WOONSOCKET -- With housing prices skyrocketing throughout the Blackstone Valley, many local families are turning to such organizations as the Woonsocket Neighborhood Development Corporation for help.
If you live in or around Woonsocket, you've probably heard of WNDC. You may even know that it has something to do with affordable housing. But the corporation, which reclaims abandoned rental units and constructs new houses, is more than just a nonprofit contractor, it's a community builder.
Started in 1987 as a task force to address the city's growing housing crisis, within a few short years the WNDC crew -- led by Executive Director Joe Garlick -- was rehabilitating its own units and winning state and national awards for its work.
The more it did, the more it seemed was left to be done. So WNDC just kept going.
Unlike some affordable-housing groups, WNDC focuses almost exclusively on building attractive residences for families, who often get shortchanged as communities opt instead for elderly housing (which also qualifies as affordable housing stock under the state's Low and Moderate Income Housing Act).
"Many years ago it was thought that all people needed was a roof over their head and they would be able to be successful over time and move out and compete in the market along with everyone else," said Chris Barnett, a spokesman for the Rhode Island Housing and Mortgage Finance Corporation.
"That philosophy turned out to be wrong. Now we know that people need a place that they can be proud of because they can translate that pride into a drive to get the skills they need to get the job they need to move on to somewhere else. The way housing is designed today is driven by a different philosophy than what existed when Morin Heights [a Woonsocket housing project] and others like it were built decades ago."
That's exactly what WNDC had in mind when it started rehabilitating houses throughout the Constitution Hill neighborhood in the early 1990s. Not only did it reclaim 109 rental units in 30 abandoned buildings, it created a community support center and a children's art center all of which employed attractive historical architecture.
"There's a whole layer of stuff beyond housing that makes a community, a community," Paula Rezendes of WNDC said recently. "That's what we try to get at."
Since then, the corporation has built several condominium and single-family developments. Its latest crown jewels are a soon-to-open 43-unit condominium development on Front Street and another 26-unit subdivision known as Woodridge Estates built on a wooded area on the North Smithfield line. To the average observer, the stately houses on this winding cul de sac look as though they should cost upwards of a half-million dollars these days. In reality, most sold for between $115,000 and $149,000 to income-qualified, first-time buyers who'd completed the corporation's home-buyer class.
How does the corporation afford to sell houses at such low prices? Like so many other nonprofits, it has created a powerful combination of federal and state money as well as private donations that help offset building costs. Citizens Bank, for example, is a big WNDC sponsor. Plus, it is doing its own building, which saves on supplies.
And because such homes count as affordable housing, perspective buyers who make less than a certain percentage of the federal income guidelines (80 percent for the Woodridge Estates, 60 percent for the Front Street apartments) are eligible for reduced down payments, low interest-rate mortgages and a variety of other incentives that help make these places affordable.
Now that it has established itself in Woonsocket, WNDC has set about trying to change affordable-housing perceptions throughout Northern Rhode Island. On Saturday, the WNDC crew invited local officials on a tour of their new properties. Participants included a Lincoln Town Council member and several local zoning officials.
"We like to bring people here from places like North Smithfield who might think they don't want affordable housing, then they see what we've done," Rezendes said.
It should be noted that WNDC is just one organization that's building housing throughout the Blackstone Valley. The Blackstone Valley Community Action Program in Pawtucket, Central Falls' Realty Endeavors for Affordable Community Housing (REACH) and other organizations are also doing their part to tackle the region's increasing housing crisis.
"Especially with families, there is such a tremendous need," Garlick said, standing in a sunny new living room on Front Street on Saturday. "So we're just going to keep going."
ARTICLE TOOLS: 
