Warren may curb home loans

WARREN -- The roof on Gloria and Arthur Huard's home leaked, the bathroom floor was rotten and there were numerous other repairs that the retired couple's home needed, but they weren't sure they could afford them.

The Huards, who live in Warren and only have their pensions and Social Security for income, heard about a Warren program that provides loans to low-income residents to make home improvements.

"It was a godsend," said Gloria Huard, 62, a retired saleswoman. "It really helped us a lot."

The Huards are two of hundreds of Warren residents who have received home improvement loans from the city. But now, a couple of programs in Warren aimed at revitalizing the city's older neighborhoods by renovating homes -- including the one the Huards used to get their loan -- are facing funding cutbacks because of reductions in federal spending.

The situation will likely have a profound impact on Warren as well as other communities in the county, said Greg Murray, a spokesman for the Macomb County Ministerial Alliance.

"These kinds of programs stabilize communities, whether it's in Warren or Mount Clemens or elsewhere," Murray said. "They really do impact the quality of life in a community, and they are under attack, just like other programs that help blue-collar men and women of America."

The alliance, a racial justice advocacy group of Macomb County church ministers, started about five years ago. One of the missions the organization had was providing housing for low- to moderate-income Macomb County residents.

Warren is Macomb County's largest city and the third largest city in the state, with a population of 135,624, according to the latest statistics from the Southeast Michigan Council of Governments.

In 2000, about 22 percent of the 55,550 households in the city -- or 12,262 households -- were considered low income, and 7 percent, or 4,002 households, were in poverty, according to SEMCOG.

Warren's low-income and older neighborhoods are the areas the two programs in the city were designed to help revitalize.

The first program, Warren's Residential Rehabilitation Loan Program, is funded by the federal Community Development Block Grant program.

The federal government provides municipalities with the grants to improve their communities by improving housing and expanding economic opportunities -- especially for people with low and moderate incomes. However, the Bush administration is proposing eliminating the grant program next year.

The move will mean Warren will likely make fewer rehabilitation loans available, said Rose Furlong, assistant planning director for the Community Development Division of Warren's Planning Department.

The department has a 2-year waiting list for the rehabilitation loan program, which it started in 1982, Furlong said.

The other program is run by a nonprofit called the Community Development Corp. of Warren.

The group recently teamed with Warren to finish renovating six homes in the southern end of the city.

The projects were funded with money from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's HOME Investment Partnership Program. The initiative supports communities' efforts to build, buy and rehabilitate affordable housing for low-income residents.

The cutbacks concern Laura Wolfcale, 43, of Warren. Like the Huards, Wolfcale received a residential rehabilitation loan from Warren to make some improvements to her home. Construction on her two-bedroom home is nearly completed.

"A lot of people here live paycheck to paycheck," said the machine operator and single mother. "So it's hard to fix up your house if you want to because you don't have the resources needed to make it happen.

"This is the only way for a lot of people to do it. I couldn't have done it any other way."

What are people saying about mortgages today:

Rates on 30-year mortgages edged down last week to a seven-month low. Mortgage-giant Freddie Mac reported Thursday that 30-year, fixed-rate mortgages fell to 6.3 percent, down slightly from 6.31 percent two weeks ago. It put rates at the lowest level since they were at 6.24 percent the first week of March.

Bank of Hawaii, Central Pacific Bank, Territorial Savings Bank and Wells Fargo Home Mortgages all cut their 30-year mortgage rates to 5.75 percent this week.

Most people think of a mortgage as a means to an end. After all, you buy a house, not a home loan. But a mortgage is much more than the path to homeownership. It is a financial instrument that must be managed, just like any other financial investment.