Two Things: City Council lives up to its hype about innovation with housing deal; a fresh market approach to hunger (2024)

Fantastic Wednesday. Still feels like Tuesday, though.

Supporters of a radical — for Winston-Salem anyway— plan to convert a vacant apartment building downtown into an affordable housing co-op cleared its first hurdle Tuesday when City Council quickly voted to forgive the balance of an outstanding loan that was gumming up the works.

“We need to respect when people bring diverse, new and innovative ideas to this council that we’ve never heard or seen,” said Council member D.D. Adams. “We gotta be open enough to say ‘Hey, wait a minute. That might work.’”

And in Winston-Salem, a town that bills itself as the city of arts and innovation, winning approval proved a hard sell.

In committee meetings last month, council members Jeff MacIntosh and Robert Clark, perhaps aware of past financial boondoggles, threw difficult questions at members of the Spring Street Co-Op about financing and the scope of needed repairs.

“I’m concerned about the costs to bring it back up,” Clark said during the committee review. “If you don’t run a car for seven years, you might as well throw it away.”

Indeed, the building— a horseshoe-shaped structure fronting an alley on North Spring St., hasn’t been legally occupied in years. Water, electric and sewer services have been cut off since 2016.

In the end, though, Clark voted with the majority in a 6-1 decision to forgive the $156,000 remaining from an original $400,000 loan the city extended to another nonprofit for the property in 2001.

“It’s got a lot of challenges,” Clark said Tuesday night, “but if you folks want to take a stab at it, go at it.”

The way it would work, explained Wake Forest law professor Steve Vigil, is that the organization would have a six-member board — five residents and leadership of the Spring Street Co-op that would hold a “golden vote,” a veto in essence — that would make sure mortgage payments, repairs, maintenance and insurance gets covered.

Each of five residents would pay up to $400 a month, and in exchange, they each would build modest (and portable) nest eggs with a ceiling of $2,000 or $3,000.

“It looks like equity,” said Vigil, the secretary of the Spring Street Co-op, last month. “So when they can leave with it or have it (go) to someone in their lives. … It builds wealth over time.”

It’s the stuff the American Dream is made of.

Similar co-ops are operating in Baltimore, Detroit, Seattle and Asheville. And supporters say, it will work here - if given the chance.

The proposal has secured the blessing of Jane Milner, the one-time executive director of the dormant nonprofit whose name is on the deed, support from the Winston-Salem Foundation and a pledge from Piedmont Federal Savings Bank to provide a $210,845 low-interest long term.

MacIntosh, the sole ‘no’ vote, has said that his major concern was that $210,000 wouldn’t be enough to cover renovations.

But other members of Council were swayed by a detailed 61-page inspection report prepared by the Spring Street Co-Op that provided estimates from licensed contractors.

The first step, forgiving the outstanding loan and removing the related lien, was taken within a matter of minutes Tuesday night.

“We need to be at a place where we can give everybody an opportunity,” Adams said. “If it works, it's within reason and it’s legal, we can go with this.”

For at least one night, the City of Arts and Innovation embraced its tagline.

Fresh produce and meat market

GREENSBORO— Food banks, little corner pantries and school-lunch programs we know. And God bless ‘em all.

Canned goods and non-perishables have sustained too many families for far too long.

But how often do we hear about efforts to fight hunger that include fresh produce and meat? They exist, but there are not nearly enough.

Demand far exceeds supply.

Volunteers at Guilford Technical Community College are scheduled to do their bit today as what they’ve christened the Fresh Mobile Market sets up shop today until 11:30 a.m. near the Johnson warehouse at GTCC’s High Point campus.

The market operates the first Wednesday of the month through November.