THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, August 3, 1996 TAG: 9608010289
SECTION: REAL ESTATE WEEKLY REAL PAGE: 10 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: About the Outer Banks
SOURCE: Chris Kidder
LENGTH: 127 lines
There's no place in more need of affordable housing for its working class citizens than the Outer Banks.
In a community where the housing market is driven by folks who've earned big salaries - and big pensions - from the federal government and the Fortune 500 companies of the industrial Northeast - the average Outer Banks family has no hope of achieving financial security through home ownership.
The average annual Dare County salary is under $17,000. The average Outer Banks house costs $150,000 or more. Add it up and you'll see that homeownership is out of the question for a most of the folks who keep our oceanside paradise running smoothly.
Although ``affordable'' housing has been on our local government's wish list for years, little has been done to make it happen. A few builders have tried to target the lower end of the housing market, building small subdivisions of scaled-down, low or no down payment homes. But even these dwellings - averaging no less than $80,000 including the lot - have been far beyond the means of many.
So what's a community - where cottage cleaners, motel maintenance workers, retail clerks and stockers, cooks, dishwashers, food servers, secretaries, construction laborers and other service personnel are vital to its well-being - to do?
One possible answer is Dare County Habitat for Humanity. Their goal, as an affiliate of Habitat for Humanity International, is to ``make decent shelter a matter of conscience and action.'' It is, in short, a group dedicated to providing houses for deserving people who have no other means to attain them.
After four years of work, the group has rehabilitated one house and built another. It may sound like just a tiny drop in the ocean but, in fact, the prognosis is really much better.
Habitat for Humanity was founded in 1976 and earned the support of then President Jimmy Carter and his wife, Rosalynn. (If you have only a vague recollection of hearing about this ecumenical Christian housing ministry, it is probably due to the Carters' high profile in hands-on building projects around the world.)
Habitat for Humanity has 1,550 affiliates worldwide, 74 in North Carolina. The Dare County group, which began work in July 1992, became officially affiliated with the international group on May 1, 1993.
Habitat for Humanity relies on volunteer services and donations to provide start-up funds for its programs. It doesn't give anything away: ``partner'' families must invest ``sweat equity'' in their houses and make monthly mortgage payments. One of the beauties of the Habitat concept is that mortgage payments for the houses, which are self-financed by the group and interest-free, provide funds for additional houses.
The Charlotte, N.C., Habitat group (one of the program's biggest producers), for example, has enough income from the 250 houses it has built since 1983 to build several houses a year without ever raising another dime.
One of Habitat's stipulations is that its partner families be unable to secure mortgages from other sources: Most, if not all, are considered bad risks by conventional lenders. And yet, Habitat homeowners have a default rate lenders envy. Financial counseling and careful screening, along with the program's participation requirements, keep deadbeats at bay.
I tell you all this so that you'll see that this is a program where one gift goes on giving. There are no local administrative costs because the program is run entirely by volunteers. Ninety percent of all funds raised locally go directly toward new home construction or home renovation.
Ten percent goes to Habitat for Humanity International to help finance their overseas projects and pay for that organization's small paid staff. How many opportunities do you get to do something with so much promise?
But promise is nothing without the money to make it reality. In spite of generous gifts of skilled labor and construction materials, Dare County Habitat for Humanity needs cash. It takes about $20,000 in cash to complete one house, not counting the purchase of a lot.
Dare County Habitat just closed on two Roanoke Island lots. The group has selected two partner families and plans to break ground on two homes on Aug. 17. They have the materials and manpower to get started. They're working on faith that they'll get what they need to finish.
On one hand, the response from local contractors and suppliers has been overwhelming, says Duke Geraghty, Habitat's volunteer construction coordinator.
``Everyone we ask says yes, yes,''' says the Manteo builder who moved to the Outer Banks five years ago from New York. A recent stop at a local supplier's scratch and dent sale is a case in point. When Geraghty asked about picking up a couple of chipped tubs for Habitat's upcoming houses, he was given, instead, a truckload of undamaged fixtures for a complete bathroom.
But it's not right to do every Habitat project ``on the backs of the local building industry,'' says Skip Saunders, one of the founders of Dare County Habitat for Humanity.
This is an ongoing program, not just a one-shot deal, adds Geraghty. ``You can't keep going back to the same small businesses year after year for handouts.''
Geraghty is emphasizing small gifts - 10 sheets of plywood or fifty 2-by-4s, for example - from contractors but is pleased when someone offers more.
Local Habitat projects benefit from a volunteer workforce with most of the skills needed to build a good house, says Saunders. But when skilled volunteers aren't available, some trades must be paid. Workers were hired to do pilings and drywall on the first Habitat house, completed just over a year ago.
While Habitat's big need right now is cash (send your donations to Dare Co. Habitat for Humanity, P.O. Box 3204, Kill Devil Hills, N.C. 27948), there are other ways you can support its work.
You can donate used building materials and fixtures, furniture and appliances to the Habitat for Humanity Yard Sale held each Labor Day weekend.
All cash generated from this sale goes directly to Habitat construction projects. For free pickup, call Charles Hardy at Warehouse Services, 473-3328, or Dick Fagan, 261-1603.
You can donate your time. The bulk of the work on the next two houses will be done on weekends, says Geraghty, but he hopes to have someone on the job site almost every day. There's always something volunteers can do. Call Bernice Roehner, 441-7510 (days) or Duke Geraghty, 473-9846 (evenings) to sign on.
And if construction work isn't your thing, how about stewardship? Habitat for Humanity is a complex program that demands much of its leadership and the partner families it serves. The board of directors needs dedicated volunteers with backgrounds as varied as the community to oversee the program's administration.
Resorts like the Outer Banks, prized for their isolation and lack of urbanism, seem to share a fatal flaw: They disenfranchise the very folks who make their luxurious lifestyles possible.
Whether you're a resident or simply a frequent visitor, if you believe, as I do, that diversity is at the core of any worthwhile society, then here's your chance to pay the Outer Banks back for the pleasure you take from its sunny shores.
Habitat for Humanity is not the be-all, end-all solution to affordable housing in Dare County, but through this program we have the chance to lift a few up into the fold of an American dream. It's a start. MEMO: Send comments and questions to Chris Kidder at P.O. Box 10, Nags
Head, N.C. 27959. Or e-mail her at realkidd(AT)aol.com by CNB