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NEWS AND UPDATES
FCHC ANNUAL MEMBERSHIP MEETING
TO BE HELD ON JANUARY 28, 2010 | |
Falls Church Housing Corporation (FCHC) members and guests are welcome to attend the FCHC Annual Meeting on January 28, 2010 at 7:30 PM in the Winter Hill Clubhouse. Active Members (dues paid beginning September 1, 2009) will elect Board members and conduct other matters of Corporation business.
The meeting will also feature a detailed update on the progress of FCHC's new affordable housing development, City Center South Senior Apartments.
FCHC ANNUAL REPORT NOW AVAILABLE ONLINE
Please click here to view the FCHC Annual Report.
FCHC OPTS OUT OF SECTION 8 CONTRACT
FOR WINTER HILL APARTMENTS
Winter Hill Apartments, located in the City of Falls Church and owned and operated by the Falls Church Housing Corporation (FCHC) terminated it's longstanding Project Based Section 8 contract with the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) effective June 30, 2009.
FCHC's decision to terminate the Section 8 contract with HUD was prompted by HUD's own rental housing policy changes that had resulted in a greatly reduced Section 8 program budget over the last 8 years. Also, HUD's policy of issuing one year only contracts precluded opportunities to refinance or to find other supplemental sources of revenue. In addition, HUD's relatively flat subsidy budgets have averaged a less than 2% annual increase while all other costs incurred in the ongoing operation and maintenance of Winter Hill Apartments, especially utilities, have increased by more than 5% per year over the last 10 years.
HUD's declining financial subsidy of the Section 8 Project contracts resulted in a significantly depleted resource availability for the Housing Corporation even as FCHC has continued to maintain the highest standard of maintenance and upkeep the tenants residing at the Winter Hill Apartments have come to expect over the last 22 years.
All current Winter Hill residents were certified to be eligible by Fairfax County, using HUD Sec 8 standards, and have subsequently received their own Enhanced Housing Choice Voucher appropriated by HUD that affords them the opportunity to continue paying no more than 30% of their household's Adjusted Gross Income (AGI) for rent. The rent paid will remain inclusive with no separate additional charge to Winter Hill residents for utilities or amenities. Income eligible, prospective tenants who do not presently possess a Housing Voucher may also apply for vacant units to be rented at the rate of $1,134 per month, all inclusive.
The Falls Church Housing Corporation will continue it's mission as the community-based, charitable non-profit affordable housing provider in cooperative agreement partnership with the City of Falls Church. No outward changes will be apparent as WInter Hill Apartments will maintain it's longstanding set aside to provide affordable, one bedroom apartments to income eligible residents ages 55 and older as well as up to fifteen (15) one bedroom apartments set aside for income eligible residents of any age with disabilities. A preference will be extended to new tenants who possess a Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher and are presently challenged to find landlords who will accept Voucher subsidies in lieu of private rental direct payments.
For more information about rental opportunities at WInter Hill Apartments, please call (703) 237-0341.
IN TRIBUTE: Bob Wilden - Our Own Man for All Seasons
On behalf of the Falls Church Housing Corporation, I would like to take this opportunity to voice the many like-minded thoughts and prayers that have been lifted up in sorrow, commingled with immense gratitude for the privilege to have known, worked with and loved Bob Wilden. For a few brief years, Bob chose to leave his personal mark on our community - quietly and strategically initiating communal efforts to create, grow and sustain caring enterprises that will leave a legacy - any one of which the normal civic minded citizen would be proud to claim.
Bob was a seed planter who not only challenged us with his "think impossible" ideas, but then stayed to put his money, personal talents and sacrificial time where his mouth was. Inside the Housing Corporation, we called him the prophet as he was always one step ahead with undeniable truths that made some of us squirm and many of us take leaps of faith and jumps through hoops we would have undertaken in no other atmosphere.
Even in the last year of less than optimal health conditions, Bob was still stirring up new plans and wanted nothing more than to stay around to see them take flight under his experienced and pragmatic wings.
