(lively music) (lively music continues) - Reclaim Peoria is a community-led initiative to increase home ownership in Peoria, 61605 ZIP code, which is one of the poorest areas in the country.

Reclaim Peoria addresses a critical need for affordable housing.

Irina Riggenbach is the Executive Director of the Peoria Opportunities Foundation, and Julie Bonar is the President and CEO of Neighborhood House, both organizations making Reclaim Peoria happen.

Thanks for joining us.

- Thanks for having us.

- I wanna talk about your organizations, which are really important.

First of all, Julie, Neighborhood House has been around for 130 years.

- Yes, this year we are celebrating 130 years serving the South Side of Peoria.

We began as the Washington Street Mission, and we're in our fourth location now, where we've been since 1970.

I always say that our programs that we offer fall under three categories.

We aim to feed, educate, and empower, - And a lot of people know about you.

They know about the Meals on Wheels.

And you do a coat giveaway every year.

- Right, so Meals on Wheels is our largest program.

Each day, we send out about 900 meals to home-bound seniors throughout Peoria and Tazewell Counties, but we also offer adult literacy, and GED preparation, youth programming.

We have a food pantry, coat giveaway, and a variety of holiday programs as well.

- All right, yeah, you've really evolved over those 130 years.

- We certainly have.

- Irina, tell us about Peoria Opportunities Foundation.

You haven't been around quite as long.

- No, (laughs) yeah, so we've been around about 30 years now.

We were initially started by the Housing Authority as their non-profit in order to do certain activities that only nonprofits can do.

But since then, we've kind of branched away from them.

Our primary focus is building and developing affordable housing for low-income residents of Peoria.

And so, we've done various projects, and we've done some houses in the East Bluff, some single-family rental homes.

And we've also done a similar project in the East Bluff where we renovated and sold single-family homes for home ownership.

And we are currently under construction of Churchview Garden Homes, which is 47 units on the South Side of Peoria.

- It's been about a year since the groundbreaking on that.

- Yep, so we had the groundbreaking January, 20th, 2025, and we are just about done with construction, and we're gonna be leasing up, probably sometime in March and April.

- Tell us about that process before we get into Reclaim Peoria.

You know, you have this brand-new, beautiful complex.

Tell us who you're marketing it towards, and how those people can get involved in maybe getting a home of their own for the first time.

- Yeah, so it's gonna be targeted towards low-income individuals, so you have to be below an income limit to be able to qualify.

But we are maintaining a wait list, so if people are interested, they can reach out to Peoria Opportunities.

And we do have a property management company that is going through and verifying eligibility.

- Okay, Reclaim Peoria just announced this program.

Tell us everything it entails.

- Yeah, so this project kind of came about with the Health Department, Social Determinants of Health Accelerator Plan.

So when they did a bunch of community outreach activities, they realized there was a strong need for quality housing in the South Side, and it became one of their priority areas.

And housing is a determinant of health.

You know, if your house is old, there's lots of mold, and there's other issues that can impact your health outcomes.

And so the Health Department had this funding opportunity, so where we can purchase, renovate, and then sell single-family homes to first-time, low-income home buyers.

- So, who are you purchasing those homes from?

- From anybody that has a house they wanna sell.

So, most of these houses we've bought so far, were not on the market.

We've gotten them from word of mouth, so we're just kind of promoting the project, and we've found a couple people that own some houses, most of them have been vacant that they don't wanna be a landlord anymore, or they're wanting to downsize, yeah.

- Okay.

And Julie, with, you know, your organization being around for so long on the South Side, can you kind of tell us the importance of a project like this, and the need for affordable housing?

- Absolutely.

When we see clients that come into Neighborhood House, we hear some of the stories of rentals where maybe the landlord is outta state and they have issues in those houses.

We hear stories of individuals who have gotten into situations where they believe that they will be able to rent-to-own, and yet that ownership never comes to fruition.

So there is very much a need for individuals to have housing, but also, there is a desire amongst the people to be able to own a home.

I mean, after all, that is the American Dream.

- And Irina, how do you define affordable housing?

- So, affordable housing means that an individual won't spend more than 30% of their income on housing.

So, making sure that their rent or their mortgage payment doesn't go, doesn't exceed 30% of what their income is.

