
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, May 25, 1994                   TAG: 9405250044
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B-5   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: By JAN VERTEFEUILLE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

TAP FINDS THERE'S NO PLACE LIKE HOME

The blackboards and coat closets bear witness to the building's origins as an elementary school, but the paper signs taped up to direct the movers hint that a transition is under way at the old Pinkard Court School.

Roanoke County turned the unused school over to Total Action Against Poverty in a passing-of-the-key ceremony Tuesday, allowing the nonprofit agency to move all of its housing programs into one building.

"It's the best facility TAP has acquired, period," said Alvin Nash, deputy director of TAP and head of the housing division.

The county Board of Supervisors voted in December to donate the school - appraised at about $500,000 - to TAP. The school was built in the Pinkard Court subdivision off U.S. 220 in 1960.

The Pinkard Court School was used as the county's Leisure Arts Center until recently, when the center took over the former county offices on Brambleton Avenue.

TAP programs - such as housing rehabilitation, Housing and Urban Development counseling, weatherization and the Blue Ridge Housing Development Corp., which helps first-time home buyers - will take over rooms once occupied by kindergartners and other young pupils.

"It's been a while since the county's done anything with TAP or with housing at all," County Administrator Elmer Hodge said in explaining why the county chose to give the building to TAP.

County officials have pointed to the donation as an example of the county's contributing to the Roanoke Valley's social service needs, a sore spot with Roanoke, which carries most of that burden.

Nash called the gift "the tip of the iceberg" of what the county needs to be doing for social services. But it's a start.

As the ceremony's keynote speaker, TAP founder Cabell Brand discussed TAP's fight against homelessness and said the programs at Pinkard Court are "all to prevent the problem of homelessness."

"We think we can bring $4-$5 million in the next five years into this area," he said. TAP now administers about $1 million worth of housing programs.

Nash said TAP will run all of its housing programs out of the Pinkard Court building for at least the next year or two. The possibility of using the building for elderly apartments or day care further down the road has been discussed.

Barbara Hylton, who lives across the street, attended a reception for community residents after the ceremony. She said she approved of TAP's being in the building, but didn't want to see low-income housing there.

The location prompted a lot of discussion at TAP, because most of its clients are city residents who will have to travel farther to reach the office.

"I think when people need to get someplace to take care of business, they can do it," Nash said.

by CNB