a better future, but generally what these youth don't have are the opportunity or the resources to make those dreams come true. So for us, these are our YouthBuild participants in our construction program. We talk about a career in a year, so they're able to come in, we start the program in late September, and by the time they'll graduate from Liberty High School, they'll have finished the YouthBuild program. So one of the best examples of a success story is right here. Mackenzie Johns, who was a student of ours a couple years ago, finished the program. After she graduated Liberty High School, we brought her back for one year to work as an assistant on site, kind of like a graduate assistant program. And she did that for a year. After that year was up, she went and got a job with Danis Construction making about $21 or more an hour.

After her first year with Danis, we had an opportunity because we were growing so much to hire a full-time teacher's aide for our construction instructor. We opened up the position and one of the people that applied was Mackenzie.

Ann Thompson:

She got the job and is making a difference.

Mackenzie Johns:

So I grew up right on the east side of Dayton, so in a lot of the same neighborhoods that our students come from. And I started at Liberty because I couldn't really learn at a traditional school. And then I got introduced to the CTE programs and YouthBuild, and they saw my determination and my drive.

Ann Thompson:

What drew you to the construction trade?

Mackenzie Johns:

I've always been very into crafts and DIYs and stuff when I was younger, and I would sit there and just always be making something with my hands, and I like hands-on work.

Ann Thompson:

So while we were interviewing Jerry, we saw a few women standing on the sideline, and I came to find out that they support the students in ways, housing, food. And did you get any support from them or need any support when you were a student?

Mackenzie Johns:

Yeah, there was actually a lot of times that they would send me home with food over the weekend if they knew I was struggling in that type of way. There was a lot of times that even my first year working for them and not anymore a student, one of the ladies that was standing over there, Audrey, she actually would take me outside of the school and walk me up and down the sidewalk when I was going through hard times just to kind of talk to me and get my head out of get my thoughts out of my head and be able to get everything out. And so they support in a lot of different ways, whether it's physical or emotional.

Ann Thompson:

And you probably can lend some support too to the students since you kind of know some of the things that they are going through.

Mackenzie Johns:

Yes. A lot of them are surprised when we sit down one-on-one and I kind of open up to them in the way that they're opening up to me and they're surprised to hear that I came from a lot of the same backgrounds and a lot of the things that they're going through I've been through as well. And it doesn't really register with them until you get that one-on-one time to talk with them about it.

Ann Thompson:

What kind of confidence did this training give you?

Mackenzie Johns:

It gave me a lot. I used to kind of like to hide in the background. I didn't ever like being center of attention. I didn't like talking to people. I couldn't keep eye contact with people and kind of being thrown into it from the very start and talking to partners and everything as a student, it upped my confidence a lot. And just knowing that I knew what I was doing also helped my confidence.

Ann Thompson:

The international program with a chapter in Cincinnati and many other places, teaches confidence along with construction. Other youth built fields include healthcare and manufacturing. Dayton Youth Build Executive Director Jerry Farley says the organization is a good steward of government dollars. It helps students find jobs and supports them for a full year after graduation. Placement data is in the high 80s. The retention rate is in the low 90s. This is important because the National Center for Education Statistics says a high school dropout will cost a community more than $270,000 over the course of their lifetime.

Jerry Farley:

It takes a village to really raise a child and it takes a full team that supports these young people holistically.

Ann Thompson:

There are limitations for federally supported programs and they come down to funding. For housing, County Corp Vice President of Housing Adam Blake says organizations like his felt threatened by what was happening at a national level. However, the organization has thrived by diversifying its focus, not only on the development of affordable housing, but the preservation of affordable housing. Through preservation, it has attracted a lot of grant and philanthropic dollars. Blake says the preservation part has opened doors to a lot of different funds. County Corp is continuing to lend its expertise to organizations around the state and serve as the developer in places like Akron and Athens, Ohio. We wanted to give you an update on a program we covered in our very first episode, the Care Homes Initiative run by Cincinnati's Port Authority. Four years ago, the quasi-governmental entity bought nearly 200 homes from an out- of-town real estate company to sell as affordable housing.

The houses needed a lot of work. So far, according to spokesperson, Yasmine Chilton, 72 have been renovated and sold. Four are under construction, five are vacant, and around 100 still have tenants. About a dozen are listed for sale, including this one in Mount Auburn.

Felicia Bell:

It has the new cabinets, granite countertops. And now this is new. I haven't seen this where the hardware in the kitchen, that's kind of fancy.

