Katrice Maples lights up when she talks about her home in Ogden’s East Central neighborhood.
“I love the history,” she said. “This light fixture in my living room is original. I've had people ask me if they could buy it from me, just because it has so much character.”
When the high school history teacher was looking to buy, her house cost less than similar available properties. If it wasn’t for the Home Sweet Ogden program, she said she “probably wouldn't have picked Ogden.”
As part of its push for more homeownership, Ogden City Community Development buys homes in need of repair, renovates them and then sells them to buyers who earn up to 80% of the area’s median income. The program has existed since 1991 and is being rebranded as Ogden City Homes. Critics say it doesn’t help existing or truly low-income residents. Others, like Maples, say it’s the only reason they could afford to buy a home in Ogden.
“I remember my father-in-law, he was like, ‘Oh, well, it's nice that you like this house, but you're probably not going to get it’ [because of] the bidding wars,” she said.
But because the city was the seller, there were no bidding wars. When there are multiple offers, Jeremy Smith, community development manager for Ogden, said the city prefers to do a lottery rather than increase the price.
Accordingly, the city said the sale price of rehabilitated homes is capped at $430,000 this year. A figure set by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. The income cutoff for buyers is $61,850 for a single person or $88,300 for a family of four.
Most of Home Sweet Ogden’s budget comes from home sales and money left over from previous years. Of the roughly $3 million allotted in the consolidated plan, about $225,000 comes from new federal funds.
“We renovate, and then we sell the home, we get that money back, and it goes back into that program,” Smith said. “And so it builds up the budget in a way that we can do multiple homes.”
Ogden’s five-year consolidated plan, which is open for public comment through May 9, includes plans to renovate and sell approximately five homes per year. And while the city doesn’t recoup all the costs it spends on renovations, that’s by design.
“We're doing deep renovations,” he said. “We're trying to protect these homes and keep them affordable for the next generation.”
Critics don’t see it that way.
“Ogden City’s housing plans are not affordable,” said Karen Thurber, a resident and former community development employee. “Virtually no one living in that neighborhood can afford to buy these homes.”
The rehabilitated homes, Thurber said, are out of reach for East Central residents. HUD designates part of the neighborhood as a racially/ethnically concentrated area of poverty. And because many of the residents are renters, she has fears about gentrification.
The income limits for the home rehabilitation and purchase program are based on the Ogden-Clearfield Metropolitan Statistical Area. The boundary includes Weber, Davis, Morgan and Box Elder counties and it has a higher median household income than Ogden City. Approximately $100,000 and $70,000, respectively.
“That's a really big gap, and it kind of distorts what is really affordable housing, particularly in the context of Ogden,” said Jennifer Gnagey, who teaches economics at Weber State University.
Even as the city focuses on homeownership, Smith also said rehabilitating homes benefits entire neighborhoods. It works so well that the Legislature approved a pilot program based on it, he said.
“That worst house on the street becomes one of the best, and the neighbors around it love it. And they say, ‘My house looks really close to that. I'm going to do the same thing,’” he said. “What it does is just create this huge amount of private investment that's just organic.”
Still, Thurber said, renters get the short end of the stick.
“When those property values go up, the surrounding properties, which are mostly rentals, their property values go up, and the rents go up.”
Smith said the city buys houses in such rough shape that no one else would step in to repair them.
“I don't know that keeping a neighborhood depressed and in poor condition is a good strategy for keeping rents low,” he said.
Macy Lipkin is a Report for America corps member who reports for KUER in northern Utah.
