Marion Cake of project:HOMES (Photo by Jay Paul)
Years before he moved to Richmond in 2000, Marion Cake felt the sting of not being able to afford a home.
As a police officer in Arlington for five years, he says he and many of his fellow officers could not afford to live in the community where they worked. “You don’t have to be low-income to know how difficult it is to find affordable housing,” he says. “I understood the need to build homes for people who have everyday jobs.”
This month, Cake celebrates 20 years with project:HOMES, a nonprofit organization that builds and preserves high-quality affordable homes, completes large-scale home repairs, and improves accessibility and energy efficiency for existing homes.
Cake is vice president of affordable housing development and first joined the team when the organization’s revitalization program began. He has been instrumental in building and selling nearly 250 affordable homes in the greater Richmond area.
“It is inspiring to see how deeply our team believes in the importance of the work we are doing and how thoughtfully they go about making it happen,” he says. “The craving for that sense of accomplishment is contagious.”
Cake says he has always had a passion for residential construction, enjoying the mechanics of what it takes to build a house. When he applied to work with project:HOMES in 2000 he was initially turned down, but a few months later, the organization offered him a job as a rehabilitation specialist. In this role, he fulfilled requests for basic home repairs after conducting inspections.
“I am very lucky because project:HOMES and I have grown together,” he says. “I’ve never had the same job for more than a couple of years, and there is always something new on the horizon to keep me interested and motivated.”
He says project:HOMES has evolved over time along with the affordable housing needs in communities as they change. The team has grown from around 15 employees to 45, he says, and over the years, the nonprofit has been recognized for its innovative work. Most recently, it received awards from Historic Richmond and the Homebuilders Association of Virginia for “Solar Row.” A group of houses built in the Carver Community, these affordable homes produce as much renewable energy as they consume, lowering electricity bills to make them even more affordable.
Founded in 1992, project:HOMES renovates and builds homes for people at or below 80% of the area median income for the region — $71,500 for a family of four. Cake’s leadership has contributed to transforming communities such as Church Hill, where project:HOMES has built and rehabilitated 50 houses.
Cake congratulates a new homebuyer. (Photo courtesy project:HOMES)
Cake says project:HOMES refurbishes some properties by doing a shell renovation — gutting a house down to the frame and putting it back together. For other homes, weatherization is accomplished through repairs and energy-efficiency improvements. It also, with the help of volunteers, assists homeowners with improvements such as modular wheelchair ramps and basic home repairs.
The organization’s commitment to affordable housing goes beyond homeownership. Several of the refurbished homes in Church Hill are affordable rental duplexes.
The latest frontier for project:HOMES is an opportunity to help a population with much lower incomes than those the organization has assisted in the past. Its recent acquisition of Bermuda Estates Mobile Home Park in Chesterfield could be a game-changer for the way manufactured homes are built and purchased.
The business model for manufactured homes enables the resident to own the home but not the land it sits on. The problem, Cake says, is that the manufactured homes are built like cars, depreciate like cars and are difficult to maintain. They do not hold their value, he says, beyond about 15 years. But project:HOMES is hoping to change that by working directly with a manufacturer to build more durable, sustainably manufactured homes. The organization is currently searching for a supplier.
“The goal is to design a mobile home with a focus on long-term durability and ease of maintenance,” Cake says. “I think that could make a huge difference.”
In addition to making mobile homes more durable for the 52 families who live in the park, Cake hopes to provide residents with the chance to build wealth through their homes.
Cake says that as project:HOMES revisits its strategic plan this year, he is optimistic about the future of affordable housing in Virginia, but a multipronged approach is needed. A founding member of the Maggie Walker Community Land Trust, Cake points to that nonprofit’s model of homebuying for low- to moderate- income homeowners as part of the solution. These homes have a permanent subsidy, and homeowners pay the mortgage on the house but not on the land. When the homeowner sells the home, they agree to do so at an affordable price for the next homebuyer. Other necessary approaches, he says, include inclusive zoning, preserving homeownership through needed help and repairs, mixed-income rental development, and duplicating the manufactured homes business model being created with Bermuda Estates.
“The only way to look at it,” Cake says, “is to feel the sense of urgency and throw everything you can at it.”
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