Storm recovery: How this nonprofit is bringing a new type of affordable housing to Selma

Rachael Bonner stood in her bedroom, gathering books, jewelry and other personal belongings that high-speed winds had thrown out of place the day before. She donned a raincoat, and passersby watched her from the street through the massive hole torn in the side of her home.

Hers was one of more than 1,300 houses damaged in the tornado that devastated Selma in January 2023, and she was one of many Selma residents displaced in the aftermath. Even a year later, much of the disrepair remains.

Now, the Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America is stepping in to offer housing solutions for those in need. After the storm, NACA promised to construct 100 new, affordable homes in Selma, and several of them have already gone up just off of Broad Street.

“There are no houses out there for low- or moderate-income families, so we need to do something to create that inventory,” NACA purchase operations director Diego Luque said. “We're nonprofit developers.”

Luque explained that the group partnered with the city and the Selma Housing Authority to obtain land, and NACA is developing the factory-built homes for free.

From there, NACA offers a housing lottery, and the selected buyers pay an adjusted mortgage that is about 30% of their gross income with no down payments, closing costs or additional fees. The housing authority will provide a monthly voucher for the difference between that mortgage payment and the actual cost of the home.

“What we want is that the people at 80% or less of the median income for the area have access to these homes,” Luque said, standing in front of the first completed NACA home in Selma. “This house probably is going to have a final cost of more than $200,000, but we’re not going to sell it for that.”

The median household income in Selma is $31,084, and 80% of that is $24,867.

For the last year, state and federal dollars have poured into the Queen City in an attempt to rebuild and replace the houses destroyed in the storm, but by last fall, the city still identified an “acute demand for affordable housing.” Some Selma residents have also reported a rise in homelessness in the area.

“Due to the Jan. 12 tornadoes, approximately 39% of Selma’s existing housing stock was destroyed,” Selma planning and development director Danielle Wooten wrote in a 2023 report. “This devastation, coupled with the already vacant lots, has created neighborhoods with gaping holes.”

NACA aims to fill at least some of those holes by providing more housing options and easier avenues to homeownership.

CEO Bruce Marks founded the group in 1988, and the first thing NACA did was negotiate housing benefits for hotel workers in Boston. From there, the group grew into advocacy work against what it called “predatory lenders,” and eventually began working with communities across the country to expand homeownership accessibility.

“When we do something, we do it right, and we do it on a large scale,” Marks said to the Advertiser in 2023. “I think people who might have been skeptical at first, are now seeing it. It's getting done.”

How to apply

In order to be eligible to purchase a home through NACA, potential buyers must first attend a workshop on homeownership. They are offered both in person and online. To find the most convenient workshop for you, visit NACA.com and sign up.

With more questions or concerns, potential buyers can contact NACA at services@naca.com and (425) 602-6222.

Hadley Hitson covers children's health, education and welfare for the Montgomery Advertiser. She can be reached at hhitson@gannett.com. To support her work, subscribe to the Advertiser.

This article originally appeared on Montgomery Advertiser: Advocacy group builds affordable homes in Selma post-tornado