News

• Local couple takes work force housing personally
  Portsmouth Sunday Herald
  Sunday, August 3, 2008
• Teaching a man to fish; Couple creates affordable workforce housing
  Fosters Daily Democrat
  Thursday, July 24, 2008

Local couple takes work force housing personally

By ROBERT M. COOK
Portsmouth Sunday Herald
Sunday, August 3, 2008

NEWINGTON – In January of 2005, Newington fire Lt. Christopher DeWolf, 41, was killed on his way to work. His death was the result of a single-car accident on an icy stretch of Interstate 95.

It was ruled a "line-of-duty" fatality since DeWolf was driving to work from his home in Kittery, Maine, in advance of his normal shift in order to cover the station while colleagues investigated a smoke-odor call on Woodbury Avenue.

Authorities said DeWolf's Dodge Durango slid off the slippery roadway and crashed into the concrete base of a sign pole. He had worked in Newington for just six months after 17 years with the Dover department.

DeWolf's death had a profound effect on Tom Bobotas and Anne Holliday. Bobotas, a general contractor, and Holliday, an accountant in Portsmouth, were in the process of building a home in Newington and had become friendly with DeWolf and other firefighters who periodically visited the home site.

The couple attributed DeWolf's death to the fact that, like many other employees in Seacoast communities, the fire lieutenant could not afford to live in the community where he worked and had to travel on sometimes treacherous roadways just to earn a living. They decided immediately to turn the apartment they were building in their new home for extra income into one that would be rented for a much less to others whose income did not allow them to live in the town where they worked.

"After Chris was killed, we turned the apartment into work-force housing," Holliday said. "It's a nice-sized apartment, and we rent it for $775 a month, which we think is a reasonable rent for that apartment."

That was the birth of Teach a Man to Fish, a private, for-profit company that is focused on rehabilitating housing on the Seacoast where those who serve the region's communities in either municipal or service industry jobs can afford to live.

So far, the couple owns and manages two other work-force housing projects: a 10-unit building in Dover and a seven-unit building in South Berwick, Maine.

"We spent last summer looking at some really horrid multi-unit homes until we finally found these two buildings that were owned by the same woman," Holliday said. "They were in pretty good shape structurally, so we bought them.

"We have some investors who helped us come up with the money and partners who give us a discount on the rehab work that needed to be done," Holliday said. "My husband quit his job to become a full-time property manager."

The company now has 13 investors/partners. The investors include Ocean Bank, Highland Hardwoods and CrystalVision. The partners that help by discounting their services include Hometown Oil; Signature Title Corp.; Wyskiel, Boc, Tillinghast & Bolduc; Marple and James Real Estate; Gino's Plumbing and Heating; Neil's Glass and More; Jeff Bower Electric; Abracadabra Carpet Cleaning; and Honey-Do Handyman Services.

"They get it," Holliday said of these companies. "You should be able to live where you work."

Thanks to Holliday and Bobotas, 18 individuals, ranging from a home health-care worker, to a waiter/actor, to a student, to a house painter, now pay between 9 percent and 35 percent less than the fair-market value for their rentals based on their incomes.

"These people are the fabric of our communities," Bobotas said. "We hear all the time about the graying of America. There have to be people living in our communities who can respond to the needs of this aging population."

After spending 10 years with the United Way of the Greater Seacoast on affordable housing issues, Holliday was tired of all the talk and little action. She and Bobotas said they decided to try this different approach.

"We're not a nonprofit and our projects don't involve federal funding," Holliday said. "It lets us use existing buildings to generate work-force housing."

It doesn't hurt that Holliday is an accountant. Being, as she said, "good with numbers" has helped the couple succeed so far.

"It works on economies of scale," Holliday said. "Tenants with higher incomes subsidize those with lower incomes."

What that develops is a very diverse community within a community, Bobotas said.

While the couple hopes to have 40 units in its inventory by the end of this year, they believe that a major work-force housing initiative will not be possible on the Seacoast until residents are aware of the difference between the kinds of projects they are involved in and those involving subsidized or elderly housing.

It is also incumbent upon area businesses to take a lead role in generating work-force housing because their hiring of good employees is being constrained by the inability of those workers to live close to where they work.

"We think it's time for employers to get involved in employee housing, just like back in the times when local shipbuilders constructed Mariners Village and Atlantic Heights (in Portsmouth) for their employees," Bobotas said.

The ultimate goal of Teach a Man to Fish is not just to supply affordable housing to members of the local work force, but to move those people on to home ownership, Holliday said. To that end, they call in experts to hold home-buying seminars for their tenants.

