BY STEFANIE JACKSON BOWMANN, Eastern Shore Post —
The Chesapeake Housing Critical Repair Resource Center, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, is asking Northampton County to waive permit fees for home repairs that improve safety for low-income residents.
“They focus on people who are living in poverty, on doing critical repairs to their homes … the installation of handicapped-accessible ramps for houses where there are people who are in need because of their health or because of their age,” said Northampton County Administrator Charlie Kolakowski on Sept. 10.
The nonprofit was started about a year ago to offer Accomack and Northampton counties the same services provided by the Chesapeake Housing Mission. That group has served Worcester, Wicomico, Somerset, and Dorchester counties in Maryland over the past decade.
“When people can’t get in and out of their homes easily, they tend to get isolated,” Kolakowski said. “They don’t go to their doctor’s appointments like they should. They don’t go out and socialize like they should.”
That isolation, “especially for elderly people, has a direct impact on the mental and physical health of these individuals,” he said.
They also are at risk of falling, “one of the most common reasons why older folks go into emergency rooms, and one of the more serious things that can happen to them,” Kolakowski said.
The Chesapeake Housing Mission participated in a study in 2022 called the Healthy Homes Initiative, which found that projects such as installing wheelchair ramps and handrails and repairing floors and leaky roofs can reduce falls by 80%.
Kolakowski had done some research and learned statutes are in place that would allow Northampton County, by ordinance, to waive building permit fees for 501(c)(3) nonprofits.
There is also a statute that would allow the county “to provide assistance to low- and moderate-income households for the rehabilitation of their homes,” he said.
The county administrator recommended moving forward with developing a program for waiving building permit fees for qualified applicants.
Kolakowski noted that, upon the advice of the county’s finance director, an account should be established for paying the permit fees.
“We would actually charge ourselves for those fees,” he said.
“It’s too easy sometimes to say, ‘Well, let’s waive the fees. It’s no big deal.” But “it’s still real money … that should be budgeted,” Kolakowski said.
The program also would improve Northampton County’s housing stock.
“Every home that we can preserve that low- and moderate-income people are living in now is a home that we don’t have to build,” Kolakowski said.
Supervisor John Coker asked if the permit fee fund would be a set amount of, for example, $10,000 annually.
Kolakowski said if the program proves successful, supervisors may wish to replenish the funds as needed. He said he will begin developing the program and report back to supervisors at a future meeting.
