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At Community Home Trust, we consider partnership to be one of the most essential elements of our work. A project underway right now at the Legion Road townhomes in Chapel Hill is a great example of how our partnerships with the municipalities we work with and our homeowners come together to help keep our homes in great shape.

In 2001, Community Home Trust built 14 townhomes on Legion Road on land provided by the Town of Chapel Hill and Orange County. All 14 two- and three-bedroom townhomes are part of our permanently affordable homeownership inventory, and the community is governed by its own homeowners’ association (HOA), supported by CHT.

Over the years, moisture has seeped into the crawlspaces of the homes, which isn’t an uncommon problem to develop as homes age, explained CHT Property Manager Ian Morse, especially in townhomes like these where the crawlspaces are low to the ground. Typically, moisture and mold will build up in crawlspaces when the vapor barriers and insulation between the home and the crawlspace break down. This can become problematic if that mold begins to affect air quality in the home or the structural integrity of the trusses supporting it. Unfortunately, although it’s not an uncommon problem, it is an expensive one to fix. And while the Legion Road HOA does have some funds set aside for repairs like this, it didn’t have nearly enough to cover the whole project, which is likely to cost $35,000 to complete.

This is where the importance of partnership comes in. Working with Megan Culp, Community Development Program Manager for Affordable Housing and Community Connections, CHT was able to apply for and secure Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) funding from the Town of Chapel Hill for the project. According to the Town of Chapel Hill’s website, “The Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) Program was created by the U.S. Congress in 1974 and is administered by the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). The primary objective of the program is to develop viable urban communities by providing decent housing and a suitable living environment and expanding economic opportunities for low- and moderate-income peoples.” (https://www.townofchapelhill.org/government/departments-services/housing-and-community/funding/community-development-block-grant-cdbg-program)

The grant provided $25,000 toward the project to help fill the gap in the funds the HOA had set aside. With the support from these grant funds and CHT’s partnership with our Legion Road homeowners, the essential work of protecting all 14 homes’ crawlspaces is now underway. Triangle Crawlspace Solutions is replacing vapor barriers, cleaning fungus from trusses, sealing penetrations between the homes and crawlspaces, securing foundation vents, putting in drains in places where water might accumulate, and making other repairs and upgrades to ensure crawlspaces stay dry and mold-free. Explained Legion Road townhome owner Deneane Stanley, “The partnership with the Town of Chapel Hill is extremely important to CHT and the homeowners who reside here. The Legion Road homeowners were really fortunate to benefit from this grant which supplemented this much-needed crawl space renovation.”

Chelsea Laws, the Director of Building and Development Services for the Town of Chapel Hill, explained why it was so important to the Town to support this project.

As we all know, access to affordable housing plagues communities throughout the country, as is evident by the rising housing prices shown in the latest housing data. This means that an affordable housing option is increasingly escaping the grasp of too many people. We are really fortunate in Chapel Hill to have a very active group of individuals and organizations, like CHT, that are dedicated to creating and more importantly, maintaining affordable housing opportunities for those in need. We really appreciate it when we can work with CHT because it means that we are playing our part in ensuring safe housing stock exists in this community which is hopefully creating a model for other communities across the region and country to follow.

CHT Property Manager Ian Morse agrees. “We’re not just interested in selling great affordable homes to our program participants, but we’re interested in helping keep them in great shape, too. That’s what’s best for our current homeowners, and that’s what’s best for our community in the long-term. We’re really grateful to the Town for providing the grant funds to help make that happen at our Legion Road townhomes.”