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Regional housing trust funds, state agency outline partnership options for Richland County
Summary
Three presenters — Greenville Housing Fund, the South Carolina State Housing Authority and the Midlands Housing Trust Fund — briefed a Richland County council committee on models to fund home repairs, leverage local dollars and speed affordable-housing development; council requested follow-up from staff and made no funding decision.
Presenters from two regional housing trust funds and the South Carolina State Housing Authority told a Richland County council committee that county leaders can pair local funds with existing state and nonprofit programs to speed home repairs and expand affordable housing, but no formal funding decision was taken.
The committee heard examples from Greenville Housing Fund, which said it began with a $2,000,000 city investment and matching commitments and now receives a $2.5 million annual city commitment; Jack Super of the South Carolina State Housing Authority described a state Housing Trust Fund capitalized by deed stamps that the agency says averages about $2.1–$2.8 million per month; and Jeff Larimore of the Midlands Housing Trust Fund said his organization has delivered about 417 housing units in Richland County and can act as a local deployment partner.
Why it matters: county officials are considering how to use reserve or recurring funds to address home repairs and preserve affordable housing. The three presenters offered different but complementary roles: the state fund can provide ready dollars for owner-occupied home repairs and a disaster-assistance stream that does not require a federal declaration; regional trust funds can act as deployment agents and provide gap financing, underwriting and monitoring to accelerate projects.
Greenville Housing Fund: Deborah Maketti, interim CEO, and Amber, director of advocacy and community engagement, reviewed their 2018 relaunch and portfolio. "We have invested over $23,000,000 in affordable housing," Amber said, and the presenters said that investment has produced or preserved roughly 1,700 homes with another 147 homes in the pipeline. They described a mix of lending, co-development and land-banking and said the organization is realigning to focus on the areas it can execute reliably.
State programs and home-repair rules: Jack Super, who manages the state housing trust fund, said the fund runs three subprograms — home repair, a disaster assistance program (DAP) and supportive housing — and that home-repair assistance targets households at or below 80% of area median income. The presenter described eligible work (roofs, HVAC, accessibility modifications, wells and septic) and program caps: minimum assistance of $2,000 and a maximum of $75,000 per house, a $40,000 cap for mobile homes (which the presenter said must be younger than 25 years), and a legal requirement that assistance above $15,000 carry a land-use restrictive covenant to preserve affordability. Super said the DAP was created so the state can "turn that money on tomorrow" after a local disaster without waiting for federal declaration and that the agency can reimburse local sponsors or pay quickly by electronic transfer.
Midlands Housing Trust Fund as deployment partner: Jeff Larimore said MHTF functions as a mission-driven lending and investment platform that can underwrite and deploy county funds quickly. He cited MHTF’s record: roughly 50 loans originated and 417 units in Richland County, plus $1.8 million in gap financing for the first phase of the Teacher's Village project. Larimore said MHTF uses 20-year restrictive covenants on projects to maintain long-term affordability and can form subsidiaries to manage small-scale redevelopment projects.
Council questions and next steps: Committee members asked practical questions about who would perform intake, whether the county would front funding and be reimbursed, and how local dollars can be structured as recurring or catalytic funds. Presenters described sponsor training for county staff, a 15% developer/admin fee to sponsors under the state home-repair program, and options for reimbursement timing. No formal vote was taken on allocation of county funds; the chair asked staff to follow up with written materials and requested Director Cynthia Williams to send updates by email.
The committee adjourned after a motion to adjourn was made, seconded and approved in a roll-call vote with the committee recording unanimous 'yes' votes.
