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Williamstown Housing Trust OKs Three Grant Applications
By Stephen Dravis, iBerkshires Staff
02:31AM / Thursday, June 25, 2015
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Affordable Housing Trust Chairman Richard DeMayo conducts Wednesday's meeting with Trustee Ruth Harrison.
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The Affordable Housing Trust on Wednesday evening approved three new grants under its Mortgage Assistance Program.
 
The grants of $15,000 each will help two first-time homebuyers and one family displaced by the loss of a job at the former North Adams Regional Hospital, according to the senior vice president of Adams Community Bank who presented the applications to the board.
 
"I'm pleased to see that in response to the question, 'Would this loan be possible without the grant funds,' the answer is 'No,' " Trustee Stanley Parese said in reference to the first of the three applications presented. "I personally take a good deal of pleasure in the notion that this program is helping put a family into housing who, in the absence of the program, would not be able to own a home."
 
The three grants awarded on Wednesday bring to five the number of homebuyers helped by the program. A sixth buyer had applied for the grant but withdrew the application; Adams Community Bank's Maureen Baran told the board on that the sixth applicant had been able to purchase a home with a gift from family.
 
Wednesday's three applicants mostly planned to use the town funds toward a down payment on their new homes. All three were income qualified, per the grant's rules.
 
The first application approved was for a family of five purchasing a property valued at $80,000 but which requires $109,000 worth of work.
 
"It's new heating, all new electric, a new bathroom, a new kitchen," Baran said. "At this point it's uninhabitable."
 
Baran noted that the $15,000, which will defray the cost of a $19,000 down payment, will benefit the town in a couple of ways.
 
"There are additional redeeming factors here," she said. "It's taking a rundown property in Williamstown and putting it back on the tax rolls. I think it's a win-win all the way around here."
 
The family in the first application currently rents its home in Williamstown, Baran said.
 
The second applicant, a two-person household, rents in North Adams, Baran said. The $15,000 grant was sought for the down payment on a house being purchased for $99,000.
 
"It is small," Baran said. "I think the purchase price reflects the size of the home."
 
The third applicant approved was a couple with an infant, Baran said. They plan to use $11,100 of the grant toward their down payment and the balance toward closing costs.
 
As with the second applicant, Baran identified the third applicant considered as a first-time homebuyer. The home under consideration is being purchased for $110,000, she said.
 
All three applications were approved unanimously by the four trustees in attendance.
 
The $45,000 in expenditures on Wednesday cut the existing treasury nearly in half.
 
The trust went into the meeting with more than $97,000 after spending $190,000 this spring to acquire two building lots in town — one at the corner of Cole Avenue and Maple Street and the other on Summer Street just off North Hoosac Road.
 
The two sites were purchase for $95,000 apiece. The trustees hope to partner with Habitat for Humanity or another non-profit to build homes on the sites.
 
Parese, a former chairman, said the trust — up to now funded entirely by Community Preservation Act funds — may have to look elsewhere to refill its coffers.
 
"We may go into a mode now — of necessity — of fund-raising," he said. "We did feel we would have more credibility and potential for success as we approach funding agencies with a track record, a story to tell. I feel like this is unfolding as well as it could in the real world."
 
The trust's track record now includes success on three different fronts: support of the under-construction Highland Woods senior housing project ($150,000), five individual mortgage assistance grants ($60,000) and the acquisition of two lots that could be used to build one- or two-family homes ($190,000).
 
The expenditures represent a good mix of satisfying different segments of the housing market, Parese said. And he said depletion of the trust's initial funding was not a bad thing.
 
"Per [Treasurer Ruth Harrison's] report, we're at about $97,500," Parese said at one point. "On the verge of having spoken for $45,000 of that, that leaves us at $52,000.
 
"Again, I go back to when we were putting this [Mortgage Assistance] Program in place. Among our biggest fears was we would put it in place and have it not serve anyone.
 
"I'm not in the least bit queasy about the fact that at this moment we have three applicants come at once."
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