- And how does that work as far as the financing, and the kind of help that you're getting with these homes, and helping out these people?

- Yeah, so for this Home Ownership Project specifically, we're gonna be assisting the potential home buyers, get down payment assistance, so when they do apply and qualify for a mortgage, that mortgage payment is gonna be, you know, significantly less than what they probably would pay for rent.

- Wow, that's a great opportunity.

Let's go back to some of the units you're building now.

Churchview Garden Homes.

How, what kind of response have you gotten from the community on this project?

- We've had a lot of positive response about this project, specifically.

Most of the units, I think, over half of the units are three bedrooms.

So it is really targeting families that live in that neighborhood.

I think it's been the first new construction on the South Side in about 20 years.

So, it's significant, and it's, you know, right next to St.

Ann's Catholic Church, right next to the OSF and Garden of Hope, where they have weekly produce distribution that's for free.

And so, we've had a really positive response.

We have over 170 people interested in living in these units already.

- Great, and with Reclaim Peoria, how is Neighborhood House involved exactly?

What are they doing for the project?

- So we were approached by Peoria Opportunities Foundation to be a partner in this project because we do have that longstanding history in South Peoria, and we know the people in the neighborhood.

We know what their needs are, and we're there to serve them.

And so, our role is really to do marketing and community outreach.

So, letting people know about this program, trying to find people who wish to sell their house, as well as trying to find individuals that want to become a first-time home buyer.

So we have been spreading the word through social media, through some targeted events in different locations where people may gather to let them know about this project.

And I believe Irina said earlier this week that just in this past month since we started our social media post, there's been 70 individuals who have already expressed an interest in wanting to purchase a house.

- Interesting.

- Yeah.

And if I can just piggyback on that, you know, Peoria Opportunities, we have the technical experience, we know how to renovate a house, we know all of the financing that goes into doing all of that work, but we don't have the relationships with the community that Neighborhood House does.

They have the trust, they've been around for 130 years, so they are really a trusted, you know, place in the South Side.

So it really does help kind of bridge that gap we have with having better relationships with people in the South Side, and being able to serve them, and meet them where they're at, and meet those needs.

- Now you mentioned, you know, trying to purchase homes, are you looking at homes that maybe are owned by a landlord right now?

Or if someone wants to sell a home and they're living there, where do you anticipate they're gonna go once they do sell their home?

- So, ideally, we've been, or most of our houses that we purchase have been vacant already.

So some of them have been landlords that weren't renting them out anymore.

A lot of them are, you know, a little deteriorating.

They haven't been, you know, renovated in a long time.

So they're not quality homes that people might live in currently.

I think there was one family that lived in one of the houses, and their lease was up, and so they just moved out and they found another rental property.

- And when you're looking at these homes that maybe aren't in the best of condition, do you have to kind of say to yourself, "Well, this is worth renovating, or this is not worth renovating."

I mean, can you just take a bulldozer to it, or would that be, seriously, because some of these homes are in really bad shape.

Would flattening the home and starting over, would that be cost-prohibitive?

- Yeah, so that has been a challenge we faced is, you know, we've been at this for a year now, identifying homes that do need significant renovation, but not to the point of demo quality.

We're leaving the demolition up to the city, they can demolish the homes that are beyond repair.

We don't have the funding to rebuild a whole house.

I think if you wanna rebuild a house, new construction is about $200 per square foot.

So that is significantly more than the renovation, the amount of work that we're... The amount of funding we're putting into these renovation costs, we're spending maybe 140, 160,000 per house renovating it.

- And then when you do fund someone that wants it and they qualify and everything, are you trying to get 'em that home for about that same price?

I mean, you're not looking to make a huge profit on this or anything, I'm guessing.

- (laughs) We're not really making a profit off of this.

So we're buying houses for around 30,000.

We're putting 140 in the renovations, and then we're gonna be listing them based on the appraised value.

So we'll get 'em appraised, and we're probably looking at 60 to 70,000.

So that's where the grant from the Health Department comes in.

We need that subsidy to bridge the gap between the amount of money we're putting in versus the amount of money we're getting from the sale price.

- And this grant with the Health Department, is that a one-time thing, or is this- - It is a one-time thing.

