Target program helps first-time home buyers
Struggling cities are given boost to stir sales

Clarence Tabb Jr. / The Detroit News Cynthia Cooper Vails, Wayne County housing development manager, and Albert A. Bogdan, director of the Wayne Housing Division, stand outside a new home in Ecorse. Wayne has started a program to help first-time home buyers.

By David Shepardson / The Detroit News

    ECORSE-- Wayne County has started a $660,000 program to help first-time home buyers in six struggling cities -- especially Ecorse, perhaps the poorest city in Metro Detroit.
   The Wayne County First-Time Homebuyer Program is offering $3,000 zero-interest loans to first-time home buyers who purchase a home in one of the county's six Urban Recovery Partnership communities.

Clarence Tabb Jr. / The Detroit News Luigi Felici, right, Ricardo VanPelt and Harrison Hall lay bricks on one of the new Ecorse homes. Loans are being offered to buyers of houses in six struggling areas. Who is eligible? The Wayne County First-Time Homebuyer Program is available to low-to-moderate income households who have $1,000 in savings. The house must be in good condition, pass a housing quality standard inspection, and be in one of Wayne County's six Urban Recovery Partnership Communities.    Applicants must:    * Qualify for a mortgage, need financial assistance with the closing costs and down payment.    * Participate in a homeownership counseling program.    * A prospective homebuyer must not have owned any other residential property at the time of application and may not have owned a home within the last three years.    * Must make no more than this income per year:    Household of 1 Person, $36,750    Household of 2 Persons, $42,000    Household of 3 Persons, $47,250    Household of 4 Persons, $52,500    Household of 5 Persons, $56,700     About the program:    For more information, contact Wayne County at (313) 835-5329

   Residents can use the loans for down payments or closing costs. The loans are repayable when the homebuyer re-sells the house in River Rouge, Melvindale, Ecorse, Hamtramck, Highland Park and Inkster.
   "The key to creating stable neighborhoods is to convert tenants to homeowners," said Wayne County Executive Edward McNamara. "Our program is designed so that that if a family can save $1,000, they can become a homeowner. In many cases, they will be able to do so for the same money they are paying for rent."
   Wayne County also is working to reverse decades of deterioration in the cities of Hamtramck, Ecorse, Highland Park and other distressed communities.
   "We are committed to rehabbing redeemable houses, demolishing houses beyond repair and building new single-family dwellings to help strengthen neighborhoods, house by house and block by block," McNamara said.
   During the last decade, about $37.3 million has been spent on Wayne County's housing development initiatives by various public and private sources.
   More than 100 new housing units are under construction in Ecorse, including two dozen new single-family homes under construction in the Thornton subdivision, through a $662,000 grant from the county. The total cost of the new subdivision is $2.76 million.
   The county and Ecorse have also worked to redevelop the blighted Visger Road area.
   Visger Road had become a distressed commercial strip with numerous boarded-up vacant buildings and a thriving illegal drug trade.
   With the assistance of Wayne County, this area will be rezoned as residential and a 54-unit townhouse development will be erected.
   Wayne County will provide 10 percent of the total estimated cost of $7.5 million.
   "We have already begun to perform a Phase 1 environmental assessment of the property," said Al Bogdan, director of the county's housing division. Additional money will come from a brownfield plan, which will qualify for a 10-percent Michigan Single Business Tax credit.
   On July 1, construction began on a 37-unit senior citizen development in Ecorse. The Miles Manor Senior Development will be funded by a $300,000 grant from the county's home program and $3 million from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
   Inkster will benefit from the county's brownfield plan, which will finance infrastructure costs for 200 units of single family homes. Infill housing will be constructed in nearby neighborhoods.
   In Melvindale, it is expected that construction will start this year on a new 10-unit subdivision that will be completed by spring 2002.
   In River Rouge, the old Milton Hospital will be demolished to make way for a new multimillion-dollar senior citizen facility.
   Wayne County performed an environmental assessment of the property and obtained a $300,000 Clean Michigan Initiative (CMI) grant for the demolition of the building.
   Volunteers of America is requesting $300,000 from the county's home program and $3.6 million from the senior program to fund the new facility.

 

The new housing assistance program will be managed by the Faith Community Homebuyers Program, a new nonprofit established by Bishop P.A. Brooks of the New St. Paul Church of God in Christ and the Washtenaw Homebuyers Program.    "We will recruit homeowners from every pulpit in the metropolitan area to bring home ownership to our urban neighborhoods," Brooks said. "We will help people with credit problems become eligible to become a homeowner, and we will empower people to become homeowners and to use their rent money to build long-term equity for themselves and the community."

   The Wayne County First-Time Homebuyer Program will be available to low-to-moderate income households who have $1,000 in savings and who can qualify for a mortgage, need financial assistance with the closing costs and down payment, and participate in a home ownership counseling program.
   The house must be in good condition, pass a housing quality standard inspection, and be located in one of Wayne County's six Urban Recovery Partnership Communities.