First Homes Receives City Award for Heritage Homes Program

The Rochester Area Foundation's First Homes initiative received an award from the Rochester Committee on Urban Design and Environment (CUDE) for its rehabilitation and renovation efforts, and specifically for its new Heritage Homes program.

The Heritage Homes program was created by First Homes late last year in an effort to take abandoned or rundown homes in the near-downtown area of Rochester and rehabilitate the houses into starter homes, the very root of the First Homes mission. At the same time, the project also offers neighborhood stabilization while improving deteriorating housing stock in older neighborhoods. CUDE members had paid special attention to First Homes' efforts to renovate a home in the 1500 block of First Street SW in the Kutzky Park section of Rochester.

First Homes already has rehabilitated and sold two homes as starter homes through the Heritage Homes program and is working to renovate a total of 16 homes in a 16-month period. Several other homes are in the process of being renovated at the current time.

First Homes acquires houses for the Heritage Homes program at a reasonable cost through foreclosure or abandonment. First Homes also is working with neighborhood groups like the Kutzky Park Neighborhood Association in an effort to help identify available homes.

Homes fixed up and sold as starter homes in the Heritage Homes program become part of the First Homes Homeownership Trust, in which First Homes retains ownership of the land while the homeowner owns only the house. This mechanism makes homes more affordable as starter homes and will help keep the homes a community asset as they are sold and resold over the years.

The award was presented at a CUDE breakfast at Mayo Civic Center attended by business representatives and city officials and staff. Each year CUDE recognizes projects that maintain and improve the appearance, function and environmental quality of the city of Rochester.

First Homes is working to build 875 new starter homes for working families in a 30-mile radius of Rochester. In addition to the new rehab program near to downtown Rochester, First Homes has helped build single-family homes and rental units in Byron, Chatfield, Dover, Grand Meadow, Hayfield, Kasson, Pine Island, Plainview, Rochester, St. Charles and Spring Valley.

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