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Giving the neighborhood a lift

Posted on | January 4, 2012 | 2,181 views | 6 Comments

By Jeff McCallister

It may come as a surprise to some people that Debra Sampson built up a good part of her 100 hours of “sweat equity” in her new Habitat for Humanity house working on the bathrooms.

After all, the six-year employee in OSU’s Facilities Operations and Development spends almost all of her third-shift hours cleaning the bathrooms in Dreese Laboratories. Seems like she might have wanted to put a little more separation between her work and home lives.

But that’s just not her way of thinking.

“I clean about 18 bathrooms a day, and I like my job very much,” said Sampson. “I get along really well with my supervisor and my manager and with all the other employees I work around. I don’t have a bad thing to say about my job. I enjoy it, I really do.”

And beyond the enjoyment factor, her job played a huge factor in Sampson getting the new house she’s scheduled to move into early this month.

Ohio State President Gordon Gee tells the story often about the first time he drove through the neighborhood immediately to the east of campus. He was appalled at the state of the area, so one of his priority objectives has been the revitalization of the Weinland Park district.

Through Campus Partners, the university has bought a huge portfolio of dilapidated housing stock and vacant land in Weinland Park in an effort to build new, modern housing, clean up existing stock or rebuild the buildings completely. There are six new Habitat houses and between 100 and 150 more new-build houses designed for rent, rent-to-purchase or outright purchase by those with a range of income levels.

The university offers several incentives to both employees and non-employees to purchase property in the University District, which includes Weinland Park, in order to give residents of the area that sense of ownership and pride.

“Everything the university is doing helps transform the neighborhood from one of last resort to one of choice, where people want to work and live and worship with their families,” said Susan Colbert, program director in Ohio State’s Community Extension Center in Weinland Park. “These programs are transforming the area back into a community, transforming people’s outlook.

“Here is this world-renowned institution right here in the back yard; the university would be remiss if it didn’t help the people of this neighborhood, so this is a win-win for the neighborhood, the community and the university.”

The area was only recently opened up for Habitat for Humanity housing. When it was, Sampson said a friend of hers was one of the first to put in an application, and that friend tried to talk her into it as well.

“I said, ‘What do I want to do that for? I can’t afford to buy a house,” she said. “But I had my daughter take me down to put in the application, and when I saw the requirements, that’s when I started to think, maybe I can own a house.”

So when she got the letter from Habitat for Humanity last August congratulating her on being accepted, she was beside herself.

“I am so blessed for this to happen to me,” she said. “In all the years of my life, I never thought I would be able to have a house of my own, where my kids and my grandbabies can be safe and have a place to call their own.”

“It has been a privilege for Campus Partners to help lay the groundwork for Debra to become a homeowner in Weinland Park,” said Doug Aschenbach, Campus Partners president. “It is an important goal for us to increase the number of Ohio State University faculty and staff that choose to live in our University District neighborhoods, including Weinland Park. Through the Faculty & Staff Homeownership Incentive Program, we were able to assist Debra in getting her home and becoming a part of the Weinland Park community.

“We welcome Debra as a neighbor and look forward to working with other Ohio State University faculty and staff interested in living in Weinland Park.”

Sampson was able to take advantage of Ohio State’s $3,000 downpayment assistance in the form of a no-interest, forgivable loan; she opened an Individual Development Account, in which money set aside by the homeowner is matched 2-to-1 from a fund administered by Campus Partners to provide a rainy-day fund; and she took numerous homeowner classes, ranging from managing a budget to computer literacy to maintenance and home repair. She put in the required 70 hours of work on the new house (much of it on the bathrooms and on the new one-car garage) as well as 30 more hours working on one of the other five new Habitat houses in Weinland Park.

“We don’t just want people to be able to buy a home, we want them to be able to keep it and really get them invested in keeping it,” Colbert said.

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