Charleston organization provides affordable housing, preserves history with new house
CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCSC) - A ribbon-cutting in West Ashley on Monday marked another effort to provide affordable housing to families while preserving history, according to project officials.
Officials with the development said papers are already signed and they are expecting a family to be moving in shortly.
The goal of the project by the Charleston Redevelopment Corporation and Palmetto Community Land Trust is to provide affordable housing and preserve history.
“Owning a home today is an expensive venture,” said Diane Hamilton, who is on the Board of Directors with the Charleston Redevelopment Corporation. “With the land trust we take that expensive element out of the equation, thus making it more affordable. Otherwise, these persons would not be able to become homeowners.”
Other project officials say it does even more than that.
“Protecting the affordability of this property and perpetuity goes hand in hand with protecting the cultural character of this neighborhood,” said April Wood with the Historic Charleston Foundation. “This is one less property to contribute to the gentrification and displacement we are seeing throughout the city.”
With financial help from the City of Charleston, the Historic Charleston Foundation, the 1772 Foundation and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Charleston Mayor John Tecklenburg said the city would like to see over 16,000 similar affordable units in the next several years.
“You’ve got to have goals, you’ve got to be able to measure things. This is just one unit…but onesies, twosies matter, too, particularly when they’re single family-ownership,” Tecklenburg said.
“We need to maintain that inventory and build an inventory of housing that folks that are just a core of our community can afford to live here,” Tecklenburg said.