Finding a place in the world

In Cape Girardeau County, people in desperate circumstances can find temporary housing at the Revival Center in Jackson and both Vision House and the Safe House for Women in Cape Girardeau. Although the 43-room Revival Center does not limit how long someone can stay, little else exists to help people in this situation make the transition into owning or even renting a house.

The wait for federal housing assistance in Cape Girardeau County has been decreasing but is still at least a year and a half, according to Bill Tucker, who is in charge of housing for the East Missouri Action Agency. Right now the agency is attempting to find Section 8 housing for families who applied in January 2006. Nearly 1,000 families or individuals are on the waiting list.

But if a project called Magnolia Place is funded and the city of Cape Girardeau approves, nine families struggling to find a place in the world could be living in new houses only four months later.

The faith-based organization Project Hope proposes building nine 1,200-square-foot houses using a construction technology that reduces utilities costs to about $230 per year. The three-bedroom, two-bath houses would provide families with transitional rental housing for 15 to 24 months. The goal is to provide the training to prepare for owning homes.

The site for the homes is in the 500 block of North Main Street and North Spanish Street. An existing building formerly housed an automotive shop. Owner Jim Riley added a new parking lot to the south.

Because of the community-building work it does, Project Hope is eligible for about $500,000 in tax credits that can be sold through the Neighborhood Assistance Program. Project Hope is waiting to hear whether the Missouri Department of Economic Development has approved.

Cape Girardeau architect Phillip B. Smith has designed the $1.2 million to $1.5 million development. Project Hope's offices, currently in a converted house on Woodlawn Avenue in Cape Girardeau, would move to an existing building on the 1.9-acre property. Riley has agreed to donate the property to Project Hope for the assumption of debt.

Love Inc., another faith-based organization that serves as a clearinghouse to connect churches with people who want their help, and other organizations would be invited to share the spacious headquarters building with Project Hope. Organizers are investigating child-care possibilities.

Project Hope (see related story) coordinates mentoring for people in difficult situations, often because of addiction, poverty or disabilities. The organization works through 60 participating congregations in Southeast Missouri.

People who are progressing through mentoring sometimes slip again, often because they are isolated, said Denis Rigdon, chief executive officer of Project Hope. "It's of significant value to have people in a healthy living situation."

Project Hope also has arranged to administer Family Development Accounts for the residents at Magnolia Place. The accounts provide state and federal matching funds to help low-income families save a nest egg to be used for pursuing an education, getting job training, buying a house or starting a business.

Transitional housing and affordable housing are two of the community's greatest needs, said Nancy Jernigan, executive director of the United Way of Southeast Missouri. People making the transition after drug and alcohol rehabilitation, people getting out of prison, women whose husbands have left them with no money and no skills, and women who have escaped from domestic violence all need transitional housing, she said.

Anyone with a history of substance abuse would have to be in a post-treatment recovery program at the Gibson Recovery Center or the Family Counseling Center. Or they could be coming out of the Teen Challenge secondary recovery program in Cape Girardeau, whose graduates completed 12 to 18 months of initial drug treatment before coming here.

But some renters are paying $400 a month for utilities in houses and apartments that lack weatherization, Jernigan said. "They keep pouring money into utility bills when they should be putting it to other uses."

'An exciting opportunity'

Cape Girardeau Mayor Jay Knudtson has been briefed on the project. "It seems like an exciting opportunity from the city's standpoint," he said.

He is especially enthused about developing housing in an area where many houses are in deteriorating condition. "I'm excited about the redevelopment of the area," Knudtson said.

He urged that the development's neighbors be kept informed about Project Hope's plans so that they understand it is not a homeless shelter.

Bill Prost, a Cape Girardeau marketing consultant who is about to mount the project's capital campaign, assures that isn't the case. A job will be one of the requirements for getting into Magnolia Place.

"We're trying to make good, solid citizens," he said.

The houses are to be made with ARXX Insulating Concrete Forms, a method that sandwiches layers of Polystyrene around a concrete core. The inside is drywalled, while exterior finishing is added to the outside. The result can't be differentiated from a stick construction house, but the walls have an R-50 rating compared to the R-19 rating of a typical poured wall. The houses also are expected to withstand an F3 tornado.

"This is good housing everybody can be proud of," Prost said.

Drury Supply Co. distributes ARXX concrete forms. Drury's Charlie Westrich said the construction method has been used in a number of Cape Girardeau buildings, including the Holiday Inn Express pool house, an office building next to West Park Lanes on Silver Springs Road and a Habitat for Humanity house in the 1200 block of College Street. Jackson also has an ARXX four-unit apartment building at Union and Main streets and a house at 2081 Providence.

Rigdon said the project has the potential to benefit other communities. "It has taken us seven years to learn what we've learned," he said. He and Prost, a Caruthersville, Mo., native, pointed out that only 70 of the 500 houses destroyed by Caruthersville's April 2006 tornado have been rebuilt.

Capital campaign to begin

Project Hope is about to begin a capital campaign to raise the money to buy the property, which is already under contract. Little site work will need to be done. The Ellis-Wathen-Ranney House, a mansion built by the same architect who designed Cape Girardeau's Glenn House Victorian museum, occupied the land until it was demolished in 1958. Two abandoned houses on the west side of the property would be razed.

Rigdon said the goal is pay off the project within three years and then begin expanding to include more families. Riley owns more property in the vicinity that could be accessed.

The houses will cost only about $80,000 each to build, in part because they are close together and will be built at the same time. Rigdon hopes eventually to coordinate the program with the house-building work of Habitat for Humanity.

On a national scale, the problems of chronic homelessness have gotten more attention than those of temporary homelessness, said Roy Jones, housing coordinator for the Community Caring Council. He is involved with Habitat for Humanity but thinks Section 8 housing would be the next logical step after leaving Magnolia Place because a limited amount of Habitat houses are available.

Charles Horn, a housing specialist with the East Missouri Action Agency in Cape Girardeau, said the length of the wait for housing assistance can be difficult to estimate because no one knows when money will be coming from the federal government and how much. The waiting list for Section 8 housing has been closed since October.

More than 1,500 people in Cape Girardeau County are currently living in Section 8 housing, about 2.2 percent of the population. In Paducah, Ky., a city Cape Girardeau is often compared to, about 10 percent of the population receives housing assistance. This includes 882 units operated by the Housing Authority of Paducah. Getting into housing operated by that organization does not require much of a wait, according to executive director Cal Ross. Like Cape Girardeau, Paducah does not have transitional housing.

sblackwell@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 137