THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, April 25, 1996 TAG: 9604250405
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MATTHEW BOWERS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: Long : 116 lines
Another eviction notice. This wasn't the life Maxine W. Lewis imagined for herself and her two daughters.
Eviction notices. Court judgments. Juggled bills.
It wasn't supposed to be like this. Not long before, Lewis had a husband. Together they were buying a home.
Then came the divorce.
Lewis couldn't keep up the mortgage payments on her own, even though she had been working more than a decade as a hospital secretary. She gave up the house and moved to an apartment in a Norfolk neighborhood nice enough so she'd consider it safe for her younger daughter, but modest enough to enable her to keep her older daughter in college. Still, the bills outpaced her pay.
Marriage. House. Job. Education. These were supposed to be the right things to do for her children, her community, herself. The right things weren't working, though. Lewis felt her struggle was making her a stronger person, more determined to succeed, but it still wasn't getting the rent and other bills paid on time.
Her family and friends could only bail her out so often. Lewis was about ready to put her furniture in storage and move in with relatives. To give up her independence, her family's independence. She hated the idea, but she felt she had no options.
Then she heard about one. A niece told her about a housing program in Virginia Beach for families who couldn't quite afford an apartment or a house, who worked but needed a boost to make it on their own.
To be independent.
The niece was talking about the Virginia Beach Community Development Corporation. It's a private, nonprofit housing organization created by the city in 1985, with its board appointed by the City Council.
Under different federal programs, it buys and renovates vacant Federal Housing Administration and government-foreclosed homes, and occasionally builds new ones. It rents out more than 130 houses, including some to the previously homeless, some to residents with mental disabilities and some to low-income older people.
It sells others to low- to moderate-income families who have never owned a home - and have no decent prospects of doing so. Local banks help out with below-market mortgage rates.
The housing organization has sold almost 60 houses in 10 years. Six of its renters have gone on to buy homes under the program.
The organization's director, Mary Kay Horoszewski, and the director of the Virginia Beach Department of Housing and Neighborhood Preservation, Andrew M. Friedman, see the program provides a twofold benefit to the community: It creates more homeowners - one of the key ways in this country to accumulating wealth and security - and it rids neighborhoods of eyesore vacant houses that otherwise would further deteriorate and invite vandalism.
The need is huge, Horoszewski says. About 60 prospective homeowners called in the first three months of this year. There are about 950 on a waiting list.
When Lewis heard about the housing program, she wasn't thinking home. Not yet. She just wanted a roof overhead that she could afford.
She started calling. Daily.
It worked. She got a place to rent, a townhouse on South Independence Boulevard. It cost about half what she used to pay.
Lewis wasn't done, though. She had a goal. She was determined to stay focused on it. She had seen too many others who, their money crunch eased for the moment, spent wildly on unnecessary things. Go hog wild, was how she put it.
She took three weeks' leave from her secretary's job to train as a customer-service representative at a credit agency and then switched jobs, increasing her income. She also started working part-time from her apartment, selling home-accessory items for a catalog company.
Her oldest daughter graduated from college, and Lewis started paying off bills. College. Department store charges. A general loan she had taken out to get by.
She continued shopping in thrift stores for clothes. When she needed a car, she paid $800 cash for an older, high-mileage compact because she was afraid of incurring another monthly bill.
And she took classes offered by the Community Development Corporation. Money management. Career development. Home-buying tips.
Because that was Lewis' goal. To be a homeowner again.
Jeffrey A. Wells, housing project manager, sees a lot of people like Lewis. People with dreams. He helps them figure out what they need to qualify for a mortgage, smooth out the rough spots in their credit histories, secure down payments - sometimes with the city's help. The education and preparation for prospective homeowners usually takes three months.
Lewis, the youngest of 12, was used to waiting, and sacrificing. She was willing to do what it took, to take advantage of the help offered. So she took the classes, saved for her down payment, paid off bills and kept smiling for her daughters, as she tried to do all during the rough times.
On Nov. 4, some eight years after her divorce, after 2 1/2 years of renting from the Virginia Beach Community Development Corporation, she signed the final papers to purchase a tan-and-cream townhouse in the Salem Lakes development.
Lewis was home again. MEMO: For more information on housing opportunities through the Virginia
Beach Community Development Corporation, call 463-9516.
Virginia Beach Community Development Corporation
The private, nonprofit housing organization was created by the city
in 1985. Its board is appointed by the City Council.
The organization buys and renovates vacant Federal Housing
Administration and government-foreclosed homes, and sometimes builds new
ones. It rents out more than 130 houses, including some to the
previously homeless, some to residents with mental disabilities and some
to low-income older people. It sells others to low- to moderate-income
families who have never owned a home. ILLUSTRATION: L. TODD SPENCER color photos
Maxine W. Lewis, the proud owner of a townhouse in the Salem Lakes
development, is one of the many success stories of the Virginia
Beach Community Development Corporation. The organization has sold
almost 60 houses in 10 years.
by CNB