The goal of the Porch Light Partnership is to improve Ferndale's neighborhoods one house at a time. Meet the first house, 1371 Camden St.
The little bungalow a few blocks east of Woodward Avenue and north of 8 Mile Road, a stone's throw from the Grand Trunk Western Railroad tracks, has received more TLC this summer than it has since its construction in the early 1950s. All in preparation for a first-time homebuyer who will take the keys for it later this month.
"It's been going very well," says Karen Staley, interim director of Oakland County Lighthouse Community Development, which is overseeing the partnership. "We'd like to get to the point that if we see a house we have all of the money and resources ready so we can get control of it and turn it around."
It hasn't been an easy road back for 1371 Camden. This little house has lived through five decades of wear and tear. All of that life wore down the quaint bungalow to the point it was becoming a blight on the rest of the neighborhood.
A rehabber had stepped in to renovate 1371 Camden but the project proved too much, prompting the Porch Light Partnership, a coalition of local institutions, to take control of it. The partnership invested in it, giving it new siding, a furnace, water heater, roof, removing rusting overhangs on the windows and repainting the interior, among other repairs.
Ferndale, Paramount Bank and Oakland County Lighthouse Community Development formed the Porch Light Partnership in January with the goal of improving the city's neighborhoods at the grassroots level, one house at a time. The partnership is targeting houses that are starting to slip in strong neighborhoods as a way of heading off blight and urban decay while increasing property values.
"The neighborhoods are in pretty good shape except for a house here or there that needs work," says Christine Fisher, a spokeswoman for the Porch Light Partnership.
The Porch Light Partnership is utilizing $415,000 in federal HUD funds to purchase and rehabilitate six homes in neighborhoods east of Woodward Avenue between 8 Mile and 10 Mile roads this year and next. Two more houses, on the 600 block of East Webster Street and 1700 block of Academy Street, are in the midst of renovation and will be finished by early October.
The homes are sold to first-time homebuyers. The partnership also facilitates the process by sponsoring programs for people looking to purchase their first home. Lighthouse has had success with similar programs in Pontiac where it has helped build 64 single-family homes and renovated 25 other houses all for first-time homebuyers.
For information, call (248) 920-6060 ext. 2400.
Source: Christine Fisher, public relations director for Pushtwentytwo and Karen Staley, interim director of Oakland County Lighthouse Community Development
Writer: Jon Zemke
Pictures:
1371 Camden St.
East Webster Street house
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