Charleston Affordable Housing Inc. (CAH)
Cathy Meyerson Kleiman, Executive Director
180 Meeting St., Suit 205
Charleston, S.C. 29401
(803) 577-4060

Almost incredibly, even though one-third of Charleston's families live in poverty and many houses in the city's poorer areas are visibly dilapidated, it was not until 1991 -- in the aftermath of destructive Hurricane Hugo -- that the city got its first non-profit affordable-housing organization.

Charleston Affordable Housing grew out of the Mayor's Council on Homelessness and Affordable Housing after it became evident that the large numbers of people left homeless after Hugo wiped out a swath of the city's low-cost rental housing were not getting back on their feet despite the efforts of existing social-service agencies.

CAH, Cathy Kleiman is quick to point out, is decidedly NOT a social-service agency. "We're affordable housing DEVELOPERS," she says. A non-profit organization, the CHoDO (Community Housing Development Organization) for the city of Charleston, and an aggressive, hard-bitten developer that aggressively seeks property and funding to renovate it, sometimes going head-to-head with developers in a battle to retain affordable housing in a community where rents are going up.

The organization's case studies provide considerable detail about the dozens of programs that CAH may tap to make affordable housing developments happen. The short description, however, is fairly simple: CAH gathers and leverages funding from a broad variety of government and private sources, and uses this money to acquire and rehabilitate (or build new) housing. It then charges rental prices that working poor people can afford -- from $275 a month for a one-bedroom apartment to $485 for a four-bedroom unit -- and stretches that income to cover the costs of managing, operating and maintaining the apartments. This is not subsidized rent like Section 8 or public housing, Kleiman emphasizes. It is simply housing designed and built to be as affordable as possible.

The apartments are "scattered-site," mixed with market-rate housing, not segregated in poor-people's ghettos. CAH contracts with minority-owned firms to manage the units, but supervises them closely to ensure accountability and quality control.

Since 1991, CAH has opened 18 housing developments housing 55 families; an investment of about $9 million, of which all but $600,000 has come in the form of grants. Kleiman adds, "They're not junk houses," but artfully designed buildings that have won major architectural awards; some of the rehabs have restored historic houses dating back to 1820.

While CAH's initial efforts have focused on rental housing to meet the most immediate need, it also has an effective program aimed at boosting home ownership for working poor people. It works with prospective home owners, using staff and partnerships with the Urban League, to help poor families rebuild their credit and develop home-buying skills. The innovative Charleston Bank Consortium, a public-private partnership of nine banks, city government and CAH itself, mobilizes $11 million in mortgage money earmarked for low-income home buyers.

It is hard, draining work to make these kinds of deals happen. "You have to be crazy to do this," Kleiman said with a laugh. But it's paying off, not only for the people moving into housing they can afford but for their neighbors and their city. In recent publicity, "Progressive Architecture" magazine praised one CAH development for "demonstrating the potential quality and historical sensitivity" of low-income housing. "Architecture" magazine added that CAH has "integrated attractive row houses into established neighborhoods." In March 1996, the American Institute of Architects honored CAH with a statewide award for architectural merit.

Operating out of a stylish office suite in a small bank building adjacent to Charleston's historic City Market building, CAH gets this all done with a staff of three and an annual operating budget of just $350,000.

All the feature stories on @GRASS-ROOTS.ORG's pages are reported and written by Robin Garr, a prize-winning journalist who has visited more than 500 innovative grassroots programs in all 50 states since 1990.

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