Affordable Housing 'A Miracle' for North Shore Residents

This story was written and reported by Jacob Nelson, Highland Park Patch Local Editor.

Four years ago, Marek Stefanisyzn and his wife, Teresa, were looking for a home.

The couple had been living in a small apartment in Chicago after arriving in America from Poland about six years earlier. They lived next to a church on Fullerton, which they thought would make it a safe place to be. But late one night, when Marek was approaching his building after a long shift at O'Hare Airport, he heard a shooting.

He was scared.

"We have to do something," he told Teresa the next day. "I don't want to live anymore in Chicago."

Teresa makes her living cleaning homes in Highland Park, so the couple started looking at homes in the area. Everything was way out of their price range. Anything they could afford needed so much work that it would still end up being too expensive.

They expanded the search all the way to Palatine, with the same results. Discouraged, Marek thought about buying a small apartment somewhere else in the city. Teresa wouldn't have it. They kept looking.

Then something surprising happened. On the internet, Teresa found a home in Highland Park that looked great and was within their limited price range. It seemed too good to be true.

"She found a beautiful house here in Highland Park," Marek said. "I didn't believe it. How is it possible?"

It was possible because of Community Partners for Affordable Housing (CPAH), a 10-year-old non-profit based in Highland Park designed to maintain permanently affordable housing for low- and moderate-income households.

'Tried and true'

CPAH currently has more than 40 homes in the North Shore. Most of them are in Highland Park, with two in Lake Forest. More are being planned in Evanston.

Managing those homes and finding news ones are two full-time employees: Highland Park resident Amy Kaufman and Evanston resident Rob Anthony. The two are responsible for sifting through applications to find households that qualify, applying for grants and funding and checking in on the people who live in the program's housing.

In short, they've got their hands full.

"It's a little bit of a 24/7 job," Kaufman said from CPAH's office in downtown Highland Park. "You have to be flexible."

To qualify for a home through CPAH, a household needs to earn less annually than the median income of the Chicagoland area. That number is around $60,000 for a household of four. Once you can prove your income is below the median, you need to prove you can still afford the price of a CPAH home. Paycheck stubs, a W2 and a recent, completed tax return help Anthony, Kaufman, and the banks determine who makes the cut.

"We're concerned that they're not earning too much," Anthony said, "and the bank makes sure they're earning enough.

"If you qualify, CPAH will sell you a home. These are blighted properties that CPAH has bought at affordable prices and rehabbed, typically by installing energy efficient windows, repainting the walls and making necessary structural and mechanical adjustments.

Marek and Teresa saw their home before it was remodeled. It needed a lot of work. They got nervous about how much it would cost them, and they couldn't believe it when Kaufman and Anthony told them the remodeling was included in the purchasing price."We saved a lot of money," Stefanisyzn said.

Buy the house, not the land

An interesting facet of the purchase is that the applicant buys the home, but not the land."After we do the rehab, we sell the house only to a buyer," Anthony explained. "The land trust retains the property.

"The homeowners get a 99-year renewable lease for the land, which ensures that the homeowner can stay there for as long as they would like but also ensures that the home remains affordable forever. This prevents someone from buying the home and then reselling it.

"It's pretty tried and true," Kaufman said. "It doesn't change their experience of home ownership at all.

"In addition to giving families the stability that comes with living in a home, CPAH gives them the ability to accrue a piece of the home's appreciation. This allows people to build some equity, which is a big deal for those who until then have always rented.

"It's a substantial thing," Anthony explained. "That's how a lot of people build wealth over time."

A close relationship with residents

There are other land trusts throughout the country of varying sizes. CPAH is technically a mid-sized land trust, though it operates as something significantly more intimate.

"Most of the residents have our cell phone numbers," Kaufman said.She explained that residents will sometimes call her or Anthony to check on something in the house before calling a professional service. It's not uncharacteristic for Kaufman or Anthony to stop at a CPAH house on a weekend to check on a pipe or pump water out of a basement.

"Some people draw a box around their lives and other people don't," Kaufman said. "We don't."

The two also host info sessions for prospective CPAH home buyers and organize seminars for current CPAH homeowners so they can learn valuable skills like gardening and get tips on managing finances.

"We're small enough so we have a much closer relationship," Kaufman said.

CPAH also works with First Bank of Highland Park so that CPAH homeowners can borrow at low interest rates for home repairs.

Priority for CPAH homes goes to people with a connection to the community in which they're looking to buy a home. A teacher at Elm Place has an affordable home in Highland Park, for example.

"Ninety-nine percent of the time it's families already here in the community," Anthony said. "It's a way for them to stay in the community."

When the program began, most of its funding came largely from the Highland Park Housing Trust Fund. Now that only accounts for half of its funding. And as Kaufman and Anthony continue to apply for grants and alternative forms of funding, they remain confident that the program will continue to grow.

"It's not going to be another 10 years before we get to a hundred," Kaufman said.

'I thank God'

Marek and Teresa couldn't be happier in their Green Bay Road home.

As Marek lead a tour of the home, he pointed out the framed paintings and immaculately clean surfaces (all his wife's doing, he insists). He paused often to explain how lucky he is.

"When I wake up everyday I thank God," he said. "I would never move anywhere else."

Since arriving in Highland Park, the couple has made friends with a group of Polish neighbors who coincidentally are from Teresa's native village. Every Sunday, they play cards and drink together.

How'd they find them? Again, Marek credits his wife.

Just like the house, she found them on the internet.