Serving Whitman County since 1877
Serving Whitman County since 1877
A new group of self-help homes in Whitman County are almost all sold.
Of the four houses built in Uniontown last summer, three of them have potential owners with preliminary approval for loans while a fourth applicant hasn’t seen the house yet.
“They may be gone,” said Sandy Martinez, Housing Assistant Program Manager for Community Action Center (CAC). “Everything looks good for them to qualify.”
The three-bedroom, two-bathroom and two-car garage homes are sold to qualifying buyers for $164,500, of which $3,600 is taken off for the buyers to paint the inside of the home and put in the landscaping. An open house was held Dec. 7.
To qualify, buyers must be at or below 80 percent of Whitman County’s median income for their family size.
Community Action Center, a private non-profit entity which began in Whitman County in 1988, has now built 12 homes, beginning with four in Colfax in 2008.
Since then, four more were built in Palouse before the latest four in Uniontown.
“They’re nice homes, a family can stay there for a long time,” said Martinez.
The program, which also helps buyers with loans, will continue in the coming years, according to Martinez.
“We’ll start looking for more land once the fourth one (in Uniontown) sells,” she said.
The land the CAC will seek will be close to Pullman and Moscow.
Aside from building the self-help homes, Community Action Center supports food banks, energy assistance, weatherization of homes and more in its mission of self-reliance for low-income people. It is funded by private donations as well as state and federal grants.
Initially, the self-help homes program began slowly.
“It took awhile to sell the ones in Colfax and Palouse,” Martinez said, citing concerns about buying a home during the economy of 2008-09.
“These in Uniontown are just moving like crazy.”
The four Uniontown houses were built by Hinkle Homes of Rochester, Wash.
Garth Meyer is a former Whitman County Gazette reporter.
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