Affordable housing planned for Point Breeze
Two city organizations agreed to transfer vacant lots to a community-development group to build the Mamie Nichols Townhomes.
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A DEVELOPMENT OF about 30 affordable rental homes in Point Breeze moved a step closer to reality Tuesday when the Philadelphia Vacant Property Review Committee approved the transfer of two vacant parcels to the Women's Community Revitalization Project (WCRP).
The Mamie Nichols Townhomes would consist of one- to three-bedroom apartments and townhouses. It is named for a Point Breeze community activist who died in 2009, said Nora Lichtash, executive director of the WCRP.
"This is something we've been working on for the last few months," Lichtash said Tuesday.
She said Point Breeze has experienced some of the steepest rises in rental prices over the last two years.
"We've been working with Councilman Kenyatta Johnson, who knows we need affordable housing in the city," she said.
One of the parcels approved for transfer includes about 13 lots in a block on Taylor Street near Reed, between 24th and 25th Streets.
About a week earlier, the WCRP also obtained transfer of two other Point Breeze parcels, one on Taylor and the other on Capitol Street, from the Philadelphia Redevelopment Authority. Those parcels also would be part of the Mamie Nichols Townhomes.
Lichtash said her organization - which has built other affordable-housing developments, mostly in North Philadelphia - first must raise about $12 million. It will take one to two years to obtain the financing, and about a year after that for construction.
"But you can't apply for financing until you have site control," she said.
The WCRP is a 30-year-old community-development organization based in Kensington. For this project, it entered into a partnership with the Point Breeze group Citizens Acting Together Can Help (CATCH).
CATCH has been working on a project to help disabled veterans, and one-third of the new homes would be one-bedroom apartments for veterans with special needs.
Betty Beaufort, a Point Breeze community activist who has lived in the neighborhood for 40 years, was excited to hear about the new homes, all of which would be rental units.
"I feel good about it, because we need some balance in our community," Beaufort said.
Beaufort said most longtime community residents cannot afford the new housing being built, with price tags of $300,000 and up.
"We've been crying out for affordable housing for years," Beaufort said.
She said longtime residents started organizing in 2008 to fight three-story homes that were starting to appear. "They were plopping them in a two-story block in the middle of the block, looking like a sore eye," she said.
Lichtash said CATCH and WCRP soon will begin going door to door in Point Breeze to discuss plans for the development.
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