Construction of our first four homes is well under way !
After long delays working through many permitting obstacles, we have already started construction of our first four single-family homes. The complete list of partners is listed below:
- All Quality Property Investors LLC (Vernon Quinn/David Gause)
- M&V Business Development LLC (Docar Curtis)
- HELP Inc./BSC Solutions Group (Herman Dorsett, II/Evans Branch/Les Allen, Jr.)
- JCH Investment Inc./A. Julien Contracting (Juan Carlos Hernandez/Alfredo Julien)
We also expect to soon start construction of our first two Duplex Models. Stay tuned for updates.
Brownsville Town Villas (16 Fourplex affordable homeownership units).
We continue to move forward with the pre-development stage, thanks to the continued diligence of our prominent architects, Behar Font & Partners. We have recently completed the first draft of our Homeowners Association documents, through the collaboration of our pro bono attorney, Pablo Arriola. Our next step is to negotiate financial support from M-D PHCD, to subsidize a substantial portion of unexpected site infrastructure costs.
Faith-Based Housing Development.
We are working through the site planning and pre-conceptual design stages of sites owned by several of our member churches:
- Bethel Apostolic Temple, Liberty City/North Miami
- Greater St. Paul AME Church, Coconut Grove
- St. Ruth MBC, Dania Beach
- New Covenant Presbyterian Church, Brownsville/Allapattah
- Sweet Home MBC, West Perrine/Cutler Bay
These efforts are possible through our continued collaboration with the Atlanta Office of Neighborhood Community Partners one of the nation’s largest nonprofit housing advocates and producers. The experience we have acquired has also allowed us to respond to inquiries from two non-church property owners who have asked us for proposals to help develop their sites.
Invitation to participate in Wells Fargo’s WORTH, its new nationwide housing initiative.
We have been invited to jointly apply with four other local affordable housing nonprofits for major funding under Wells Fargo’s WORTH (Wealth Opportunities Restored through Homeownership). Approval for our group’s application will support the creation of 5,000 net new BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) homeowners in our market, by 2025.
The five organizations invited to apply are:
- Opa Locka Community Development Corporation
- New Urban Development/Urban League of Greater Miami
- Neighborhood Housing Services of South Florida
- Miami Homes for All
- CEG/Collective Empowerment Group of South Florida, Inc.
Twenty five regional markets in the nation are being invited to submit planning grant applications of $150,000 each. From that pool of applicants Wells Fargo will invite 15 of them to submit a completed Project Plan. From those 15 submissions, they expect to then fund 8 implementation grants of approximately $7.5 Million each, in the summer of 2022.
Miami Youth Garden (MyG).
The CEG has been providing comprehensive financial and technical support, for nearly ten years, to the outstanding Youth Leadership and Training Program of our MyG nonprofit affiliate. Its measurable impact on our youth has now also earned continuing respect and financial funding from The Children’s Trust. Despite the lingering effects of the COVID pandemic, the 2021 Summer Programs was successfully completed, on six different church sites, through a combination of virtual and on-site workshops.
New Affordable Housing Products and Concepts.
We believe that continuing increases in land values, and rising construction costs, will force producers to seek solutions that will combine both higher densities and smaller units, as well as new ideas to enhance affordability. In addition to new smaller-unit concepts, we are looking into various types of Land Trusts/Ground Leases to allow development of homeownership units on church sites, providing long-term rental revenue, along with measures that may mitigate the speed of price-driven gentrification.
New sources of Major Funding to allow expanded CEG operating capacity.
We have recently started to work on the conceptual planning of a new Affordable Housing Fund, with initial backing from our friends at the University of Miami. We hope to start with seed funding by private-sector developers, so we may challenge the Miami business community to bring new ideas forward, independent of traditional support from the public sector.
For questions or for more information on any of the above matters, please contact Bernard Phanord, Associate Executive Director, at 786.352.7014, or via email at bphanord@cegsfl.org.
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Come and work with us and help us build The Kingdom, under our “Big Mansion”