We’re proud to share news of our work with Enright Court and the Village Collaborative of East Liberty to preserve and expand affordable housing in the neighborhood. Watch the feature on WPXI for more info, and read on for background on our work with Enright Court.

Mary Hester speaks to WPXI about our efforts at Enright Court.

Working with residents since 2016

ELDI staff have been meeting monthly with residents and homeowners of Enright Court since 2016 in an effort to hear their concerns and create a plan to reestablish Enright Court as a place of homeownership. Local architecture firm evolveEA has taken many of those recommendations and developed the Enright Court Community Plan 2.0.

Enright Court has suffered partly because a Homeowner’s Association was not established as promised when the units were constructed, and it’s also suffered over the years as many units have fallen into the hands of absentee owners. ELDI has been actively purchasing homes for the past several years to reverse this trend and has also been working with residents to form a Neighborhood Improvement District (NID) that would function to keep the common areas of Enright in tip-top shape.

Both residents and organizations are excited to begin the work of repairing this long-overlooked section of East Liberty. Some improvements are already starting this week, with the bulk of the renovations expected to be completed in the first quarter of 2019.

How the work is being funded

ELDI has applied to the Federal Home Loan Bank (FHLB) in partnership with First Commonwealth Bank to rehab 16 units in Enright Court through FHLB’s Rehab for Resale Program. The grant was submitted on August 9th, and awards will be announced on December 13th. If awarded, ELDI will have a little over two years to rehab the houses and find new homeowners. All homeowners will have to be at 80% or below of Pittsburgh’s Area Median Income and several houses will be set aside for disabled homeowners. ELDI currently owns 16 units in various states of repair or disrepair and about half of them are vacant.

ELDI has also partnered with Rebuilding Together Pittsburgh (RTP) on Enright Court as they have applied to FHLB to rehab 10 homes through the Owner Occupied Rehab program. ELDI and RTP staff canvased the Enright Community to find 10 homeowners to apply for this program which will provide up to $35,000 in repairs for each home. These programs together will address over one-quarter of Enright’s 98 homes.

Creating paths to homeownership

Moving forward, the Circles program will also be finding ways to assist individuals and families in Enright Court and get them on a path to homeownership.

More info on the Circles program can be found here.

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