If Home Needs TLC, The County Can Help
Lower-Income Residents Eligible For Renovation Aid
Sunday, December 3, 2006; Page LZ01
Robert and Carolyn Kelley had no idea that water from their shower and kitchen sink wasn't supposed to drain directly into the creek running alongside their small home on Mountain Road in far northwest Loudoun County.
So when a county health inspector showed up this year to tell them just that, they were mortified, and then grateful when the inspector mentioned that a new program could help.
Now the county is about to install a septic tank and drain field in the Kelleys' back yard and to replace an outdoor privy with an indoor toilet, bolster a sagging subfloor in their kitchen and add a ramp on the back porch to help Carolyn Kelley, who is disabled, enter and leave the house.
"It's awful that you can't have the money yourself to do it," said Robert Kelley, 62, a retired street sweeper with the Town of Leesburg who also is disabled because of several strokes. "We were glad for the help."
The help comes from the Loudoun County Home Improvement Program, an effort begun in June to help low- and moderate-income families rehabilitate their homes. The goal, said program manager Kelly Marrocco, is to help families of modest means remain in a county that has become difficult for all but the wealthiest to afford.
"We really want to help families that own their homes be able to stay in Loudoun County," Marrocco said.
The program has awarded three grants. It will award at least four more this year using $800,000 that the county received from the federal Community Development Block Grant program. The grants actually are loans, but they can be interest-free or forgivable at the rate of 10 percent each year (or both). For example, in 10 years, the Kelleys will owe nothing on their $63,000 grant.
The loans are available to families earning up to 80 percent of the $90,700 that the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development cites as Loudoun's median household income this year. In other words, a family of four earning up to $72,240 a year could qualify.
The program debuted alongside a similar initiative called the Eastern Loudoun Home Revitalization Program, which is open to higher-income families -- those earning up to the median income.
That program is available to homeowners living east of Route 15. Less money is available this year -- $250,000, which is provided by the county, not the federal government, Marrocco said.
Those loans are not forgivable, but they carry interest rates of between 0 and 4 percent, depending on income level, and terms as long as 20 years.
Both programs focus on rehabilitation needs, such as bringing properties up to code or improving energy efficiency. They are not available for aesthetic improvements.
"We will not finish basements or put on an addition," Marrocco said. "But we will put energy-efficient windows in."
And the programs will provide indoor plumbing, as the county will do for the Kelleys and their neighbors, George and Patricia Burke, who similarly have relied on an outdoor privy and allowed their sink and shower water to drain into a ditch along the front of their property.
Work is expected to begin on both properties this year.
Said George Burke: "We must brag on the people who've been up here helping us."
