These individuals do not respond to traditional treatment programs and spend years cycling between the streets, shelters, jail cells, and emergency rooms. This cycle is extraordinarily expensive for communities and profoundly destructive of the people caught in it. The Jimmy Heath House interrupts the cycle by giving the homeless a permanent home without requiring them to get sober first. Residents are surrounded with robust support services in the hope that having a place to live will help them address their other problems.
Need: Five vacant buildings in Over-the-Rhine were rehabbed to create the Jimmy Heath House’s 25 housing units, 14 one-bedroom units, 11 efficiencies and other facilities.
GCF Grant: $50,000 to the Jimmy Heath House capital campaign
Additional Resources: Watch a video created by UC students about the Jimmy Heath House. Read a story in the Business Courier. Visit the Cincinnati/Hamilton County Continuum of Care for the Homeless. Visit Housing First: Ending and Preventing Family Homelessness.
BLOC purchased three blighted houses on McPherson Avenue in East Price Hill for restoration.
The three homes are located on the same block as the McPherson BLOC Center that houses English, literacy and computer classes for Hispanics, as well as a large Hispanic congregation, Iglesia Evangelica Nazareth Hispana Church. BLOC works with Iglesia to interview and choose three families based on their level of need, willingness to partner and provide the necessary work to renovate the home, and their ability to repay the loan.
Need: This project is designed to give families the opportunity to own a decent, safe, affordable home. Adults in the family selected will provide much of the labor by gutting and restoring their home, under daily supervision by BLOC staff and aided by professional contractors acting as volunteers.
GCF Grant: $52,000 for McPherson Mi Casa project
Additional Resources: Watch a video about BLOC Ministries. Visit Housing Opportunities Made Equal. Follow BLOC Ministries on Facebook. Check out the Corner Bloc Coffee Shop.
Many homeowners under 50% of the median income are struggling to make ends meet. Home repairs most often do not make the list of priorities. As repairs are ignored or deferred, a cascading series of situations occurs including increased utility bills, unsafe situations and building code violations. PWC helps these seniors in this bracket by cleaning gutters, building wheelchair ramps, repairing roofs and doing critical home repair.
Need: More than 300 homes in Northern Kentucky needed home repairs.
GCF Grant: $60,000 for Northern Kentucky housing
Additional Resources: Watch a video about PWC on
YouTube. Read stories about
PWC clients. Follow PWC on
Twitter. Visit the
Kentucky Housing Corporation.
Borden Street, in the center of the community, is made up of single-family homes, two large church buildings, and a former storefront. Just one block away, Llewellyn Avenue is predominantly occupied by homeowners, and does not experience the crime and blight problems Borden Street does. Because WIN was able to invest in the Llewellyn homes earlier, the street is stabilized. However, when the economy reached such a downturn, the Borden Street corridor experienced an onslaught of vacant buildings.
Need: To redevelop Borden Street, WIN needed to rehab and build 24 houses in a two-block area.
GCF Grant: $50,000 for the Borden Street project
Additional Resources: Read how WIN
saved a family from foreclosure. Read "
The Recession Is Over? Hamilton County Families Are Still In Foreclosure" Take a
financial literacy workshop.