County allocates $500,000 to fix broken homes

Listening to Las Vegas homeowners Rose Cawlkins and Frances Nowatzk talk about the ways their lives have improved during the last year, one would think they had a visit from Publishers Clearinghouse.

"I'm very, very happy. Pleased. Exhilarated. Elated," Nowatzk said.

But Ed McMahon had nothing to do with their good fortune. Cawlkins and Nowatzk have the city of Las Vegas to thank for thousands of dollars in improvements made to their homes. All they had to do was live there for 10 years.

The two took advantage of the city's longtime housing rehabilitation program, which offers low- or no-interest loans to help low-income residents spruce up their homes.

The theory is if homes are kept up, older neighborhoods won't deteriorate.

"The broken window theory is true," said Sharon Segerblom, director of Las Vegas' neighborhood service division. "If one home goes downhill, it can hurt the whole block."

Until Tuesday, Clark County didn't have such a program. A pilot program approved unanimously by commissioners will allow the county to spend $500,000 -- compared with the $2 million spent by Las Vegas last year -- on fix-up projects.

Commissioner Yvonne Atkinson Gates has pushed for the program for six years in an attempt to get dilapidated houses repaired and preserve the few affordable homes the county has to offer.

"The problems that exist in the city now exist in the county," Atkinson Gates said. "We're not a typical rural county. We're urban now."

Homes in the county are aging -- 32 percent of all houses in unincorporated Clark County are more than 20 years old.

The county will offer loans to people with homes that have problems ranging from leaky roofs to faulty wiring. Until the program expands, the county is forced to focus first on homes with safety hazards.

It won't immediately go after problems like the buckled concrete floor the city fixed in Cawlkins' home. It won't replace decaying kitchens or install new air-conditioners, as the city did for Nowatzk.

"We're going to identify neighborhoods where money can do the most good rather than accepting 1,000 applicants," said Greg Borgel, who headed a county-assembled Affordable Housing Committee. "We're better off spending $5,000 on 10 homes if we can preserve 10 homes rather than spending $50,000 on a derelict home."

The two problems the county plans to address with the program -- the number of affordable homes and substandard houses -- are related.

The county is short some 78,000 affordable homes, houses that are not public housing but still inexpensive enough for newlyweds or single parents.

Some of the homes have been rentals or owned by out-of-state landlords. Some homeowners are on disability and some, like Cawlkins, are widowed and simply can't afford costly improvements. In the end, the houses deteriorate and become substandard.

"My husband was sick for a long time. After he died, I was ready to walk out the door and say to hell with it," Cawlkins said. "When the city told me about this, I kept nodding my head, tongue in cheek. Things like this don't happen."

The primary emphasis of the county's pilot program is on homeowners with annual incomes below 80 percent of the median income, meeting Housing and Urban Development guidelines. The loan can be paid back when the home is sold.

The city program, which has been in effect since 1978, offers deferred loans to low-income homeowners. If residents take a $10,000 loan and live in their homes 10 years after the improvements are made, the loan will be forgiven.

"We're not here to make money," Segerblom said. "We're here to make people's living conditions better and keep up the neighborhood to make it a better place to live."

The county allocated about $250,000 in federal funds to the program and pitched in the other half itself. Segerblom said the city, which rehabilitated 852 homes last fiscal year, uses only federal funds.

"This is not an easy job, which is why some entities have put it off," Segerblom said. "It's a labor-intensive, grass-roots, work-with-a-person type of thing. It's one of the best-feeling programs our staff has."

archive