Bob was all about leveraging small steps for big results. As an example, some of us are pledged to carry out his very simple and elegantly multi-faceted plan to boost our Falls Church community to take baby steps to help "green up our community". Here's the deal: Signers-On will pledge to convert X number of their home and office use incandescent bulbs to LED. With the funds they expect to save in one year, they will donate the same number or more of LED bulbs thru their faith community or civic group to Homestretch. Homestretch will provide the bulbs to their client families who will experience a savings in electric bills at the same time we are each reducing our carbon footprint by small, but multiplied amounts. Simple, educational, community involvement: Bob Wilden style. We will not forget his legacy nor his challenge to "make things better all the time".
God bless and keep you, Dear Bob.
Carol Jackson, a grateful Friend
Imogene Wilden Housing Legacy Fund
FCHC Directors are thrilled to announce that they are authorizing preliminary development expenditures for City Center South Apartments from the recently donated funds assembled by the following list of donors to the Imogene Wilden Memorial Seed Capital Fund to benefit our project development efforts in the "quick strike" early development phase when equity capital is most needed. To be competitive in the commercial real estate arena in Northern Virginia, any serious developer requires a significant bank account or access to immediate cash in order to act decisively in the pursuit of properties designed to accommodate permanently affordable rental housing development.
To control these type of funds was the inspired plan initiated by Bob Wilden, FCHC Vice President, who used his own assets combined with those of his own family to honor his wife, Imogene's, memory and establish a challenge grant that FCHC Directors were privileged and motivated to match. Thanks to the vision of a few and the generosity of many, FCHC now has more than $1 million in liquid assets and short term pledges which is now under supervision of Wilden Fund Trustees and dedicated to providing revolving fund cash advances in the pursuit of projects in the very first site control and study phases of land redevelopment. Needless to say we are excited and honored to have this resource available as we work hard to bring into being our first new site since the creation of the Imogene Wilden Memorial Fund.
Imogene Wilden Housing Legacy Fund Donors
Founder and Challenge Grant Initiator
Robert Wilden
Benefactors ($100,000+)
Atlantic Realty Companies
John and Marilyn Duke
Evelyn Ann Freed
Robert Wilden
Stakeholders ($25,000+)
Acacia Federal Savings Bank
Falls Church Presbyterian Church
Jack McClendon
Philip L. Graham Fund
Richard and Susan Stoll
F. Chapman Taylor
The Falls Church
Investors ($5,000+)
BB&T
Christopher W. Elrod Trust
Daniel Elrod
Kathryn J. Elrod
Bernard and Denise Hains
Mercantile Potomac Bank/aka PNC
Washington Forrest Foundation
Contributors ($500+)
Thomas and Patricia Meyers Hemphill
Heritage Property Company LLC
Charles and Carol Jackson
George Snyder
Richard and Linda Spence
Village Preservation and Improvement Society
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Patrons ($50,000+)
Akrige Real Estate
City of Falls Church
Columbia Baptist Church
Commonwealth of Virginia
Partners ($10,000+)
The Acacia Foundation
Dulin United Methodist Church
Enterprise Community Partners, Inc.
PNC Bank
Temple Rodef Shalom
The Young Group
Shareholders ($1,000+)
Donald Campbell
Clark Construction Group, LLC
Enterprise Community Investment, Inc.
Falls Church Animal Hospital
Thomas and Phyllis Kelley
The Doris Elrod Ramsey Trust
Stephen Sprague
St. James Catholic Church
The Wollenberg Foundation
James Edmonson, UniDev, LLC
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Supporters
Michale Ankuma
Walter and Mary Bodling
Chester and Carol DeLong
Eugene and Peggy Dolan
Robert and Cynthia Donaldson
Falls Church City Education Association
Jenny Ferry Robles
Margot Fixx
Michael and Kathleen Glover
Louis and Janice Greenberg
Ruth Kaufman
Paul and Susan Lannon
Hank and Joan Lewis
Jeffrey Lybrand
Richard and Susan Dovell Maynard
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Larry and Beverly McNickle
Cindy Mester
Vaughn and Michele Moore
Mary Frances Prothro
Richard and Anne Rodgers
Stepen and DIana Ruth
Diana Sedney
Tom and Edie Smolinski
Michael thursam
Lilla Wise
Sara Fitzgerald and Walt Wurfel
Rosemary Ziskind
Honorary
Meredith Morrison
Jim Scott
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