Housing trust is in a bind, Strapped agency selling units to get back on track
Friday, September 15, 2006
PETER J. CLEARY
Sentinel Staff
With the organization carrying more debt than it can handle, Cheshire Housing Trust is selling its apartment building at 37 Main St. in Keene, according to Linda Mangones, the acting director of the trust.
The building, which is being bought by Keene landlord Mitchell H. Greenwald, has 13 apartments and three storefronts — Subway, The Apothecary and 3G Wireless. The back end of the building, which formerly housed the Latchis Theater, is owned by the county government and not part of the sale.
“Cheshire Housing Trust has had to re-evaluate both its mission and its finances this year,” Mangones said.
The sale will help it pay off its mortgages, she said.
Cheshire Housing Trust, funded by the Monadnock United Way and a variety of government agencies, helps low- and moderate-income people find affordable places to live and offers financial counseling to its clients.
But since it will no longer be developing new housing, it doesn’t have as much income as it once did, Mangones said. Because of that, she said, the trust needed to change its financial setup.
There isn’t enough money to maintain the properties, she said. The trust is short on money for many reasons, she said. Rents that were once restricted to 80 percent of market value; higher taxes and fuel prices; and high principal payments on loans they took out from the 1980s all contributed to situation, she said.
“It was clear Cheshire Housing Trust needed to sell something,” she said.
The money will help the organization to pay off its mortgages, Mangones said, and make for a stronger financial situation. That will allow the trust to maintain its remaining properties.
Neither Mangones nor Greenwald would say how much Greenwald is paying for the building, though both said the price is fair.
Following an unsuccessful search last year to replace executive director Margaret B. Dillon, trust officials decided to ask the Keene Housing Authority to take over its operation. Mangones also works for the housing authority.
The building sale, she said, is related to a closer affiliation with the housing authority, a public organization that provides housing for very low- to low-income people in the region.
But the sale doesn’t mean the trust is selling off all its buildings, Mangones said. The trust will have 60 apartments once the sale goes through.
And rents in the Main Street building will stay affordable, at least in the short term.
Greenwald and the housing trust have reached an agreement through which rents will stay below the market price for up to 20 months.
After that, Greenwald said, he’ll have to consider the economics of the building when setting the rents.
“My intention is to keep all the tenants in place,” he said. In his other buildings, he said, he sometimes charges lower rents for people who need affordable housing.
Greenwald owns about 70 apartments in the area and manages another 50.
He said he’ll be able to provide parking for the tenants in a lot he owns on Emerald Street, and in the future he may add an elevator that would serve the building and two connected buildings he owns to the south.
Even though the trust is selling off some of its apartments, Mangones said the amount of affordable housing in the region is increasing.
More than 100 affordable units have opened recently or will be soon, she said, including Stone Arch Village, which the housing authority has been building on Court Street this summer.
“In a short time period there has been a lot of affordable housing that’s come onto the market,” she said.