Our View

Our View

Housing help

This week the Rappahannock NeWs ran an article

by Don DelRosso on an infusion of money

that Fauquier County will receive to help make housing affordable for those who really need it - not what we would consider the very poor - but folks like teachers, deputies and government workers.

Efforts in this county by Chris Moyles and Lea Vittitow are working toward that same end - some solutions to address housing for the county's workforce.

With a $1 million grant from the Virginia Housing Department Authority, Fauquier County is taking a new look at the provision of affordable housing, one of their major challenges.

The county will give the money to participating banks, and potential homeowners — first-time buyers,, government employees, both town and county — will jump through the banks’ standard mortgage hoops. If all goes well, some of their teachers and deputies and others who toil for the public weal will get low-interest loans.

Fauquier County has a stake in this as well, agreeing to pony up sufficient money to offer these home buyers a forgivable loan for a down payment and closing costs, up to $20,000. Since it looks as though the state grant would, in the best of circumstances, stretch to cover only five buyers this year, the county largess has a built-in cap of $100,000.

Money well spent.

There are a couple of things to like about this pilot program. For one, it makes an end run around the problem of trying to put less glamorous homes in more glamorous settings. Other affordable housing efforts heretofore have often stalled at figuring out how to incorporate cheaper homes — a relative term in Fauquier and Rappahannock County if ever there were one — in typically high-end areas.

And it allows the new home buyers to evade the stigma that often accrues around affordable homes in unaffordable neighborhoods.

For another, it strives to accomplish the challenge of finding a way to allow those who make less, who have less, to borrow for less. In the normal scheme of things, those folks end up paying higher interest fees on their mortgage and consumer-credit loans.

There is a lot to like and perhaps with efforts like these happening in nearby counties, Rappahannock will be able to do the same in future years. Certainly something worth shooting for.

In the meantime, if you are interested in what’s happening in this county regarding affordable housing, the next meeting is August 27 at The Schoolhouse in Sperryville.