ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, March 19, 1996 TAG: 9603190082
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LESLIE TAYLOR STAFF WRITER
CENTURY-OLD DILAPIDATED HOUSES came down Monday for Habitat for Humanity to build a community for the working poor in Roanoke's West End.
Bits of Roanoke's past were shoveled off the ground Monday to make way for a community of single-family homes for the working poor.
Work began on the demolition of 10 small decaying houses near 10th Street and Norfolk Avenue Southwest, built at the turn of the century as housing for railroad track gangs. They were shotgun-style homes, so-called because - according to historical lore - you could fire a shotgun from the front door and the shot would go straight through the house and out the back door.
Habitat for Humanity of Roanoke Valley bought the property as part of a larger project to build two blocks of homes between 10th and 11th streets and Norfolk and Jackson avenues. Habitat plans to create a 20-home community of affordable, single-family homes, possibly the largest project in the organization's 10-year history.
The property was owned by Ren Heard, a renovator who once worked as the master builder for Explore Park.
``It was time, more than time,'' Heard said Monday as the teeth of an excavator's ``grapple'' dug into a pile of broken glass and rotted wood. ``This is the single most important project for West End in 50 years.''
Heard has had a longtime interest in revitalizing the neglected West End area.
He bought the property in 1985, after 76-year-old Madeline Tate froze to death in one of the houses. He used the property to store old house parts - fireplace mantels, bricks, windows - for Renovation Specialists Inc., his contracting business.
After Tate's death, improving the neighborhood's condition became Heard's cause, even though residents complained that his salvage yard contributed to the neighborhood's blight.
Heard acknowledged that the property should have been cleared long ago. He said he'd had offers from people who wanted to buy the property - but for business or industrial use. He refused them.
Habitat ``was the first group to come along with a plan I felt was good for the neighborhood,'' Heard said.
Habitat bought Heard's property with $90,000 in HOME grant funding, money that the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development sets aside for housing for low- to moderate-income people. Habitat received an additional $50,000 in HOME funding to pay for demolition and clearing.
HOME funding is distributed to localities. An individual or organization must apply to localities for the money.
Roanoke received $651,000 in HOME funding for the 1995-96 fiscal year. How much HOME funding the city will receive for fiscal 1996-97 is ``up in the air,'' said Frank Baratta, who monitors grants for Roanoke's Office of Grants Compliance.
``There's no guarantee until they work out all the interactions of Congress and the president,'' he said. ``We feel it's going to be OK, that we'll be level-funded, perhaps get a 10 percent cut.''
Habitat has applied for $195,000 of the city's 1996-97 HOME funding -whatever that will be - to buy more property for the project.
After Tate's death, Heard placed a granite stone at the corner of the home's charred remnants. It was engraved with the message: ``The city forgot her. Madeline A. Tate froze to death 1/21/85.''
Heard removed the stone before Alan L. Amos Inc. - the Roanoke demolition and grading contracting company hired by Habitat to clear the property - started its work.
In negotiating the sale of the property to Habitat, Heard asked that the stone be returned to the site once the project is finished, or be taken to Tate's grave site. She is buried in an unmarked grave in the city cemetery at Coyner Springs.
``The monument needs to be preserved,'' said David Camper, president of the Habitat board of directors. ``If we're able, we would like to put it in the cemetery where she's buried. If we're not able to do that, we'll return it to the site.''
LENGTH: Medium: 83 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: ROGER HART/Staff. 1. Ren Heard bought the Southwestby CNBRoanoke homes in 1985 after an elderly woman froze to death in one.
He said he refused to sell the property until he found someone to
build homes, not businesses or factories, there. color. 2. While
Mark Amos of Alan L. Amos Inc. knocks down a house at Norfolk Avenue
and 10th Street, Bob Overstreet works to keep down the dust Monday
in Southwest Roanoke.