So we have just short of a million dollars to renovate these houses, and it is a one-time thing, but we are hoping that this project will be a huge success, and that people will see that it was successful.

There are so many people that want to buy houses on the South Side, and there are so many more homes that need renovating on the South Side.

And so, we're hoping that it can be kind of a catalyst to spur other funding opportunities.

- And what I really love about this project is that Peoria Opportunities Foundation is bringing these houses.

They're not just putting paint and some new flooring down, they're making sure that the house is in such condition that the individuals moving in really won't have to do any major repair work for many, many years, which is huge.

And so, I think that that's just so important for someone moving in.

But also, the other aspect is helping first-time homeowners with all the different things that come up.

If you've never owned a home before, you know, what happens if, you know, there's a plumbing issue, who do you call?

You don't have a landlord anymore to call.

How do you maintain your yard?

You know, how do you operate a lawnmower?

Those type of things.

And so, Peoria Opportunities Foundation and Neighborhood House will really be working side-by-side with those homeowners to make sure that they are prepared to be first-time homeowners.

Additionally, I know one of the things that Peoria Opportunities Foundation wants to look at in terms of the people purchasing homes is that they have connections to the community.

And so, they know where they can go if maybe this month, they're running low on groceries and money.

They know that they can come to Neighborhood House to our food pantry, and we can help them out to bridge that gap.

So making sure that they know what resources are really available for them in the community.

- Yeah, you mentioned connections to the community.

My next question was gonna be, does someone who wants to get one of these houses, is there a requirement that they already live in the area code or on the South Side?

- Nope, no, the only requirement is they have to be below 80% of the area median income, which I think for a one-person household that's $58,000 a year, and then they have to qualify for a mortgage.

And so, you know, anybody that wants to live on the South Side, they're welcome to come if they've left the South Side, if they've never lived on the South Side.

But these are targeted for people to live in these houses.

It's not gonna be for a landlord to rent it out to somebody else.

- Gotcha.

Julie, Neighborhood House, obviously, like we talked about earlier, has done a lot in the community, and you've seen people, and you've heard their stories and somebody who's watching this who, you know, may live in a different part of town, maybe is well off, may be thinking, "Why would anybody wanna stay in an area that's so poor?"

But you obviously know these people, and a lot of them have long, you know, family trees that have lived in this area.

Tell us a little bit about, you know, that area, and why people would wanna stay.

- Yeah, absolutely.

There's really great people that live in South Peoria, and you know, there definitely are homes being torn down.

But there's a lot of great things happening.

Like Irina mentioned, the Churchview Gardens, and the Garden of Hope as well, next to St.

Ann's Church, there's just so much life coming back to the South Side.

But there's people who have spent their whole life there, they don't want to move somewhere else.

That is their home, that is their comfort zone.

And so, there's lots of reasons why people would wanna stay, just like why anyone else would wanna stay wherever it is they're from.

- Mm.

- Sure.

And how do you think, this question is for both of you.

How do you think, you know, projects like this, you know, let's look at the end of it.

When Churchview Garden Homes is complete, and this project is complete, not only are you helping people who are physically moving into those places, but how do you think it's gonna help the community as a whole?

- I think it'll have a great impact on the community as a whole.

One of the issues that the South Side of Peoria faces is the declining population.

And so, by bringing quality housing back to the South Side and increasing that population, it'll help sustain other businesses down there.

The South Side doesn't have a grocery store currently, and that's because, you know, there's no market for a grocery store down there.

There's not enough people to go to a store and sustain it.

And so by bringing more people down, it'll help sustain some of these other businesses, and kind of strengthen that.

And I think the City also has been investing a lot of funding into the South Side of Peoria.

They've redone Western Avenue, they're working on MacArthur Avenue, they redid the Fire Station.

So there is a lot of priority of going into revitalizing this neighborhood.

And I think this is just one piece of that puzzle, but it is, you know, an important piece.

- Yeah, Julie, we've talked about that area being a food desert.

- Yes, absolutely.

There's really no place to go.

You'd have to take a bus, and oftentimes, that means having to change buses just to get to a grocery store.

That's very difficult for individuals who maybe don't have, you know, reliable transportation.

