"We're stepping out of our comfort zone to do this," says Keith Woodard, center, with United Bank chairman, Tom Boyd, left, United's Tom Nida and Harold Warner, second from left and back center, Eugene Williams and City Councilor Kendra Hamilton.
PHOTO BY LISA PROVENCE
Selena Sims was definitely worried when she heard that Eugene Williams had put Dogwood Housing, which specializes in affordable rentals, on the market last spring. The four-year resident of Nalle Street knows well how hard it is to find affordable housing in Charlottesville's pricy real estate market. And while Williams wanted a buyer who would continue his vision of mixed-income families living together, there was no guarantee the purchaser of his $6.4 million properties would do so.
Over barbecue and fried chicken at Washington Park last Saturday, November 17, Sims' new landlord, Keith Woodard, welcomed her and other tenants with a promise to maintain the affordability of 58 of Dogwood Housing's 73 properties scattered throughout Charlottesville. And he had the support of the City of Charlottesville, which ponied up $850,000 in a five-year, interest-free loan, and United Bank, which provided $3.4 million in funding.
When Williams started Dogwood Housing in 1980, he bucked the norm of putting poor people into "the projects," insisting it was better that people of all incomes live together and opting for gentrification over ghetto-ization. He risked not only his and his wife, Lorraine's, money, but also convinced his brother, Albert, a music teacher in New York, and his wife, Emma, to sink their savings into buying and fixing up 21 dilapidated rentals that had come on the market.
Today, Williams is lauded as a visionary, and Woodard, who owns residential and commercial properties throughout the area, including four buildings on the Downtown Mall, has stepped forward to carry the affordable housing torch.
"I'm struck by the vision of these two men," says City Councilor Kendra Hamilton, who was elected on a platform of affordable housing. "We have preserved more affordable housing in one stroke than in my entire four years in office."
United Bank, formerly Albemarle First Bank, also saw an opportunity as the new kids in town to bond with the community, and an official called Woodard to help with the deal. "I've known Keith Woodard for years," says Harold Warner, the bank's senior lender.
"We do a lot of affordable housing in the D.C. area," says Tom Nida, United's head of community development. And despite the wave of foreclosures and mortgage lenders currently going belly up, he dispels the notion that this is a high-risk loan.
"One of the things you find with affordable housing, when lending goes crazy, that's at the top of the market," explains Nida. "The bottom stays the same. It depends on the property manager, and with one like Keith, there's not much risk to it."
With employees from Woodard Properties on hand, Woodard acknowledged, "We're stepping out of our comfort zone to do this."
The new entity will be known as Dogwood Properties of Charlottesville LLC. Williams, who just turned 80, says he's "extremely happy and pleased" that Woodard wanted to keep the Dogwood name and philosophy as part of his new venture– which calls itself "an affordable housing initiative for the next generation."
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