Better Housing Coalition earns $1,000,000 grant

The Better Housing Coalition has raised more than $2 million in matching funds to complete a $1 million, two-for-one challenge grant awarded the organization by The Cabell Foundation in November 2012.

The challenge grant leverages a total of $3,252,442 in philanthropic gifts that are helping to underwrite BHC’s continued efforts to increase and preserve the stock of affordable housing for lower-wealth families in Richmond’s East End.

Matching donations received include $568,717 from 29 individual donors; $553,725 in foundation funding and $1,130,000 from corporations and public entities. At the time of the award, the grant was the largest issued by The Cabell Foundation and remains the largest gift ever received by BHC.

“Our goal from the outset of the campaign was to preserve and/or produce 150 homes in a 10-block target area of Church Hill,” said Greta Harris, president and CEO of the Better Housing Coalition. “Thanks to The Cabell Foundation’s extraordinary challenge, we have produced 134 homes so far. By the end of 2015, we will have exceeded our goal.”

The challenge grant is the second issued by The Foundation to BHC as part of its “Church Hill Awakening” campaign, an initiative to raise $10 million to accelerate the revitalization of North Church Hill.

Since 1996, BHC has invested more than $30 million in developing and renovating affordable homes for lower-wealth seniors and working families in the North Church Hill community.

Some recent examples are the Beckstoffer’s Mill Loft Apartments on N. 28th Street, the adaptive reuse of an historic lumber mill into 29 multi-family apartments; and Somanath Senior Apartments, dedicated in April 2014, which provide 39 energy-efficient apartments for seniors 55 and up. With the addition of 10 new single-family townhomes on North 29th street scheduled for completion in 2015, the Beckstoffer’s development will be complete.