A local nonprofit with a strategy to help low-income people build wealth by owning and living in buildings with tenants now can hire staff using a $60,000 grant from Neighborhood Allies.

Neighborhood Allies, a grant-making nonprofit focusing on low-income areas to make what it calls catalytic grants, dispensed $478,000 to seven groups in the latest round of giving.

CARE Ownership was established in 2007 as an all-volunteer organization. Its goal is to buy blighted multi-unit buildings, renovate them with help from volunteers and train qualified buyers to become owner-occupying landlords.

The grant responded to the agency’s decision to focus its program in Larimer so that neighborhood residents can get a jump on buy-ins ahead of a wave of hundreds of units of mixed-income housing.

KBK Enterprises is building 40 scattered-site, multifamily units in the neighborhood. Another 350 units are slated for a multiple-use development paid for through a $30 million federal Choice Neighborhoods grant, $12 million in city money over five years and $16.5 million from the city’s Housing Authority.

CARE Ownership’s first and only property so far is a duplex it bought for $11,000 out of foreclosure in Marshall-Shadeland. It has been gutted and refurbished as the organization’s prototype for the inaugural client, a man who is renting one unit while renovations are completed, said Linda Schultz, who founded the agency.

“We have put more into it than I want to say,” she said. “But it is a 100-year-old house that had not been maintained. It has all new systems and insulation” and was gutted with help from organizations including Pittsburgh Job Corps, she said.

Ms. Schultz said the prototype embodies early lessons learned.

“We need to partner with experts in acquisition and renovation,” she said. “We spent last year digging deep into business and strategic planning.”

CARE Ownership won a $4,000 grant from a fast-pitch presentation to Social Venture Partnerships in February.

That led to connections, networks and coaching, she said. The next step was a partnership with East Liberty Development Inc., a nonprofit that has built expertise in real estate over many years.

East Liberty Development will be helping CARE obtain six properties and help six people become owner trainees in Larimer, Ms. Schultz said.

“There are a lot of opportunities coming up to revitalize there,” she said, “and we want to make sure the residents there now will benefit from neighborhood improvements by entering early with a strong support program.

“We will consult with neighborhood groups in the acquisition process to make sure it agrees with neighborhood plans.”

The $60,000 grant will pay a program manager, she said.

CARE Ownership commits three years of support, training and mentorship to the prospective property owner, who must have at least a 40-hour-a-week job. Through fundraising and grants, it expects to buy foreclosed, blighted multifamily properties and select applicants to get the free training in renovation, personal and communication skills, tenant management, and entrepreneurial business development.

During training, candidates for CARE Ownership get subsidized rent and help in buying the renovated property, at 25 to 30 percent below market value, with five years of follow-up mentorship.

Talia Piazza, a program manager for Neighborhood Allies, said CARE Ownership’s model “is truly catalytic” because it brings a wealth-building method to people of modest means and removes blight. Read the full article here.