June 25, 2018
In keeping with its mission to create healthy and sustainable homes and communities, Community Housing Partners (CHP) worked to build an access ramp and make other upgrades to the home of a 79-year-old first-time homeowner in Blacksburg, Virginia, on Friday, June 8 for National NeighborWorks Week.
National NeighborWorks Week (June 2-9) is an annual week of service in which members of the NeighborWorks network beautify parks and homes, clean up neighborhoods, and host educational events around the country. This year’s project also coincided with National Homeownership Month, which is celebrated in June to recognize owning a home as an important step toward financial security.
CHP teamed up with the Christiansburg Home Depot to make improvements to the home of BeaAnn Hypes, who became a first-time homeowner in December with help from CHP Homeownership. (View a Facebook photo gallery of National NeighborWorks Week.)
“When we first started working with BeaAnn and identified this property, a big goal of ours was to make sure she could comfortably age in place,” said Jake Powell, Director of Homeownership. “She’s 79 years young and full of life, but we wanted to make sure she’s comfortable in her house.”
Hypes received Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) down payment assistance to purchase her home as part of CHP’s partnership with the Town of Blacksburg to expand homeownership opportunities in the Bennett Hill neighborhood. Her home is the third in the neighborhood to be rehabilitated through the program.
“We are so humbled that there are people out there who really care,” said Kym Hypes-Sheuerman, BeaAnn Hypes’ daughter.
More than a dozen volunteers from CHP and Team Depot spent the day constructing an exterior access ramp, installing a French drain, and making low-maintenance landscape improvements. The Home Depot Foundation and NeighborWorks America provided financial support for the project.