Program to fix up homes in last phase

By Deborah Hirsh • Courier-Post Staff • May 16, 2009

State, local and church officials Friday announced the third and final phase of a program that grants forgivable loans to Camden residents looking to fix up their places.

The Camden Home Improvement Program, also known as CHIP, offers eligible homeowners up to $20,000 in loans to fix their homes. Priority is given to repairs that affect the safety of residents, such as rewiring a faulty electrical system. However, grants can also be awarded for fixing basic systems, preventing deterioration and enhancing the exterior facade. If the homeowners stay in their home for five years, the entire loan is forgiven. They can sell the home before that, but must repay all or part of the loan depending on how many years they stay.

The idea originated from Camden Churches Organized for People and Concerned Black Clergy, who said the state's $175 million economic recovery plan had not done enough to improve the city's neighborhoods.

Since the program first launched in December 2006, more than 130 homes have been rehabilitated and dozens more are in progress.

An additional 83 are expected to be rehabbed in this final phase. Homeowners in Fairview, Morgan Village, Parkside, Lanning Square, Central Waterfront, Cooper Grant and downtown will now be eligible to apply.

State agencies anticipate eventually giving out $8 million to up to 300 homeowners across the city. Of that money, $5 million comes from the Camden Economic Recovery Board, $2.5 million from the Department of Community Affairs and $500,000 from the city of Camden.
Gloucester City contractor Munawar Bashir, 44, said the program has not only helped homeowners but also kept him and other local businesses afloat.

Bashir said it wasn't long after he and his brother started their company in 2005 that projects began to slow down. Sometimes, he said, people would hire them and then they didn't have the money to pay for the job.

"It's cold winter and no jobs, I'm just crazy running around," he remembered. "I lost everything, house and car."

He heard about the CHIP program in 2007 and applied to be one of their designated contractors. If not for those projects, he said, "I would have lost everything."

On Friday, he and two employees put siding on an East Camden home, one of about 35 grant projects they've worked on so far. Bashir estimated that 90 percent of their jobs come from CHIP.

If there were enough money to meet the high demand for the grants, contractors would have even more projects. Aida Figueroa, who manages the project through Cooper's Ferry, said she has a wait list of more than 250 people who applied for the second phase of the program but weren't able to get funding.

Church leaders said they hope to find a way to continue the program because helping residents improve their homes can trigger a domino effect throughout the neighborhood, increasing depressed property values.

"That one that stands out has encouraged some of the other people on the block to fix up their houses, too, at least on the outside," said the Rev. Willie Anderson, of the Gateway neighborhood.

The program "definitely needs to be done again," he said. "We've got a lot of working poor that's doing all they can just to stay in their homes and pay their taxes. They just don't have the money for a new roof or a heating system."