Dayton Fund drying up; where will the needy turn?

DAYTON — The local low-interest loan fund that since 1964 has kept the impoverished in their homes when roofs leak or furnaces break could be out of business by fall, the latest victim of a brutal economy.

The Dayton Fund, a last resort for low-income homeowners who can’t afford conventional loans for emergency repairs, is fast running out of funds.

Since 1980, the organization has helped 1,447 with loans totalling $2.3 million. It now has 141 loans out to homeowners totalling $273,974. The loans are often all that keep people from being out on the street, said Ellen Trietsch, Dayton Fund executive director.

“It’s a drop in the bucket compared to what the need is,” said Amy Radachi, president and CEO of Rebuilding Dayton Together, which organizes house repairs for the needy. Radachi said she refers nearly 20 people to the fund every month. “The need is so much greater than the resources,” she said.

One of those turned away because of lack of funding was Ella Leonard, 77, whose roof is leaking straight through to the kitchen of her two-story home on Wilson Drive.

The former nurse worked 25 years at the Dayton VA Medical Center before retiring in 1995. She has survived a heart attack and stroke. Now largely confined to a wheelchair and receiving weekly nursing visits, she can’t squeeze money from her fixed income to make the estimated $6,000 repair.

“I’d prefer to stay in the house rather than go to a nursing home,” she said. “Things have been kind of rough around here.”

The Dayton Fund has historically tapped a mix of public and private corporate funding. Grants to the fund from banks and corporations were more generous when those firms were locally owned, said Bill Johnson, chair of the fund’s Board of Trustees. Strong locally headquartered supporters once included Winters Bank, Mead Corp., Citizens Federal and NCR Corp., Johnson said. Now, the stream of private funds, which came with fewer restrictions than government funding, is a trickle.

“The Dayton Fund is experiencing extreme difficulties in raising adequate funds,” said Johnson, who is also Jefferson Twp.’s administrator. “We’ve been limping along.”

A recent fundraiser at the downtown Racquet Club failed to produce enough, Johnson said, and appeals to various community sources haven’t produced.

In normal economic times, loan repayments from closely screened borrowers helped buoy the fund. But record-high foreclosures and bankruptcies have hit repayments.

The fund operates on a bare-bones basis. It has no advertising budget and relies entirely on word of mouth among social service agencies. It is housed within the Miami Valley Regional Planning Commission. The fund has one full-time employee, Trietsch. But the fund’s accountant has determined that the fund needs $75,000 a year to function as a free-standing agency, Johnson said.

CityWide an option

Another low-interest loan source for distressed homeowners is CityWide Development, the city of Dayton’s economic development arm.

There, Janet White, vice president of housing and economic services, oversees a pool of U.S. Housing and Urban Development funds. But that federal government pot has run dry periodically, and the Dayton Fund has been able to pick up some of the burden, she said. “We ran out for most of 2008,” she said.

From 2007 through 2009, CityWide made 96 loans totaling $1,031,750. It has about $500,000 to use in 2010, White said. The funding is far less than what’s needed, she added.

In 2009, the Dayton Fund provided 17 loans totaling $64,061 — a fraction of the 53 requests that got an official review by the fund that included on-site verification by an inspector. It’s the lowest number of loans since the 1970s, fund records provided to the Dayton Daily News show. Total needs for 2009 are estimated at about $250,000. In all, 217 people made requests for the emergency loans.

Of loans issued, the average was $3,448. Eleven were for roof repairs, the rest for everything from plumbing to furnace repairs. The fund’s operating expenses were $74,781 in 2009 — largely to pay its only employee. Loan repayments in 2009 were $36,565.

The number of those getting loans today is a big drop from the 1980s and 1990s when the fund could help up to 70 homeowners per year. Fund resources haven’t kept up with rising material and labor costs, Trietsch said, even as the fund constantly searches for new sources of funding.

One client’s tale

Tashia Hunter, a 39-year-old single mom with three children and an income of $23,000 annually as a receptionist, used a $3,500 Dayton Fund loan in 2008 to fix her Trotwood home’s roof. At the time, she was still struggling from a six-month period of joblessness and near financial ruin in 2000 when the company she worked for moved jobs to Indianapolis.

She’s paid the loan principal down to $1,300, but her home is now at risk of a sheriff’s sale because mortgage payments have stretched her past the limit. She’s trying to forge an agreement with her lender. At least, she said, the loan helped keep her housed these past few years.

Jackie Wilkerson, community specialist with the United Way-funded Senior Resource Connection, 222 Salem Ave., said the service refers a half-dozen elderly people to the fund every year.

Losing the fund would be “devastating. I don’t know what we would do,” Wilkerson said. “We depend on them for roof repairs for our clients.”

Said Bill Johnson: “We have helped a lot of folks. It would be sad if we had to shut down. We’re talking about people who make $15,000 a year off Social Security. If they have one major thing go wrong, it pushes them right over the edge.”

To help the Dayton Fund, call (937) 223-6323 or write to Dayton Fund for Home Rehabilitation at One South Main, Suite 260, Dayton, 45402.

Contact this reporter at (937) 225-7407 or sbennish@Dayton
DailyNews.com.