Even just with our food pantry, we see individuals walking several blocks, pulling carts.

Some of them bring suitcases, you know, because they don't have the transportation.

And we are close, and we do offer quality food within our food pantry.

But it would be great to have a grocery store as well, where there could be more options versus just what we have that's donated to us.

- What else does that area of town need besides a grocery store?

- We need grocery store, we need a bank, we need a post office, we just need businesses.

Any type of service business that someone would need, retail, for sure.

Restaurants, we need everything that any other neighborhood has, but South Peoria just doesn't have right now.

- Do you think that these, (clears throat) excuse me, these apartments and homes, as far as property taxes, things like that, will it have a noticeable effect on the area?

- I think so, yeah, I mean, there's gonna be all the lots at Churchview.

Those are gonna be going back on the tax roll that was currently vacant lots, so they weren't bringing in any taxes.

And then, some of the single-family homes will, you know, based on their new appraised value, will have an increase in the property taxes.

- What kind of support have you gotten from the City of Peoria for these projects?

- So the city of Peoria actually contributed to the Health Equity Fund that the Health Department is overseeing.

So they did put a little bit of funding into that.

And one of the houses that we have purchased came from the City's Land Bank.

So the City's Land Bank, you know, obtains property, and most of the time, the buildings are demo-worthy, and they have to tear 'em down.

But they did have one house that they said wasn't, you know, as bad as the rest of them, and was worth saving.

So they did donate that house to our project.

- And have they been supportive in terms of, "Yeah, this is a great idea, let's- - Oh, absolutely.

- Let's do more.

Yeah, oh, yeah, they've been very supportive.

I think Mayor Rita Ali is very focused on affordable housing, especially on the South Side of Peoria.

So I think any opportunity that we can continue to add to that, they're gonna be very supportive of, and behind us.

- So, after these projects are done, assuming they're successful, and hopefully they are, where do we go from here?

You know, you mentioned trying to get to grocery store, post office bank, things like that, but what else are we talking, maybe more housing projects?

- I would love to see more housing projects.

I think, you know, Peoria Opportunities, we do affordable housing, and so there's always an opportunity to apply for another funding, another project on the South Side, and add more rental units, add more home ownership opportunities.

- And in terms of, again, people who are interested in moving into one of these new homes, how do they get ahold of you?

And then, what, tell us a little bit more about the process.

- So right now, like Julie said, we've been promoting on social media, and so there is a QR code where people can fill out their information.

And when we are planning on hosting an event soon, just to talk about the home-buying process, what all that entails, what an individual or family will need to prepare for that, and kind of starting that education process, and then working with them if they need to build their credit, if they need to start building up a savings, and kind of going with the families that are gonna be eligible and working with them to see.

And kind of, our goal is that, you know, we're gonna have five, six, or seven homes to sell, but we have 70 people interested.

And so, if we can help some of the other families still obtain down-payment assistance, and help them find other houses that maybe aren't one of ours, but we can still help people realize their dreams of home ownership.

- Julie, what do you think happens psychologically with a person who gets a home for the first time?

Somebody that knows, "This is my place, I'm not paying rent."

- Right.

- "This is mine.

I own it, and I'm staying."

- There's just such a sense of pride.

Pride in owning something that big, you know?

And you really see that in South Peoria.

You can drive, you know, through the neighborhood, and you can really tell where there are homeowners because the lot looks a little bit different.

The house is a little better maintained, and you really see that pride in the people who are current homeowners, and look forward to seeing that with these new homes that we're developing.

And hopefully, there's an opportunity for us to do much more beyond the seven homes.

- In that area, is unemployment still a big issue?

- Unemployment is an issue, but we do have quite a few people that come to our food pantry that they're hardworking families.

Maybe there is a disability with a member in the family, so maybe someone stays home, but there's someone who does work, but maybe that job just doesn't cover enough, you know, to make ends meet.

And so they come and use our food pantry, or they come on Sunday to get that hot meal.

We're the only place in South Peoria with a hot meal on Sundays.

So, you know, there, I'm sorry, I lost, I forgot the question.

(everybody laughs) - We're talking about unemployment.

- Yes, and so there are people that are working, and people want to work, you know?

But there's so many barriers that come up to employment.

