A collaboration between the Peoria Opportunities Foundation and Neighborhood House will rehabilitate up to seven South Side residences, with assistance from the Peoria City/County Health Department.
“When Peoria comes together with purpose, meaningful change is possible,” said Julie Bonar, president and CEO of Neighborhood House.
The initiative dubbed “Reclaim Peoria” will focus on renovating existing disinvested houses in the 61605 ZIP code into high-quality homes for low-income families looking to take their first steps toward owning a home.
“The project involves purchasing homes, renovating them, and then offering them to first-time home buyers to get them on a pathway toward towards home ownership,” said Bonar. “So it’s really to help revitalize the area, to reclaim Peoria, and to improve our neighborhood.”
With the South Side identified as a high-priority for revitalization, the project already has purchased five properties. Renovation has started on one of them, in the 2600 block of West Marquette Street.
“We’re hoping to put that on the market and sell it in March,” said Irina Riggenbach, Peoria Opportunities Foundation executive director. “We’re going to be starting renovations on the next two houses, hopefully in the next week or two, and they’ll take about five months each.”
The collaboration is being funded through a Health Equity Homeownership grant of about $1 million awarded by the health department, with the City of Peoria contributing to the Home Equity Fund.
“Home ownership helps increase stability and it helps increase health, so we want to do anything we can to help with that,” said Pastor Samuel Duren, a health department board member. “It’s part of our community health improvement plan and our strategic plan to invest in that.
“Home ownership increases tax revenue, and homeowners are more civically engaged so there’s increased voting. Also there’s increased service availability, and an increase in the likelihood of children graduating because they’re more likely to stay in school when there’s stability in the home. So there’s multi-faceted benefits.”
The two organizations will partner in providing support to potential homeowners, assisting them during the pre-approval process and through the completion of a purchase. Families must be at or below 80% of the area median income, meet specified guidelines and receive mortgage approval.
“Providing safe quality and affordable housing is a priority for the City of Peoria,” said Mayor Rita Ali, viewing the project as one step toward addressing the city’s housing crisis. “We have a shortage of inventory of affordable quality homes, so we are committed to changing that and creating more opportunities, so this collaboration is very important to that effort.”
Peoria Opportunities Foundation board president Matt Gross said while he’s optimistic the newfound home ownership will help transform the lives of those the project assists, it’s a small step toward larger aspirations.
“Seven homes, or 18 homes, is not enough to transform a community. It’s not enough to transform a city. It’s not enough to transform a region,” said Gross. “We need a bigger vision than that. We have to be able to do this strategically in that scale, and it has to be implemented by local leaders and local institutions. So imagine a vision: if we can do seven homes, why can’t we do 700?”
Riggenbach noted Peoria Opportunities also the nearby 47-unit Churchview Garden Homes affordable housing development is currently under construction.
“We have the renovation experience, the development experience, and we really wanted to be more ingrained in the community,” said Riggenbach. “So we wanted to partner with Neighborhood House, who is a pillar in the South Side community, and can connect us to some of the residents and provide some of those services.”
Bonar said Neighborhood House’s partnership with Peoria Opportunities is “rooted in shared values, shared responsibility and a shared vision.”
“This partnership came about because Peoria Opportunities Foundation reached out to us. We have a 130-year history in the South Side of Peoria,” she said. “People know us, they trust us, and we are in the hub of where all of these projects are taking place.”
