Public officials and the administrative team from nonprofit housing developer, SWAP Inc., held a ribbon cutting on Tuesday afternoon to celebrate the construction of three brand-new places to call home for two local individuals and one young couple, all three of which were sold for what was not too long ago considered a reasonable price for a starter home.

The hoopla was to show off what housing advocates hope can become an oft-replicated model of creating truly affordable housing within existing neighborhoods throughout the state — the building of multi-family townhouses that blend into the neighborhoods where they are built and provide a better path to homeownership for those looking to buy their first home.

“This is an important project to us, because we know in East Providence, as well as every other community in the state, affordable housing is a real challenge,” said Mayor Bob DaSilva. “And when you can cooperate and collaborate with a place like SWAP to build ownership for people who are struggling or people who are in a certain income bracket that otherwise would never obtain the dream of owning a home…we jumped on that.”

The three houses — two on Hoppin Avenue and one on the other side of the lot on Burnside Avenue, all on the site of the formerly vacant Platt-Watters and Burnside school buildings in Riverside — are each two-family homes built in different styles, but all amounting to 2,200 square feet.

In addition to giving the owners a three-bedroom, two-bathroom space to live in (with a large yard and a full basement), they each contain a separate, one- or two-bedroom apartment within the same footprint that can be rented out to assist with making the mortgage payment, and qualifying for a mortgage in the first place.

Those seeking to live in one of the homes had to qualify within income requirements (making a maximum of $62,950 as a single person, or up to $89,900 as a family of four). They then entered a lottery to see who would get one of the three houses. Of 50 applicants, 5 individuals or couples qualified, and the three lucky winners were chosen in January of this year.

The homes — which are all new construction — cost $239,000, and are deed-restricted for 30 years to ensure they remain affordable in the future.

Of course, to get to that price point in a housing market where prices have been continuously soaring, a good amount of subsidization had to occur.

The project required two grants from Rhode Island Housing (one to help with acquisition of the site, one for a pre-development grant) as well as additional funding from the agency’s Homeownership Investment Fund (HIF). On top of that, the project includes buy-in from Centreville Bank, who are providing first-time homebuyer mortgages that include a lower interest rate and no down payment required for the home buyers.

Sue Peffer, a longtime mortgage broker who now works as a consultant for SWAP, said that the actual cost of acquiring the land and building just one of the homes was around $550,000 — which puts the challenges of building actually affordable homes squarely in perspective.

Another needed tool in the toolbox
Carla DeStefano, Executive Director of SWAP for over 30 years, has more perspective on the state’s affordable housing crisis than most.

Before joining SWAP, she worked for private development companies. Now, she boasts that her nonprofit organization has built more homeownership units in Providence (200 in the last 20 years) than any other builder (for-profits included). Specifically, she is enthusiastic about the model that includes a mix of ownership and rental units within the same building.

“What we really need to focus on is the model that probably already exists in all 39 cities and towns in Rhode Island. It’s these houses. They fit right into every community,” she said. “Every single city and town has this model. A road to home ownership and creating a rental unit in the neighborhood.”

Deborah Goddard, Secretary of the Rhode Island Department of Housing, agreed with her sentiment.

“Look how well this fits in. Look how well the design works with the neighborhood. And in our state plan, this is one of the things we’re going to emphasize. Townhomes, twos and threes, we need to start doing this housing again. We’ve zoned this out in so many of our communities,” she said. “This is what we need, and we need a lot more of this.”

City Council President Bob Rodericks also saw the project as a good example of using underutilized land for a noble purpose.

“We are standing on what was a very blighted property before this,” he said. “So we’re doing exactly in East Providence what a lot of people are asking for. Instead of building out in clear, open space — you need some of that — we took a couple of old, abandoned school buildings and derelict property, and with the mayor’s planning, developed this. And at a reasonable price.”

DeStefano said the state faces a multi-faceted challenge in addressing its housing crisis, with no easy answers or shortcuts available to getting towards a solution; however, each tool in the toolbox helps.

“My opening line these days when someone asks me about the housing crisis is very simple. We need more housing,” she said, later adding, “Are we going to solve the housing crisis two units at a time? Not likely, but you can still walk a mile with baby steps, one step at a time.”