Holliday and Bobotas also make it a policy to open their books and documents to anyone thinking of doing the same thing they've done.

"We're not special," Holliday said. "Anyone can do what we've done."

Read the original story at SeacoastOnline.com.

Teaching a man to fish; Couple creates affordable workforce housing

By ROBERT M. COOK
Fosters Daily Democrat
Thursday, July 24, 2008

DOVER — Tom Bobotas and Anne Holliday have long recognized the Seacoast is in dire need of affordable workforce housing.

Instead of just talking about it, they have actually created 18 one- and two-bedroom apartments for people who work as teachers, hospital workers and waiters, among many others.

The married couple created their first affordable housing unit when they built a 1,200-square-foot apartment with one bedroom and a home office in September 2005. Two years later, they founded Teach a Man to Fish Inc., and purchased two buildings in Dover and South Berwick, Maine, for $950,000.

"Tom and I have been involved with the United Way for 10 years," Holliday said. While many people have discussed the need to create affordable workforce housing, Holliday said, "nothing was getting done."

She recalled how the death of Newington firefighter Chris DeWolf, who died in a car crash in January 2005 while en route to a fire in Newington, inspired the couple to start creating affordable workforce housing units. Holliday said DeWolf lived in Kittery, Maine, because he could not afford to live in the town where he worked.

Ten of the corporation's 18 units are located in Dover at 11-13 Second St., which include a three-bedroom house located behind a large apartment house built in 1905. Seven other units are located in South Berwick, Maine, on 133-135 Portland St.

The tenants pay rent based on their incomes and pay no more than 30 percent of their annual income, Bobotas said. They are offered two- or three-year leases that enable them to save money so they can be in a position to buy a home when their leases expire, Holliday said.

The couple provides tenants with opportunities to attend home-buying seminars where they can learn how to improve their credit ratings and save money with tools such as Individual Development Accounts. Holliday said the federal government will match every dollar saved with a $3 contribution to help people save money for a down payment on a house or to start a small business.

The couple's Web site, www.teachamantofish.biz, borrows its central theme from a Chinese proverb: "Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime."

One of their tenants rents a two-bedroom unit in South Berwick and is listed as a Portsmouth Naval Shipyard engineer. The tenant rents the unit for $850 per month instead of $1,008 per month, and that represents 13 percent of the tenant's monthly income.

Another tenant listed as a pizza shop owner rents a studio apartment at the couple's Dover property for $550 per month instead of $684, which represents 13.75 percent of his monthly income.

"The tenants subsidize each other" to allow the corporation to pay the two buildings' mortgages, property taxes and other maintenance expenses, Bobotas said.

"We also pay for the heat for all 18 units," Holliday said. She added it will cost the couple $28,000 after she locked in a home heating oil contract for this winter.

Holliday stressed that neither their corporation or any of their business partners make any money on these affordable housing units.

"We all just decided that somebody has to do it," Holliday said.

The couple explained the need for affordable workforce housing in the Seacoast Region is very high, and the situation is only being exacerbated by the economy, gasoline and oil prices.

According to the couple's Web site, the United Way of the Greater Seacoast in Portsmouth identified the lack of affordable workforce housing in 2005 and 2008 as the number one issue facing the 45 cities and towns it serves.

The Seacoast Region has one of the least affordable housing markets in the country and features median home prices of more than $250,000. Only one-half of the homes in the area are affordable based on the region's median household income of $73,000 for a family of four and $28,000 for a single mother.

According to the couple's Web site, one in four area homeowners and one in three renters are "housing cost burdened," meaning they spend more than 30 percent of their annual income on housing.

"Over the coming winter months, it's going to be frightening on the Seacoast," Holliday said.

Bobotas said the couple hopes to acquire 22 additional units in the Seacoast area to bring their total to 40 units. They are constantly looking to buy their next building, and Holliday said they have a standing offer for a building located behind the Orchard Street Chop Shop restaurant in Dover.

Bobotas said one of the reasons it has been so difficult for municipalities and social service agencies to create affordable workforce housing is that everyone always talks about constructing new buildings with 30 to 40 units. He said it is much easier to buy existing buildings in different cities and towns.

The couple is also reaching out to New Hampshire Gov. John Lynch and Maine Gov. John Baldacci to see if their states will lend the affordable workforce housing effort any support. They are also challenging their associates, friends and colleagues to find buildings, in hopes that they will transform them into affordable workforce housing units, as well.

Read the original story at Fosters.com.