Some of that is transportation, you know, some of that is childcare.

Some of that is, again, if there's a member of the family with a disability, you know, that can then limit the number of opportunities that someone may be able to apply for.

We also, with our GED Program, we also have a very thriving adult literacy program, and we're really helping individuals to gain literacy skills so that they can go out and fill out a job application, and actually get a job, which maybe they weren't able to do because their literacy skills weren't at a level where they could complete a job application.

- Irina, when you're looking at sites for houses or houses themselves, are you looking in a particular area of town, or do you want everything to be together in a block, or does it matter?

- I think, ideally, we would want these houses to be in a more concentrated area.

It'll have a bigger impact if there's, you know, three or four houses on one block that have been recently renovated for home ownership.

But it also, so I think, four of our houses are within, you know, walking distance of each other.

One is a little bit further away, but we've also targeted the West Side of Western, because there's a City TIF, which is from MacArthur to Western.

And part of that, I think, PCCEO has a program where they renovate homes in that TIF area.

And so there's lots of houses that are outside of the TIF that haven't had a chance to access that funding.

And so, it was important for us to try to target houses in that area that don't have access to the other funding sources.

- And then also to be accessible to a bus line as well, which is key because that is oftentimes the way people get to jobs, get to groceries, get to different services that they need.

- And I imagine having all those new homes fairly close together, just the optics look good, you know?

When you drive by, it's like, "Hey, this is new.

Not everything is run down, there's hope here, and things are happening.

- Right.

- Mm-hmm, exactly, yeah.

- So, give us an update on Churchview Garden Homes, when do you expect that to be complete?

- So we're finishing up that right now.

So there's seven buildings, and the first two buildings will be done, I believe, at the end of February.

So we're hoping to get people moving in in March.

And then the rest of the buildings will come online in April.

- Mm-hmm.

You know, I'm wondering the South Side for people who have lived here a long time used to be thriving and booming, do you talk to people about, you know, how the good old days were, and how they could be that way again?

- Oh, absolutely, absolutely.

We hear that from some of our staff that live in the South Side.

We also hear it from the individuals that come, you know, to Neighborhood House for various services as well.

There's also a lot of new people moving in as well.

There are many hardworking immigrant families coming into the South Side of Peoria.

And so, I'm hopeful that it will become the community that it once was.

- Yeah, and recently, the Peoria Historical Society did a Southtown Exhibit where they, or where they took photos from the neighborhood pre-urban renewal, and there was such a strong community then, there was lots of home ownership.

Everybody knew each other.

It was a safe neighborhood.

There was grocery stores, there was stores on every block.

And so trying to see, you know, people have this history that they remember something very positive, and they love that community.

And you know, unfortunately, things have happened and it's not that way anymore.

And how can we, you know, do our small little part with this project to try to bring some of that back, and rebuild that sense of community.

And I think the important part, too, is building some of those relationships, like our relationship with Neighborhood House, building strong relationships with the home buyers, so that they feel connected, and they feel, have a sense of support.

- So what kind of support do you need for the future?

You know, whether it's from the City or banks, other businesses, what are you gonna be looking for?

What's on your wishlist?

- Well.

(everybody laughs) - Well, I guess we would love another million dollars to do seven more houses.

I think it'll, you know, it'll really depend.

The down payment assistance is a huge thing.

So banks having access to down payment assistance to offer resident, or offer individuals interested in buying homes is gonna be a big thing.

And then, more funding to renovate more houses.

You know, we're doing five to seven homes, but there's 700 houses on the South Side that I would love to be able to renovate, and bring up to a high-quality standard that people would want to live in, that they won't have to worry about their roof caving in, or their water heater going out, or their furnace breaking.

- All right, ladies, you wanna give us your websites, so people can find out more information about your organizations?

- Yeah, so our website is just peoriaopportunities.org.

- And Neighborhood House is nhpeoria.org.

- All right, so you can find out more about Reclaim Peoria.

We wanna thank our guests for being here today, and helping the South Side of Peoria.

Thanks for coming in, we appreciate it.

- Thanks for having us.

Thank you for having us.

- All right, and thank you for joining us, we appreciate it.

You can check us out anytime online at wtvp.org, and on Facebook, and Instagram.

Have a good night.

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