Common Cause Loan Fund

An Overview

Common Cause is a community loan fund established by Historic Charleston Foundation (HCF) and the Charleston Redevelopment Corporation (CRC), and in partnership with the City of Charleston, with the goal of assisting homeowners in maintaining the exterior of their historic homes to provide those in need with the resources to stay in their home. Common Cause provides funding, technical expertise and partnership engagement with the mission of preserving the communities that contribute to the cultural fabric of the Greater Charleston area. This project was funded by a grant from the 1772 Foundation with support from HCF, CRC and generous community partners.

HCF is excited to announce that it has been awarded a ($100,000) grant from the 1772 Foundation in support of a new revolving loan program in partnership with the Charleston Redevelopment Corporation(CRC). With funding from this grant, matched by HCF and the CRC (for a total of $300,000), our organizations will develop and implement a below market rate loan program to support individuals in the 60-120% Area Median Income category for small repairs to historic houses (i.e. window repairs, wood rot, painting, etc). The loans will be granted for owner-occupied historic home repair projects. This collaboration will help homeowners stay in their historic homes longer and will enable additional rehabilitation projects in the PCLT portfolio.

For the small repair loans, the loan amounts will be capped to spread the funds for the greatest impact in the community. Loan candidates will need to meet certain criteria to qualify for the loan including: the borrower will need to own the historic house (defined as being 50 years old or older), be in the 60-120%AMI range, meet the approval criteria established by the City's Homeownership Initiative program, and plan to remain in the house for at least five years after the work is completed. Funds will be below market rate, long-term loans. HCF will be involved with project evaluation and review of the repair work. In evaluating appropriate repair methods, HCF will focus on maintaining the character defining features of the house. Our organizations will work in close collaboration with the City’s Housing and Community Development Department to identify and vet potential small repair projects.

The implementation of this Revolving Loan program will provide much needed resources to qualifying homeowners for necessary repairs and increase the likelihood of residents being able to stay in their homes for a longer period of time without being forced out by displacement pressures or the threat of deteriorating living conditions.

This matters because as a city we are grappling with the social equity implications of Charleston's economic success. Concerns over displacement and gentrification have intensified and the character of historic neighborhoods, particularly downtown, is changing dramatically. As a city, housing non-profits are working in silos competing for the same funds to help the same people. As funds are increasingly hard to come by, this situation is amplified. Historic preservation is increasingly blamed for gentrification when the problems we are experiencing are much more complicated than the expense of maintaining historic structures. This loan program will help disarm the rhetoric that historic preservation is the driver of gentrification. We'd like to put our money where our mouth is with this program to help keep long-term residents in place. Until the city can come up with effective solutions to create more affordable and workforce housing at the scale that is necessary, this program will help to offset some of the extra cost burden of owning a historic building and give lower-income homeowners access to low-interest financing when they probably could not access traditional bank loans.