DATE: Saturday, August 16, 1997             TAG: 9708160238

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B3   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS 

DATELINE: NEWPORT NEWS                      LENGTH:   52 lines

HOUSING AGENCY HONORS CLIENT NO. 100,000 WITH NEW FURNITURE

Deborah Baldwin sat in her sparse dining room recently, running her fingers over the one decent piece of furniture in her new home: A large table that she'd grown up around with her five sisters.

``This is a very dear thing,'' Baldwin said, reflecting on the site of 30 years of family meals. Then she frowned.

``I'm getting new chairs,'' she said. ``The chairs are crumbling.''

In fact, the Newport News woman, a single mother of two teen-agers, picked them out at a Heilig-Meyers store in Richmond. They are worth $150 each.

She got them for free. In fact, she won a total of $5,000 worth of furniture Aug. 13, thanks to some good luck: Her mortgage was the 100,000th handled through the Virginia Housing Development Authority.

Heilig-Meyers helped Baldwin and VHDA celebrate the milestone by putting up the free furniture.

Baldwin is delighted. She owns a house for the first time. And the furniture will go a long way toward making it a home.

``We'll refinish the table, and it'll match the new chairs,'' Baldwin said.

The loan program for low- to moderate-income families began in 1974, according to VHDA Executive Director John Ritchie.

Combined with loans to build apartments for people in the same income bracket, Ritchie figures that 400,000 people have benefited in the 23 years since. It doesn't cost the taxpayers a dime because its investments support the programs it offers, Ritchie said.

The cost of operations is covered with fees paid by borrowers.

Baldwin said the furniture is a nice bonus. But the home is her prize.

``I had tried to buy a house on and off for about three years,'' said Baldwin, 46. ``The fear factor was the thing that kept me from doing it. All the paperwork.''

Baldwin works at Langley Air Force Base as a manpower analyst. She has a 17-year-old daughter, Noelle, and 15-year-old son, Anthony.

Through the VHDA program, Baldwin was able to make a 5 percent down payment on her $100,000 home, instead of the 10 percent that would normally be required.

She's paying an interest rate of about 7.5 percent, about the going rate.

Her mortgage payments come to $748 per month, compared with the $765 she paid to rent a three-bedroom apartment.

Now that she owns her own home, Baldwin still has fears. Renting can be like a security blanket.

But she looks to her large back yard, four bedrooms and two baths - and says that it's better to own than to rent.

``Maybe someone will say, `I can do this, too, if she can do it,' '' Baldwin said.

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