The new Winston -Salem housing project allows the city to sell free batches sold for $ 1 to build homes at affordable prices – TRAD CITY BEAT

Recommended photo: Some of the residential accommodation of the home ownership project. ” (Photo from Gail Melcher)

The city of Winston-Salem has many empty batches.

And in order to bring this free land into the hands of developers who are interested in building homes at affordable prices, they sell plots for $ 1 per piece.

At the end of January, Winston-Salem was immersed at 23 degrees.

Connecting in the bite of the cold in the morning on January 23, the city’s employees, the performers and the clergy gathered at a corner of real estate in the Southwestern ward, previously owned by the city. It is now the property of the Moravian Church, which has taken the task of building four homes at affordable prices there. It is part of the project for fair housing, an initiative that unites the church, local leaders, government agencies and non-profit organizations to build new, affordable housing housing for the first time, which makes less than 80 percent annual income.

In Winston-Salem, the average household income is $ 54,416 according to census data.

How did this come together?

When the church initially came to the council with their request, they asked for 19 lots. Due to the lack of experience in housing, they were given four. In June 2024, city leaders unanimously agreed to sell the land to the church, providing them with $ 160,000 aid to fund ARPA.

These land plots are one of the last $ 1 in the southwestern ward – the only remaining plot is located on the other side of the 342 Sunbridge Court.

The team quickly headed forward and the council of the Southwestern Department Scott Andre-Bowen before TCB That the homes look drastically different from the moment they visit them in mid -December, when they were just a tree.

On January 23, a Bobat tractor growled over the pitch, kicking dust and gravel. The remains of ocher dust had settled in the concrete, and the skeletal trees rose above the four houses, which stood steadfast in various conditions of completion.

Two -storey homes with an area of ​​1500 square meters are available with three bedrooms and 2.5 bathrooms and are estimated between $ 280,000 and $ 300,000. But their price will be limited to $ 194,500.

If homeowners want to deal with extra living space – a residential unit for accessories or ADU – they can, thus helping them to increase the value of their home. In 2022, in order to encourage more accessible homes, city leaders changed their instructions for ADUS and no longer requires people to seek permission from the Municipal Council to build an additional unit. Residents just have to meet certain conditions and receive approval from City Zoning employees.

This is only the first set of new homes for the Home Fair Property Project; They recently presented a proposal to the city in the hope of building 10 homes. The city still has dozens of free batches, most of all, on the east side of the city.

With this project, the homes were built in an area close to grocery stores, schools and places of worship and has access to sidewalks and bus lines.

What is the mission?

According to Neil Ruth, the president of the Conference of the Provincial Elders of the Moravian Church, the project for the justice of housing ownership is to “restore” what the Moravians have “violated”. These homes are ways to make the church amendments to past harm.

Since 1753, the Moravians have broken a thick thread through the tapestry of the city, arranging and building dozens of new buildings within their first 20 years of soil. But in addition to the possession of slaves, the Moravians were “silent” when the black communities were bulldozed to make the way on the highways and the “improvement”, Ruth said.

He now works to correct these past mistakes, the church partnered with the Piedmont Federal Bank to offer affordable families prices.

“No dollar” will return to the Moravian Church, according to Ruth.

“This is a project to support housing owners to stay alone and stand in connection with a friendship with the whole community,” he said.

Reverend Russell May with the Moranava Church and the Anthony Saming Community, a ministry serving the Sunnyside urban area, is another leader in the project ownership of fair housing.

The aim is to create “Mission -ruled homes” rather than market housing, May said.

When a family cannot own their home, it is a loss for the community, he explained. And children can become stressed when they have to move a lot.

“You have these family stress that is coming out of this trauma to this housing crisis,” he added.

Allonda Hawkins, a real estate professional from The Hawkins Group, said over the years it has become disappointed with the lack of homes at affordable prices in the area.

When a study in 2018 found that the city was faced with a shortage of over 16,000 affordable and low incomes, city leaders promised to add 750 new units each year.

She works with the families on this project, not only to help them find a home, but also to help build trust. To this end, the project works to listen to people’s life stories and to look at their financial records to give those who may have been transferred to a home in the past.

“The families who will move to any of the homes we sell are already one of the most resistant, healthy and incredible people in our community,” May said. “They made things work and made a way they couldn’t.”

They may fight, but when one thing changed one thing – home ownership – said May, it “unlocks” opportunities and changes the trajectory for this family.

“Too often, people in our communities are overlooked,” Hawkins added. “Not because they lacked the desire to own their own home, not because they lacked the ability to skip to Starbucks or Avocado toast, but because the system was not built to support them.”

Winston-Salem’s landscape is designed partly by racial agreements-restraints for cases that prevented people from colored people from buying certain property and this has led to inequalities in generations. Block-block segregation and racist regulations imposed by city leaders in the early 1900s dictated where they were allowed to live on families. In the 50s of the last century S

According to the census in 2021, the white hosts have 10 times more wealth than the black hosts.

This project provides “a direct material remedy to start shrinking this gap in racial wealth,” said local activist and pastor Paul Robson Ford and gives people a chance to start building a wealth of generations.

“The desire to help heal the hearts of those who were unfairly directed is just stunning,” Hawkins said.