Ann Thompson:

Felicia Bell is a real estate agent and the president of the Greater Cincinnati Realtors Association. Her organization tries to increase the number of black families who own a home in Cincinnati where the percentage is only about 34. The Realtors Association partnered with The Port to sell to interested home buyers of any race who meet the financial criteria, no more than 120% of area median income. In Hamilton County, that's around 134,000 for a family of four.

Felicia Bell:

So when you think of families that have lower incomes and home ownership seems out of reach for them, a decent nice home like this one we're standing in, then those are the families. You have to remember those are the families The Port is helping.

Ann Thompson:

What do you hope happens with this program in the future? I know there's still many more homes to fix up.

Felicia Bell:

So the CARES portfolio, ultimately that's a finite number of homes. What my hope is that the relationship continues because we know the partnership continues because we know that there are a lot of blighted properties and land in the City of Cincinnati.

Ann Thompson:

Bell says there's plenty of interest. This house has three offers. Brick by Brick will continue to follow the CARE Homes Initiative. On our website at thinktv.org and cetconnect.org, you can find a link to the care program and more information about the port and Dayton's County Corp. There's also a big green button where you can tell your housing story and any solutions you think we should all get behind. The team is together for the takeaways and we welcome to the microphone, Hernz Laguerre Jr.

Hernz Laguerre Jr.:

Hello.

Ann Thompson:

And Emiko Moore.

Emiko Moore:

Hello.

Ann Thompson:

County Corp is doing so many good things and one of them is spurring economic development.

Hernz Laguerre Jr.:

Yeah. I like what Adam Blake was saying about not taking investment dollars and putting into a whole bunch of separate things, but it makes more sense to take investment dollars into something that's already working. And I think about it not just only being beneficial for the residents, but being beneficial for the community as a whole, because think about it. With the amount of money that they're investing into these communities, you have a whole bunch of people moving into these communities and they're going to shop in a local area. I think that way you build the local economy, this exponential growth when you invest into housing, you also invest into the community.

Ann Thompson:

Emiko?

Emiko Moore:

Yeah. And sustainability, according to Stephen Nass, who is the president of County Corp, is the resale value of these homes. Can you get what you've paid for it or more? That just shows you that there's growth and development in the cities. I mean, it's exciting to see what's going to happen in the Wolf Creek and Wright Dunbar neighborhoods in the next five to 10 years as all these new housing units are being put into the area. So I'm excited to see what happens.

Ann Thompson:

And another program that County Corp has been supporting through a federal grant, YouthBuild continues to be successful, a 90% success rate where youth are able to learn new skills and receive services while they're being certified, such as housing and healthcare.

Emiko Moore:

And it's really interesting to see that they're getting real life work experience and seeing that what their education is actually doing out in the community.

Hernz Laguerre Jr.:

Yeah. And what did they say? They say that the prefrontal cortex doesn't form until you're about 25. So you have a lot of these young people who rehabilitate their lives by having them working on these homes. And then in turn, these young people are also investing into the community. So I think it takes a bad situation and uses it as an opportunity to get more people to work on the homes that we need in our community to help build the housing stock. So I think it's an all-around good program. I'm looking forward to see how it develops.

Ann Thompson:

Yeah. And if more communities will come on board and have organizations like this. Thanks for your thoughts, guys. Thank you.

Hernz Laguerre Jr.:

No problem.

Ann Thompson:

Coming up on the next Brick by Brick: Solar Farms. Cincinnati is touting success with its Highland County development, while other counties like Clark are putting on the brakes.

:

It's not a pro solar or against solar. It's the farmland.

Ann Thompson:

Some developers see Ohio as a test state in the future of solar and rising energy prices. 

That's our show. We hope you learn something and want to tell your friends and family about it. Please also rate and review our podcast and makes it easier to find. For Emiko Moore and Hernz Laguerre Jr., I'm Ann Thompson. We'll be back soon with more solutions. Take care. 

Our show is produced, hosted an edited by me, Ann Thompson with reporting and story editing from Hernz Laguerre Jr. and Emiko Moore. Our Executive producer of Mark Lammers. Audio sweetening provided by Mike Schwartz. Zach Kramer runs the lights and cameras. Derrick Smith is our production specialist and Jason Garrison is our production manager. Kellie May heads up our marketing and promotions, along with Mike Shea and Bridgett Dillenburger. Elyssa Stefenson handles the website and Josh Lusby and Steve Wright are our designers. Bill Dean and Andres Kruza are the engineers for the show and our Chief Content Officer is Colin Scianamblo. Our music is from Universal Production Music. Brick by Brick: Solutions for a Thriving Community is a production of CET and ThinkTV, Southwest Ohio PBS member stations.