ONIC Opens Emerald Villas Apartments in Florida

This guest blog comes to us from our Relationship Manager Doug Gaither in our Southern District. Public Affairs and Communication Advisor Hillary Rowe also contributed.

By Doug Gaither, relationship manager

(L to R) Orange County, Housing & Community Development Program Manager
Mitchell Glasser, County Mayor Teresa Jacobs, Bob Ansley and Doug Gaither

The grand opening of the Emerald Villas apartment development marks a major accomplishment for private/public partnership and a turning point for the Pine Hills neighborhood in Orange County, Florida. On January 30, I had the opportunity to meet with Robert “Bob” Ansley, president of the NeighborWorks affiliate that made this moment possible: Orlando Neighborhood Improvement (ONIC). ONIC specializes in creating well-designed, high-quality housing, including both affordable housing and mixed-income developments. All of ONIC's communities have enhanced resident services such as recreation, education, counseling and personal enrichment.
Emerald Villas is an example of transforming blight to opportunity. A year ago, it was in foreclosure with a 70 percent vacancy rate and a glaring example of neglect, disinvestment and high crime. To turn things around, Bob enlisted the help of Mayor Teresa Jacobs of Orange County and well-respected South Florida developer Jorge Perez, president and CEO of the Related Development Group. 

The Related Group and ONIC were able to leverage funding including $7 million from the federal Neighborhood Stabilization Project ( a federal program designed to help local communities redevelop abandoned and foreclosed properties) plus $1.6 million obtained through the state’s local housing program to renovate Emerald’s Village at a total cost of $20 million.

Emerald Villas

I must say, it’s hard to believe that this property was ever an eye-sore. With state-of-the-art fitness center and a sparkling blue pool, business office, classrooms, landscaped grounds, security and 264 beautiful renovated and energy-efficient units, this is a wonderful development. In fact, the complex is already 65 percent occupied! Rents are affordable too - starting as low as $431 to $763 a month. This is well below the median rent for Metro Orlando apartments, which runs about $822 per month.

Doug Gaither and Jorge Perez

I attended the grand opening of Emerald Villas along with more than 75 supporters and several beaming residents. The festivities were held in a spanking new clubhouse packed with celebratory balloons and food and beverages donated by local merchants.  At the ceremony, Jorge told me, “affordable housing developments should always look market-rate.”

These apartments certainly fit that description, and, in addition to being beautiful, the apartments are functional. Using the classrooms on site, ONIC will provide an array of resident services including financial capability classes and after-school classes. All in all, Emerald Villas bodes well for the future of residents here and the community as a whole.


Want to know more?

• View a recent news clip with pictures of Emerald Villas
• Read about Jorge Perez and the Related Development Group
• Learn about ONIC’s resident services

A Recipe for Success: Creating Community Leaders from Scratch

By Sara Varela 
Community Building and Organizing communications specialist, NeighborWorks America

My blog on Leaders for Communities focuses on projects within the national Community Building and Organizing network. This post, on resident leadership development, highlights the activities of CB&O members offering training to promote and build community leaders across the country.

This Wednesday, January 25, Neighborhood Housing Services of South Florida will be hosting a WebEX on how they put together their local Community Leadership Institute (CLI). A great article in the Miami Herald highlighted the CLI graduation ceremony recently. By developing resident leaders organizations like NHS of South Florida contribute to the overall stability of the communities they serve.

NHS of South Florida Community Leadership Institute
graduates celebrate.

Benji Power, NHS of South Florida’s director of Community Building and Organizing, said "Our overall goal is to help those residents make their neighborhood a place that they not only want to choose to stay in and live in, but hopefully other people will as well."

Finding the time to volunteer and be involved can be overwhelming. Resident leadership development programs help break down the enormous task of getting involved. I applaud the graduates of this leadership program and appreciate the efforts of NHS of South Florida for promoting resident leadership development.

NeighborWorks Lincoln, in Nebraska, also hosted a Community Engagement Initiative (CEI) using the “Building Leaders, Building Communities” curriculum created by NeighborWorks America. Residents in this program attend classes once a month for six months. NeighborWorks Lincoln provides a generous $2,500 to each team to complete their project.

And finally, Neighborhood Housing Services of Silicon Valley, in San Jose, California, held a Neighborhood Development Training conference (NDTC) that attracted 200 participants last fall. The NDTC featured free workshops taught by instructors who have experience improving local communities.

NHS of South Florida will be giving instruction how to build community leaders during this Wednesday’s WebEx  at 3 p.m. Participants will be encouraged to share experiences with resident leadership. Are you thinking of hosting or creating a leadership development program for residents in your community? Join NHS of South Florida this week and find out where to start.

More than 1.1 Million Homeowners Counseled for Foreclosure



NeighborWorks America, the administrator of the National Foreclosure Mitigation Counseling (NFMC) Program, announced that more than 1.1 million homeowners across the nation have received foreclosure counseling through the NFMC Program, according to the Program’s sixth Congressional report.

As of June 30, 2011, more than 1,168,062 homeowners in all 50 states, the District of Columbia and the U.S. Territories have received foreclosure counseling as a result of NFMC Program funding.

In December 2010, an independent analysis of the NFMC Program showed that NFMC Program clients in foreclosure were 1.7 times more likely to cure a foreclosure and potentially avoid losing a home, than homeowners who did not receive foreclosure counseling. In addition, NFMC clients who received loan modifications reduced their monthly mortgage payments on average by $267 more per month than they would have without NFMC counseling. This represents an annual savings of over $3,200 per homeowner.

The sixth Congressional Report also found that the largest share of foreclosure mitigation counseling provided by the NFMC Program has gone to assist struggling homeowners in the states hardest hit by delinquencies and foreclosures, such as California and Florida. Minority and low-income homeowners and neighborhoods, which have been disproportionately impacted by the foreclosure crisis, are well-served by the NFMC Program: 31 percent of NFMC Program clients were identified as racial minority homeowners, 20 percent were of Hispanic origin, and 66 percent were classified as low- income.

Homeowners who would like to receive foreclosure counseling can visit http://www.findaforeclosurecounselor.org/ to find a NFMC Program-funded counseling organization in their community.For more information about the NFMC Program, visit www.nw.org/nfmc.