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Quick Links Click here to view the HOPZ Brochure. Thinking about helping us? Contact Us |
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You Can Do It! A blueprint to empower other community-based housing advocates across America to do the same things we do. Click to learn more. |
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To view the contents of this web site in sequence, please click the "Next Page" below. | |
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HOPz® seeks to address two
related problems, concurrently:
Here's How: There are many programs and organizations that seek to remedy neighborhood deterioration and provide affordable housing via large-scale projects and destructive "renewal". Our approach is more modest, less intrusive, safer, more manageable, and more desirable. The HOPz strategy is to save existing properties on the verge of destruction, and restore them to clean, safe housing that is indistinguishable from their neighbors. These properties are often vacant and boarded up, and attract crime, vandals and vermin. Not only don't they pay taxes, but they create an inordinate demand on police, fire, and health services. They hold down the viability and desirability of the neighborhood. HOPz will identify individual distressed properties (1 - 4 family dwellings) in low to moderate risk neighborhoods in suburban and urban environments, that would make desirable housing if renovated. We will focus on properties that are in need of extensive renovation, since these are the ones that are most likely to otherwise be lost. HOPz's mission, and core capability, is the acquisition and renovation of existing properties. After renovation we will transfer these "move in condition" properties to existing public and private social service organizations, which will make them available to needy individuals and families, the elderly and disabled, usually being supported with rental assistance programs, who often have great difficulty obtaining decent, safe housing. Until a local agency is found to take over the properties we renovate, we will hold and manage it ourselves, renting it to low-income families on rental assistance programs. Source of Properties The types of small, non-performing properties we target are usually controlled by a tax lien trader, a bank, HUD/VA, or the local municipality. In most cases, the property is a liability for them. HOPz will acquire properties from these owners "as is". Private owners will receive some combination of cash and tax credits; public owners will achieve their organizational objectives with no ongoing liability or effort. Source of Funding Grants and loan guarantees will come from existing federal, state, and local sources, both public and private. We will leverage our non-profit status to secure donations of building materials, and thus, maximize the value of every dollar. We will encourage tax-deductible donations of distressed vacant properties by institutional owners such as banks and tax lien traders. Proceeds from the sale of properties will be reinvested in new projects, enabling HOPz to be self-funding in the future. Renovate rather than build new HOPz's strategy is to repair and recover existing structures, rather than build new, because it's faster and more cost-effective, maintains the character of the neighborhood, provides housing where current Zoning or Building Codes might otherwise preclude such development, and provides more "affordable" housing that is similar to the other homes in the neighborhood. This type of "in fill" property renovation is a slow process, but over time can rejuvenate entire communities, and do so with the least disruption to the community and its citizens. This web site is almost done. The "Latest News" Page is still blank, and our corporate brochure isn't finished. Thanks for your patience while we make this web site as useful as the properties we recover. For more information, please contact Charlotte Cohen at (732) 530-9601, extension 14, or click here to send Charlotte Cohen an email. |
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