Charleroi home tours planned as part of improvement project

Two of five rehabilitated homes being sold as part of a communitydevelopment project will be open to the public for tours on Sunday.

The Greater Charleroi Community Development Corp. and its parentcompany, Mon Valley Initiative, of Homestead, have been workingtogether on a $560,000 grant project that involved purchasing theformerly foreclosed properties and restoring them to move-inquality.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development issupporting the program with funds from its NeighborhoodStabilization Program.

The money was drawn from 2009 federal stimulus dollars. Propertyacquisition for the project began in the fall of 2009.

GCCDC and MVI members will show the upgraded 203 1/2 Meadow Ave.and 711 Shady Ave. homes from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Sunday.

The Meadow Avenue property features two to three bedrooms, twofull baths, an eat-in kitchen and landscaping and fencing that willbe added outside this spring.

The house is near Meadowcrest Park.

The Shady Avenue house includes two to three bedrooms, one-and-a-half bathrooms, a ground-floor bonus room, a spiral staircase, athree-stall garage, a side deck and a view of the Monongahela River.

The homes are each selling for $52,000 and special financing isavailable for buyers through Washington County.

Applicants must meet income guidelines to purchase the homes.

Information on the guidelines will be available at the openhouse.

Homes at 672 First St., 809 Meadow Ave. and 802 Second St. willbe ready for sale by the start of the summer.

Some of the natural features in the five houses have beenpreserved.

All of them are energy efficient and have new air conditioningand hearing systems.

GCCDC president and Charleroi School Board member Adele Hopkinssaid putting the homes back on the market will be a welcome boostfor the borough.

"If that's one thing Charleroi needs, it is decent housing and toget rid of a lot of these absentee landlords who let the houses, andeven the rental homes, go," Hopkins said.

"We are running into a lot of people coming in from out ofstate," added GCCDC board member and past president John Martucci.

"They're buying houses on the Internet thinking they can justflip them and make money and not put money in them," Hopkins said."You can't do it."

Hopkins said GCCDC and MVI have a history of housing improvementprojects in Charleroi.

"We did six (home) rehabs about 15 years ago, and then the moneywent dead for a long time for Washington County," Hopkins said."That was through HUD, but it was a different type of money. Thehouses are still being lived in."

Another project about 10 years ago involved the creation ofMeadowcrest Commons, a $1 million project in which GCCDC and MVI hadseven condominiums built on the corner of Fifth Street and MeadowAvenue, along with creation of an open space area called MeadowPark.

"At that time, we got a lot of different financing," Hopkinssaid. "We had about six different funding sources for that. It wascomplicated."

GCCDC's plans to build nine more units fell through and the parkwas only partially developed because funds were no longer available.

The organization still plans to develop the park area more andhopefully work on more housing rehabilitation.

"We're at the mercy of the money," Hopkins said. "We'll doprojects as the money comes up."

MVI project coordinator Doug VanHaitsma said those involved arehoping the currently renovated homes spur others in the neighborhoodto spruce up their properties.

"It's in neighborhoods that could probably tip either way, and bymaking a couple strategic renovations on these houses, the intentwould be to keep it a stable, homeowner-based neighborhood," hesaid. "The challenge with foreclosures often times is the out oftown investors that pick those up. (The homes) end up being rentalsand are not kept up to the level they would if they had retuned tobe a home-ownership unit."

VanHaitsma said it is possible that the five homes could be soldat a profit, which would once again be filtered into the community.

"Our hope is that any additional revenue can be used to developsome additional houses," he said.

"We're very much into strategic development and stabilizing someneighborhoods through picking out some of the foreclosedproperties."

Additional information can be obtained by contacting MVI outreachspecialist Mandie Stehle at (412) 464-4000, ext. 4024.