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During an Oct. 8 City Council work session, City Manager Tom Carroll discussed the possibility of Lexington implementing a program to help make repairs to owner-occupied homes in the city.
The Homeowner Helper Program is a program that Carroll started in the village of Silverton, Ohio, where the village would cover the cost for repairs to the exterior of the home after the home was cited for a code violation. Carroll implemented a similar program in Cambridge, Md., where he served as city manager before coming to Lexington.
If implemented, the city would hire the contractor and oversee and manage the project for the homeowner, taking a potential financial burden off of them. The program would cover projects such as repainting the house, making repairs to the porch or reshingling the roof. “At end of the day, home is protected, the homeowner’s asset is protected, [and] the homeowner has a newly painted house, new roof on the house, new porch – whatever the specifics would be,” Carroll said. “On the exterior of the house, they are now brought into compliance with our property maintenance code.”
The biggest change to the program from what was implemented in Silverton is that, in Lexington, the program wouldn’t be tied to code enforcement. Instead, the homeowner could make the request to the city if they need some exterior repairs done, but can’t afford them and have no other recourse. The homeowner would fill out an application for assistance with fixing the issue, and the Threshold Housing Commission would oversee the administration of the funds.
Once the work is done, the cost will be applied as a lien on the property, which the city would get back when the property is sold. One of the things Carroll said he learned through previous iterations of this program is that it’s always a good idea to make sure that the homeowner has a will or an estate plan in place, so if they don’t sell their house in their lifetime, the city will have an easier time knowing who to contact and how to recover the money lent for the repairs. He suggested partnering with the law school at Washington and Lee University to help the homeowners develop estate plans if they don’t already have one.
The program would be used primarily for simple external improvements, but if the homeowner has larger issues with the property – plumbing or electrical problems, for example – Carroll noted that the city could help connect them with organizations that are better able to address those concerns, such as Habitat for Humanity or the TAP Community Action Agency in Roanoke.
Vice Mayor Marylin Alexander, who serves as one of the Council liaisons on the Threshold Commission, said she liked the idea of separating the program from code enforcement, as that’s not an action the city takes very often.
“We wouldn’t have many to do unless we ramp that up quite a bit,” she said. “Making it available to those targeted groups to voluntarily request, I think [that] would be the best way to go.”
Council member Nicholas Betts, Council’s other Threshold liaison, suggested that after the city gets the results of the windshield survey, they consider sending letters to any homeowners in houses identified as being most in need of repairs to let them know the program is available. He also noted that fixing smaller external issues could prevent larger issues from developing in the future.
“Let’s say somebody has roof issues, and those roof issues cause leaks that mess up the interior and then there’s mold and the next thing you know, a house is offline,” he said. “So having some kind of program that can get people assistance before we start losing additional housing that already exists is important.”
Council member David Sigler asked Carroll how the projects were managed in Silverton, and Carroll explained that the village’s code enforcement person oversaw the work, adding that the position was part-time and the projects were mainly worked on in the winter months.
Sigler asked if Lexington would be adding a similar part-time position to oversee any projects that come about through this program and Carroll said that that was how he envisioned it working. He clarified that he was not asking for anything specific regarding staffing or finances at this time, but he did feel like additional resources would be needed to properly implement the program. Sigler proposed potentially limiting the number of projects the city would do per year to make implementation more manageable.
Sigler also noted that, in the past, residents had raised issues about properties in violation of the city code and the owner turned out to be an absent landlord, not the person living in the house. Carroll specified that this program would be primarily for owner-occupied homes, and that cases where the property owner was not living in the home would still be addressed through the normal code-enforcement procedures.
In September, Council approved an allocation of $250,000 to fund repairs through this program, pending approval of a set of rules to dictate how the program would be implemented.
