Beaufort nonprofits are helping residents keep their homes | Beaufort County News

If there’s a truism that can be applied to the work done by the St. Helena Gullah Community Housing Project, it might be this. No matter how much work gets done, the project list never seems to get any shorter. 

The organization repairs and rehabilitates homes on St. Helena Island for residents with limited financial resources. It got its start in 2023 with a list of about 60 homeowners requiring some assistance maintaining their homes and keeping them in livable condition. Some of those homes barely qualified as livable, with leaking roofs, sagging floors, rotted porches and, in some cases, no heating. 

By the time the group finished its first major renovation this past spring, the list had grown to about 100 homes. Their second whole-house renovation project is wrapping up this month. In between those two initiatives, the group has knocked more than two dozen smaller projects off its to-do list. Homeowners are now enjoying things like new porches, new roofs, repaired plumbing and new air conditioners. 

With all that completed work, where does the project count stand today? It’s a little over 100. 

“Somehow the list never gets any smaller,” joked the group’s appropriately named CEO, David House.

Drastic home repairs can sometimes force homeowners to move out of their home if they can’t afford the expense, explained Darrin Goss, president and CEO of the Coastal Community Foundation. Residents leave communities where they may have deep roots. For that reason, home repair programs like those managed by the St. Helena Gullah Community Housing Project and the Deep Well Project are a critical component of affordable housing strategies. 

“Through home repairs, people can stay in their homes, in their communities and alleviate some of the stress on the housing market,” Goss said.

North of the Broad River

The roots of the St. Helena Gullah Community Housing Project can be drawn directly to Sarah Reynolds Green, who now serves as the vice chair of the group. 

Born and raised on St. Helena, Reynolds Green left to attend Spellman University and then spent 20 years in Georgia. Returning to the her family home on land that was purchased in 1865, she started Marshview Community Organic Farm and imparts life lessons and values to children by teaching them organic farming.

She and her husband, chef Bill Green, operate Gullah Grub restaurant on St. Helena and contribute to food distribution programs on the island. Drivers delivering meals expressed concerns about the conditions of some the homes where the meal recipients lived. Drivers were hesitant to step on porches for fear of crashing through rotted wood. Floors in some homes visibly sagged under the weight they tried to support. 

Reynolds Green had always hoped to expand the scope of her organization to include a home repair program, but the reports from the delivery drivers increased the urgency. She conducted a survey of her clients and created the initial list of 60 residents in need of home repair assistance. Work started under the auspices of Marshview Farm, while the new housing project team got on its feet.

With a year of effort now behind them, Reynolds Green said she’s beginning to see the impact in the community. 

“I see that the level of hope has been raised,” she said. “It lets people know that people are available to help.”

Saundra Renee Smith, the group’s secretary, has seen a change on the island as well. Social interaction is an important aspect of Gullah culture, and as conditions in homes deteriorate, the homeowners become less willing to invite people over. 

“People were isolated and closed off because of the condition of their home. Now it’s opening up the community,” Smith said. “We’re making some big changes in a small amount of time.” 

It’s not all milk and honey

While the successes are starting to mount, House was clear that there are significant challenges ahead. Finding funding and volunteers are the two issues that weigh on him. 

The group has raised $400,000. All but $65,000 has come from private, individual donations. The Beaufort Jasper Housing Trust and the Coastal Community Foundation have both made grants to the organization as well. Despite the fundraising success they’ve had so far, large-scale federal and state grants will be needed to support the group’s long-term goals. The issue isn’t that there’s no money available. The problem, as explained by House, is that federal and state home repair grants exclude homes built before 1978 and mobile homes more than 20 years old. 

“The biggest issue that we have is that none of the houses we’re working on qualify for federal and state grants. If we can’t get beyond that, we’re going to have to totally depend on private money,” House said.

His back-of-the-envelope estimate is that the group needs about $2 million to complete the projects currently on its project list. It’s a safe bet that the flow of new projects will continue, creating a demand for additional funding. 

“Think about that,” Smith said. “Funds have been made available for people who are below the poverty level, but we can’t get access to it because of these restrictions.”

House and his team have started to reach out to state legislators in the hope of developing a solution to the issue, at least on the state level. His second concern likely has an easier solution. Almost all of the work completed by the group is done by volunteers. Simply put, they need more of them. There is much work to do. 

“The squeaky wheel gets the oil. We’re going to make some noise,” Reynolds Green promised.

South of the Broad River

If the St. Helena Gullah Community Housing Project is the new kid on the block when it comes to home repair initiatives, Hilton Head’s Deep Well Project is the longtime resident with more than 20 years of experience. 

Founded more than 50 years ago with the intent of improving water quality and eliminating illnesses caused by contaminated water in shallow wells, the organization has evolved to provide a wide range of support to people in need in Beaufort and Jasper counties. Its Livable Housing program focuses on home repair.

With rising housing costs a familiar issue in the county, repairing existing homes and preserving a family asset that can be handed down through multiple family generations is a cost-effective affordable housing alternative. 

“Overwhelmingly, the biggest thing keeping people in poverty in our area is affordable housing,” said Sandy Gillis, Deep Well’s executive director. “People have to spend 50 or 60 percent of their income for housing; it just leaves them so vulnerable.”

Between 2022 and 2023, Gillis, her staff and a team of approximately 300 volunteers repaired 187 homes. A single home repair, Gillis said, often includes multiple projects. The 187 homes repaired equated to 470 individual projects. The projects were split into three roughly equal geographic areas: Hilton Head, Jasper County and the remainder of Beaufort County. 

Initially, Deep Well worked only on Hilton Head. In 2018, the organization officially expanded its Livable Housing program to the mainland. The number of projects in Hilton Head actually decreased last year after the town government started offering its own home repair program.

“Because they were offering that opportunity, we saw our number of calls there go down, which meant we could help people in other areas,” Gillis said.

With all that experience, Gillis noted that her clients are generally older residents who share a common characteristic. Often, they have children or grandchildren who are no longer living in the area. 

“They don’t have that support network. They don’t have a grandson who can climb up on the roof and blow the pine straw off. They’ve got 10 years of pine straw built up that’s rotted the roof,” said Gillis. 

Beyond the objective of repairing homes, Livable Housing strives to maintain the dignity of the homeowner. Pride, Gillis said, keeps many homeowners from reaching out for help until conditions have degraded so severely that they’re left with no choice. Recipients are asked to contribute financially to the cost of the repair. Normally that contribution is 40 percent of the materials cost, paid over time. Sometimes it’s more. Sometimes it’s less, all depending on the ability of the homeowner. 

“We’re helping them be more self-sufficient,” Gillis said. “At the end of the day, that’s what we want. The goal of every nonprofit out there is to put themselves out of business.”