Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, June 24, 1994 TAG: 9406290051
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ADRIENNE PETTY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: ROCKY MOUNT LENGTH: Medium
The wooden boards that once bordered the roof of her modest frame house have been rotting for years, leaving gaping holes and the threat that her whole roof will cave in.
But even with no hot water and walls that lean, Pitts beams with pride at the house her husband and brother-in-law built in 1953.
Wearing a bright green dress, glasses and neatly curled hair, Pitts slowly escorts visitors through rooms she keeps as immaculate as she did when the house was in its prime.
After years of making do with a patch here and a plug there, Pitts soon may stand to benefit from a $500,000 federal Community Development Block Grant the county recently received to revitalize 21 homes in the area known as Diamond Avenue Extended.
The community, across the railroad tracks from the Rocky Mount town limits, is a mix of old, deteriorating houses; mobile homes; and relatively new ranch-style houses.
Of the 21 homes that are candidates for rehabilitation, 20 are owned by the families who occupy them.
Now that the county has the grant, it will review applications from residents, verify their household incomes and determine which ones qualify, giving greater consideration to large families, elderly people and emergency needs such as a leaking roof, said Shawn McNamara, a community development planner in Richmond.
Lucille Johnston, 76, who has lived in the community all her life, hopes to get a bathroom and septic tank so she'll no longer have to cart jugs of water from an outdoor spigot or use an outhouse - which was almost destroyed by a toppling tree this past winter.
This week, Gov. George Allen announced that 34 Virginia localities, including Franklin County, will receive grants totaling $21 million.
The federal Department of Housing and Urban Development channels the funds to the state, which then reviews applications and distributes grants to localities.
An unusually high number of Western Virginia localities were awarded grants for similar projects, including Bedford County, $500,000; Hillsville, $319,931; Galax, $606,245; Martinsville, $1,001,870; and Stuart, $1,250,000.
The million-dollar grant Rockbridge County received will enable the county to install waterlines, rehabilitate 37 homes and demolish seven vacant structures near Natural Bridge.
Jim Broughman, director of the Office of Block Grant Assistance in Washington, said Congress has increased funding for the 20-year-old program over the past two years. In 1990, $2.8 billion was allotted, compared with $3.8 billion in 1993 and $4.4 billion in 1994.
"The impact of the 1990 census is beginning to show up," Broughman said. "Virginia may be having a larger share because of the increased measure of poverty."
Although the program was cut back during the Reagan admininstration, it never has been eliminated completely because of vehement support from governors across the nation, who use the grants to spruce up their states' infrastructure, said Barry Woodford of Woodford Engineering in Roanoke County, who has helped with about16 projects since 1983.
Woodford also said that HUD seems to have shifted its emphasis from awarding grants for water and sewer lines to addressing housing conditions because of increased awareness of the plight of the homeless.
Last winter, around the time Woodford was touring the Diamond Avenue neighborhood to identify needy homes, a man in the community froze to death in a dilapidated shack that was no larger than the bathroom in many homes.
"It makes you feel like you're about a year off in getting there," Woodford said. "You're hoping this type of program will prevent that from happening in the future."
by CNB