LELAND — The City of Leland’s Board of Alderman recently voted on a resolution for the condemnation of blighted houses in its municipality as a first step in applying for the Blight Elimination Program (BEP).
The BEP is a grant program which was established in 2017 by the Mississippi Home Corporation (MHC) — the state’s Housing Finance Agency.
MHC’s mission is to enhance Mississippi’s long-term economic viability by financing safe, decent, affordable housing and helping working families build wealth.
Delta Design-Build Workshop’s Michelle Stadelman explained the benefits of the BEP and how the grant application process works and has been revised since its launch to benefit municipalities.
“Twenty million dollars was reallocatted from the Hardest Hit Fund program that came to this state from the U.S. Treasury to target the removal of residential blights throughout the state,” she said.
Stadelman also said there are a number of other states that also applied for the reallocation of the funds from the treasury and have similar programs.
“In Mississippi, the original program was set up for municipalities, but in June of 2019, it was revised so that nonprofits and other organizations could be the main applicant,” Stadelman clarified.
Stadelman said further about the program, “The BEP is a reimbursable grant program to the applicant, in that the municipality or group that applies to be reimbursed for the removal of residential blight, which would include dilapidated, nuisance or condemned properties that were residences and are now vacant can be simply reimbursed.”
She reiterated the program is not about displacing residents or anything of the sort, but about stabilizing property values by removing vacant and blighted properties
Stadelman said the program actually requires the purchase of the property so the existing property owner is compensated for his or her land.
“We go through a series of appraisals and it’s at will, so the property owner has to willingly sell the property,” she said. “In addition, any properties currently held by the secretary of state through tax forfeited land are also acceptable if they fall within the area of eligibility, which is indicated on a map on the MHC’s website.”
The map shows throughout the state where the actual eligible areas are.
One main requirement of the program is that the applicant — municipality or nonprofit, partner with what’s called a “blight partner,” which can be a developer or another nonprofit who will have the responsibility of executing the work.
“That’s where my organization, Delta Design-Build Workshop, comes in,” Stadelman said. “We are not developers, we are a mission driven design build… It focuses on social impact in terms of equity building and wealth building for both financial and social for low wealth families and low wealth communities as a whole.”
Stadelman also highlighted the program requires that the blight partner actually is the organization or person that will hold the title and has purchased the property.
How did Leland come
about this opportunity?
When asked how the grant opportunity came about for Leland, Stadelman referred to the eligibility map on the MHC’s website, and explained how an algorithm figures out what the property value would be raised to if a blighted house was removed.
“If it hits ‘X’ value, then it is eligible; so this map that covers the state, if you fall within the purple area of the map, you’re eligible,” she said. “So all municipalities throughout the state are free to apply and they’ve revised the program to where any other organization could also, if the property falls within that area.”
Although Leland had initially looked at pursuing the grant with South Delta Planning and Development District, the grant does not provide funding for administrative costs, which speaks to the more complicated aspect of the application.
“The actual application work that goes into putting the application together on behalf of the municipality, along with submitting it and working with MHC as well as all the documentation that’s associated with the activities required for the grant, is quite a bit of work,” Stadelman said.
With her organization being mission driven, Stadelman works very closely with Hope Enterprise Corporation.
In 2018, Delta Design-Build Workshop submitted an application as the blight partner with some of Hope Enterprise’s small town communities.
“They have an organization now called the Hope Community Partnership where they are working with seven small communities, five of which are located in the Delta, to develop strategic plans and then address some of those strategic plans,” she said.
In all of the communities, housing is one of the main needs and so the blight elimination program is somewhat of a “first step” to address those needs.
“The goals of it is returning blighted property to the tax roll, so it means more money coming into the county and city as tax dollars, which then could be used to improve the infrastructure, maintain salaries and provide more services to the community members but in reality, it’s much more than that,” Stadelman pointed out.
Stadelman emphasized the social impact, morale and benefits of having torn-down nuisance properties removed yield much more than just an influx of tax dollars.
Eliminating potential rodents or vermin and promoting actual safety is a good payoff as well.
“A lot of these parcels or former residences are wide open — kids and anyone else can go inside and they are not safe houses to be in, in terms of crime and things like that,” she said.
The BEP aids municipalities in such efforts because they want to address such problems, but don’t have the necessary funds and can’t legally go on to a property and tear it down without going through the resolution process.
Stadelman said the above mentioned issue is why her organization is working with communities who have approached them about being blight partners.
In working with those communities and doing the administrative work for a very modest rate, the yield for four of its communities is potentially up to 44 houses being removed and properties being put back on the tax roll according to Stadelman.
It also means raised property values for neighbors and potential for redevelopment.
Stadelman said because her organization doesn’t want to own properties throughout the whole state, they are working very closely and being very considerate about the properties they’ve applied for with communities to identify potential for redevelopment in Leland.
“Specifically, we’ve talked with the Fuller Center where they will hopefully take at least three of the properties to redevelop as new single family housing and transfer to low wealth families who are eligible,” she said. “In other cases, especially with small lots, we’re transferring the neighboring lot to the adjacent landowner so that they have a larger parcel, a side lot basically where they could build a drive way or garage or just have a larger yard or garden.”
Stadelman’s plans are hopeful, however, money has to be available or her organization has to find the funding sources to create new housing opportunities for community members to become homeowners — this is where the vast needs for funding of the strategic plans are felt.
The BEP application deadline is April 15.
“The goal is that we actually do utilize these funds that the state has available so that it does benefit the communities,” Stadelman said.
Leland Mayor Kenny Thomas said they are in the process of doing everything needed to meet all the requirements to start getting the homes torn down.
“As far as what it will do for the city, these homes (roughly 20) are in bad shape and it’s hard for the city to budget enough money to tear down homes because it could cost anywhere from $2,000 to $4,000 each,” Thomas said.
Thomas highlighted how the BEP alleviates the hassle for addressing such needs.
“The blight program does all the title work; if there’s problems with the title, they will fix the title and go through the legal process and get the title straightened out to whereas in two years, the titles will be clean and if the property owner wants them back, they get a first shot at getting them back…if not, they will be sold if possible and be put back on the tax rolls,” he said.
Thomas added the BEP is a good cause and a great opportunity for the community.
“It’s just good all the way around to be able to clean the town up and hopefully we can get things going and put some new homes on the vacant lots one day soon,” he said.
