Where her heart is: Canton woman exits public housing; buys house
CANTON ‒ Vickie Heller has lived in lots of places through the years — including a recent six-year stint in a public housing unit — but she finally found a forever home.
Not just any old house.
A home. Her home. And she's proud.
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It's a 1,380-square-foot bungalow on Columbus Avenue NW. A block from Westbrook Veterans Memorial Park and close enough to the Pro Football Hall of Fame that she can see the domed roof on the Hall of Fame Village's Center for Performance from her front yard.
"I kept my faith in God," said Heller, a 58-year-old mother of four grown children, who gave her 11 grandkids and a great-grandchild. "I persevered, believed and conquered."
Heller is the first Stark Metropolitan Housing Authority resident to complete the agency's Family Self-Sufficiency program. It catapulted her into an opportunity to leave public housing.
Family Self-Sufficiency program creates an escrow savings
The federal grant-funded initiative was created in 1990, by a proposal from the George H.W. Bush administration, but Stark hadn't sought the money until three years ago.
"She was very focused," explained Millie Tatum, the Housing Authority's director of resident and community services.
It's meant to be a five-year program.
Heller finished in two.
A public housing or Section 8 tenant's monthly rent is based on income. The less money you earn, the less rent you pay. Sometimes, that's a deterrent to getting a job or working more hours.
The Family Self-Sufficiency program combats that.
Here's how it works:
Those in the program can get a job, or add income, but keep paying the same lower monthly rent. Although rent technically does increase, the extra amount due is placed in an escrow account.
That enables the tenant to build a penalty- and tax-free nest egg.
Not all program graduates will buy a house. Some may simply find a market rate apartment.
"But owning ... yeah, that's the ultimate in self-sufficiency," Tatum said.
Heller and all the program's almost 40 participants (15 currently have escrow accounts) also must establish and achieve tangible goals, as their account grows. It could be paying off debt, returning to school, learning how to budget or buying a car. Each situation is unique.
That's where Sapri Sweat comes in — the annually renewable U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development grant pays her salary at the Housing Authority. Sweat, in turn, connects Family Self-Sufficiency tenants to resources in the community to help them achieve goals.
"There were times I got mad at her," Heller confessed. "But she knew what was best for me in the long run."
From homeless to home sweet home
It was a long run for Heller, even before she entered the program. Heller said she'd been in abusive relationships. By 2015, she was homeless, staying with one child or another, between Georgia and Ohio. Late in that year, she wound up at the YWCA Canton shelter.
Early in 2016, she moved into Cherrie Turner Towers.
"I just felt like a failure inside," she said, recalling how she laid on the floor of the almost empty unit 418 in the complex, one of 2,500 public housing units in Stark. "I said 'God, I know you got something for me.'"
But Heller was on disability with a shoulder injury. She had no solid prospects of being able to afford to leave public housing.
"A lot of times I got depressed," she said. "I didn't give up, but I did cry a lot."
Until she noticed a call-out in a Housing Authority monthly newsletter. Heller reached out. She joined in 2020. She got a part-time job in the deli at Giant Eagle on The Strip.
Her bump in income meant her public housing rent also increased. But all of that increase went into escrow, through the program. And by early this year, she'd built up $5,000.
She spent some hiring movers and for a car repair. The Community Building Partnership of Stark County helped work out a downpayment and closing costs. And Huntington National Bank financed the bulk in a mortgage for the $90,500 house.
Heller closed on June 29. She moved in July 5.
She knows the dates by heart.
A family room wall is already a photographic shrine to all those grandkids and the great-grandchild. She's added gobs of elephant knick-knacks, photos and accessories, because they symbolize strength and she just plain loves them. Next up is a new kitchen floor to replace the tattered and scuffed one that screams "I'm from the 1970s."
In the spring, she has big plans.
Flowers. Some landscaping.
"Just do it up real nice," she said.
Reach Tim at 330-580-8333 ortim.botos@cantonrep.com.On Twitter: @tbotosREP
More details
For more information about the Stark Metropolitan Housing Authority Family Self-Sufficiency program, contact coordinator Sapri Sweat at 330-454-8051, ext. 365, or ssweat@starkmha.org.
This article originally appeared on The Repository: Vickie Heller buys home through Stark County Housing Authority program
