Volunteers from the Glenmary Farm partner with People’s Self-Help Housing to work on new construction and rehab projects.

People’s Self-Help Housing was created in January, 1982 by people determined to combat substandard housing in their community. Glenmary Brother Bob Hoffman chaired a meeting that night and became the organization’s first director. In June 2007, in conjunction with Home Ownership Month, the non-profit corporation celebrated its 25th anniversary of helping low-income and homeless people attain safe, affordable housing .

Brother Bob knew firsthand that such housing was needed in the northeastern Kentucky county, one of the poorest in the region.

“In 1982 I was in the area working with the Glenmary volunteer program and I also did construction and repair work (on houses throughout the region),” says Brother Bob, an accomplished carpenter. There was a great need, he says, to provide affordable, quality housing for low-income people. To meet that need, Brother Bob partnered with Sister Fran Bartos, an Adrian Dominican who had been working in Vanceburg since 1971.

At that first board meeting Brother Bob was named the organization’s operations manager. He says both his living quarters and office were in a room behind Holy Redeemer Church, the Glenmary mission in Vanceburg, and that there were times when his small monthly allowance was directed toward paying the bills of People’s Self-Help Housing.

“But when I left in 1985, we had $60,000 in the bank,” he says, money that accrued via Federal Housing Administration loans and grants and private donations. People’s Self-Help Housing’s current $2.5 million budget helps the organization build 20 houses each year as well as providing “a continuum of care,” according to executive director Dave Kreher.

That continuum means looking at each client holistically, providing both physical shelter as well as the training and education to help them overcome the obstacles that led to their housing crisis. PSHH provides emergency housing, transitional housing and affordable rental housing as well as staff to do home repairs and build new houses and apartments.

Dave came to the region as a volunteer at the Glenmary Farm—also located in Vanceburg—and has been part of the People’s Self-Help Housing since its beginning.

When the organization began, “Brother Bob wanted to provide employment for people as well as housing,” Dave says, “and both of those goals have been met.” Today, People’s Self-Help Housing employs 25 local people and uses the resource of high school and college volunteers who visit the Glenmary Farm to work on PSHH projects during their time in Vanceburg.

Paul Semisch, the organization’s director of outreach and marketing, says addressing issues of inadequate housing for low-income and homeless persons is challenging in a rural area, especially when it comes to accessing available funding. “The homelessness we see doesn’t fit the HUD definition, which is very narrow,” Paul says, therefore gaining federal funding is difficult.

He explains that homelessness typically is thought of in an urban context—single people, mostly men, sitting on doorsteps or under bridges, taking meals in a soup kitchen.

In rural America, the picture is different. “Our homeless are more invisible and tend to be families and not just single men or women,” Dave says. “Over half of the homeless people in Kentucky are single mothers with children.”

Because homelessness looks different in a rural area, the solutions proposed by People’s Self-Help Housing to combat homelessness also look different. The homeless shelter sponsored by the organization, for example, consists of self-contained furnished apartments where families can live for up to six months. “There’s no staff or soup kitchen or sign that says ‘This Is a Homeless Shelter,’” Dave says because sometimes people housed there are victims of domestic violence.

PSHH owns 27 apartments that house people working toward home ownership. In order to live in the apartments, they have to agree to receive training and education to help them turn their lives around and become financially stable. Residents can live in the apartments for up to two years.

Dave estimates that five families a year become homeowners through People’s Self-Help Housing after going through a process that includes credit and mortgage counseling, budgeting classes and working with a PSHH credit counselor. Future home owners also contribute to the building of their house through sweat equity. “We know the people who build houses with us,” Dave says. “We have a history with them and we know who will make good homeowners.”

The biggest impact that People’s Self-Help Housing has had in Lewis County is making available affordable, quality housing for low-income people. But Dave says something that is often overlooked is the significant increase in the tax base created through an increase in property taxes. Those tax dollars support the schools and libraries in the county.

“Those taxes accrue every year and over 25 years that’s been quite a contribution,” Dave says.

Glenmary continues its link with People’s Self-Help Housing by providing volunteers—both from the Glenmary Farm and individuals who donate their time—to work on both new construction and repair/rehabilitation projects each year. Dave uses that volunteer labor as a “match” for state and federal grants that fund revolving loans and make low-interest mortgages possible for Lewis County residents.

People working together to build and shelter and minister to low-income and homeless persons in Lewis County is the reason that Brother Bob named the project People’s Self-Help Housing, he says. And that idea continues to make the organization a strong and viable asset to the region.

This article originally appeared in the September 2007 Boost-A-Month Club Newsletter