Published: July 12, 2008 01:28 am      

Housing authority celebrates its 50 years

Provides services in two cities, four counties across region

FAIRMONT — For 50 years, the Fairmont Housing Authority has been providing decent, affordable homes and financing for low- to moderate-income individuals in two cities and four counties across the region.

Friday, employees with the government organization celebrated the last half a century with a celebration at their headquarters on 12th Street.

The event included speeches from executive director John Martys and board of commissioners chairman George Johnston as well as a presentation from West Virginia Field Director of Housing and Urban Development Pete Minter. A representative from Gov. Joe Manchin’s office and Fairmont City Councilman Chuck Warner also read proclamations from the city and the state in appreciation of the work that the housing authority has done.

“There are probably thousands upon thousands of people that we have helped,” Martys said. “On an annual basis, we probably help somewhere in the neighborhood of 3,000 families.”

Serving the cities of Fairmont and Morgantown, and Monongalia, Marion, Preston and Taylor counties, the housing authority provides a variety of different services to help people rent and buy nice, comfortable homes.

Martys explained the organization provides rental assistance and administers a rental rehabilitation program for low-income families, runs the Community Development Block Grant program and provides neighborhood revitalization in Morgantown, and provides homebuyers education and housing counseling for individuals interested in single-family mortgages, among other services.

Cristal Crouso, home-ownership coordinator, helps families that want to purchase homes through the housing authority. It is through this program that homebuyers are educated and counseled through sponsorship from Mon Valley Bank.

She said the program also provides loans for first-time home buyers and rehabilitation to help existing owners fix up their homes.

Joe Dumire, assistant director of the housing authority, said that when the organization was formed in 1958, council members were looking to provide nice, cost-efficient housing for residents.

“At that time, city council felt there was a great need for affordable, decent housing in the city of Fairmont,” Dumire explained.

From there, the housing authority was formed and began building 11 different developments with homes for low- to moderate-income families in scattered sites throughout the city.

Dumire said some of these homes are still in existence, and employees of the organization invited the public to join them on a bus tour to look at some of them as part of Friday’s event.

Over the years, he said the housing authority evolved and began providing all of the other services it does today, which includes the Section 8 rental housing program, which is currently serving 1,000 families across the four counties served by the organization. In Fairmont, Dumire said that the housing authority provides public housing for a total of 136 families.

Unlike some other similar agencies that rely solely or very heavily on government funding, Martys said the housing authority operates significantly through grants and other sources.

“We are fairly self-sufficient,” he said. “That makes us a little bit different than other government agencies.”

E-mail Mallory Panuska at mpanuska@timeswv.com.