Nearly 30 affordable housing units to open this summer, South Bend Heritage Foundation says

SOUTH BEND — The summer will bring an infusion of affordable housing by the South Bend Heritage Foundation when nearly 30 mixed-use units open across the city.

The largest project, Hope Avenue Homes in Edison Park, is set to open in June as "permanent supportive housing." That site tailors 22 units to people who are homeless or unstably housed, featuring low-barrier, low-cost shelter and supplementing it with health care and support services to help people stabilize their lives.

Four 3-bedroom, 1,260 square-foot units will open this August at the corner of Hoose Court and Scott Street in the Near West Side neighborhood, the nonprofit Heritage Foundation announced Friday during a tour of the $860,000 project. The two duplexes are tailored to families and will be available to rent for between $800 and $900 a month, Executive Director Marco Mariani said.

And a $150,000 4-bedroom home at 615 W. LaSalle Ave., just west of downtown, hit the market this week. With applications open, the organization expects someone will be living in the property within weeks.

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The nonprofit plans to build three more affordable homes by the end of 2022, along with adding one more rental unit for less than $800 this July at the Gemini Apartments complex on the Near West Side.

The influx of new units will help in alleviating the 6-month waitlist the nonprofit maintains for its existing properties, Mariani said.

His colleague Rosie Leyva, director of property management, said some 50 family units are in line for affordable housing. A half-dozen families are already on the waitlist to live in the Hoose Court duplexes.

"The families that visit us — they're desperate for high-quality, affordable housing that's close to schools and where they work," Mariani said. "It's difficult to find it in South Bend with property owners and partners that they can really trust and work well with."

Plans for the Hoose Court Townhomes project began a decade ago, with ground broken in 2021, Mariani said. He said new development hasn't occurred in that section of the Near West Side neighborhood in a century, which aligns with the nonprofit's mission of inner-city revitalization.

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To finance the construction, South Bend city government routed about $380,000 from its federal Community Development Block Grant fund, he said. The money made the overall deal viable for Lake City Bank, which loaned the rest of the money for the roughly $860,000 construction project.

The Heritage Foundation depends on millions in government grants in order to keep its housing units available for lower-income tenants, Mariani said. But even with help, the organization lost more than $300,000 combined in fiscal years 2018 and 2019, according to a public nonprofit database.

"I think there's often a misconception that the mayor's just up there writing checks to South Bend Heritage," Mariani said. "That just isn't the case. These are very tight budgets, very slim opportunities to really do everything we want to do."

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Patti McNarney, vice president and commercial loan officer at Lake City Bank, said estimated construction costs have kept rising throughout the financing process. Without the city-allocated block grant, which comes from a Department of Housing and Urban Development program, the Heritage Foundation couldn't have afforded to keep rents low.

Wesley Mantle and Tanya Harrison-Mantle lead Mantle Construction LLC, a South Bend-based subcontractor who oversaw construction. As the husband and wife stood by inspecting the nearly finished two-story duplexes Friday, they spoke of double-digit percentage rises in the cost of everything needed to build housing: lumber, cement-pouring, and labor from specialists such as electricians or plumbers.

"Everything has gone up," Harrison-Mantle said of nationwide inflation, which is at a 40-year high. Prices in April rose 8.3% compared with a year ago, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The costly problem of storing materials and reliably obtaining them has led the subcontractor to begin the purchase of a warehouse on Main Street, Wesley Mantle said. It expects to close at the end of this month.

"We're starting to see their prices go up a little bit," Mariana said of Mantle Construction, "but we'd be lost without them."

Email South Bend Tribune city reporter Jordan Smith at JTsmith@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter: @jordantsmith09

This article originally appeared on South Bend Tribune: South Bend Heritage Foundation speak on affordable housing shortage