Catherine Melan, executive director of the Vernon Housing Authority, speaks on Monday about a $1.3 million grant the authority is slated to receive from the state Bond Commission, which is chaired by Gov. John Rowland. The money will be used to fund affordable housing in Vernon. Also in photo are: (from left) Rep. Claire Janowski, D-Vernon; Rowland; Vernon Town Administrator Larry Schaffer; and Sen. Tony Guglielmo, R-Stafford Springs.

In this time of economic crisis, with budget cuts across the board at the state level, Gov. John G. Rowland is looking to approve $1.3 million to fund affordable housing in the town of Vernon, a suburb of Hartford.

The governor met with the town’s top housing official on Monday to discuss the matter.

“It was a beautiful day and I was happy to see him,” said Catherine Melan, executive director of the Vernon Housing Authority, speaking of her visit from Rowland.

The state Bond Commission, which is chaired by the governor, is expected to approve a $1.31 million Flexible Housing and Community Development Program grant to the Vernon Non-Profit Housing Development Corp. when it meets today.

“The revitalization of this neighborhood will create a critical link to the $26 million expansion of the nearby Eastern Connecticut Health Network’s Rockville Hospital,” Rowland said in Vernon on Monday. “It is expected that the hospital expansion, coupled with this major revitalization project, will provide the building blocks to restore Rockville to its former prosperity.”

The Vernon Non-Profit Housing Development Corp. collaborated with the Vernon Housing Authority to develop a plan to revitalize the Village Street neighborhood.

Five severely deteriorated and abandoned buildings will be demolished and replaced by three newly constructed single-family homes. Other abandoned and blighted buildings will be substantially rehabilitated, providing safe, decent and sanitary housing for families.

Under the flexible-housing legislation, the state Department of Economic and Community Development may provide financial assistance to housing initiatives aimed at households with annual incomes up to 100 percent of HUD’s median income for the municipality. In Vernon, HUD’s annual median income for a family of four is $70,625.

Vernon Mayor Diane Wheelock said Monday that rehabilitating the properties in the Village Street neighborhood is “a classic example of ‘smart growth’ and shows what the public and private sectors can accomplish by working together.”

She added, “Residents get a wider choice of housing options, and neighbors will likely see an increase in their property values.”

The town of Vernon will provide a variety of tax incentives that will work to make the units affordable. The project is estimated to cost $2.89 million. In addition to the DECD grant, it will be funded by a bank loan and the developer’s own equity.

“We’re going to be revitalizing the neighborhood, taking houses that were deteriorating or boarded up and demolishing some or rehabbing others,” said Melan. The buildings will be owner-occupied, and owners must live in the units for a period of roughly seven years.

“So many homes on this street are boarded up and in run-down condition that this will be the shot in the arm the neighborhood needs,” she said.

‘Monumental Task’

Village Street, located in the Rockville section of Vernon, has gained a reputation as a bad area, and one of the worst suburban neighborhoods outside Hartford.

“People in Hartford know Village Street and say, ‘I don’t want to go there. It’s not a nice area,'” said Melan.

The Housing Authority will be taking control of 11 sites on the street with a total of 23 units. Some of the units were originally two- or three-family homes, but “ballooned out” to six family homes in the 1980s, according to Melan.

“Then came a crash when property values went down, and most of the units had absentee landlords who weren’t paying attention to who was moving in. That’s when the units started to deteriorate,” she said.

The Housing Authority already has acquired some of the homes. They were either purchased outright or through foreclosure auctions. Since most of the homes are in poor condition and all of the homes were unoccupied, the authority was able to purchase the home relatively inexpensively.

“Before the word got out that we were buying homes, we were fortunate enough to get them at good prices,” said Melan, noting that they kept the operation quiet in order to keep owners from inflating prices.

The revitalization project is going to be a “monumental task,” according to Melan, noting that many of the buildings will simply be demolished because repair is out of the question.

The authority has yet to determine all of the guidelines for residents, and they are actively working to create the criteria for the first-time homebuyers.

“These are going to be first-time homebuyers so we’ll probably have some kind of income guideline. Some of the units are going to be two- or three-family units, so not only are these people going to be homeowners for the first time, but landlords for the first time as well,” said Melan.

She also remarked that part of the affordable housing process will involve follow-through with the residents to ensure that they understand all that goes into purchasing and maintaining a household.

“We know that we have to stay there with them, encourage, support them, be there for them if they have any problems. We certainly don’t intend to just give them the keys and say goodbye. We plan to stay with them for the long haul,” she said.

The project will be the first major affordable housing development for the authority, so there are still a few wrinkles to iron out.

“We had regionally rehabbed one house on Village Street, but then we decided to start thinking outside of the box,” said Melan. “We decided that we couldn’t just do one house here and one house there. We felt that in order to truly make a significant impact, and to have families want to move into the neighborhood, that we’ll need to do this on a larger scale.”

That prompted the group to think about purchasing the entire strip of houses on Village Street, and start applying for the money to pay for it. The authority had been working on the grant process for a number of years.

“After all the paperwork and roadblocks, it finally all came together,” said Melan, noting that she only learned about Rowland’s visit last Friday. “‘Ecstatic’ is putting it mildly. I’m still on a natural high, and it’s so wonderful for him to acknowledge the work that we’re doing.”

The money wasn’t easy to come by, especially in this year of budget cuts and large deficits at both the state and federal levels. Melan said some of the townspeople were skeptical about the project but added that Monday’s visit from Rowland made all of that disappear.

“I try not to deal in the negatives that you put up with, and all the roadblocks, and all the people telling you it’s never going to happen. With the governor standing there [Monday] I forgot all of the negative stuff and focused on the positive. It really just validates everything we’ve been saying all along,” said Melan.

Currently the Housing Authority manages about 1,000 housing units. Some of the housing is for the elderly, some of it is congregate and some is Section 8. The authority became a nonprofit entity a few years ago in order to receive better funding from governmental agencies. The group is now an autonomous agency that has very close ties with the town. The town of Vernon worked in partnership with the authority on the affordable housing venture.

The money is expected to be put into a revolving fund to help pay for future developments in Vernon.