NNDF to offer creative financing for local housing push

A Coulee Dam financial non-profit is proposing a way to increase available housing in the local area and will offer financing to make it possible.

Northwest Native Development Fund Executive Director Ted Piccolo said last week that NNDF will dedicate up to $1 million to finance a two-pronged approach to addressing a local shortage of housing in the $150,000 to $180,000 price range.

“The goal is that within two years there are 10-15 additional home owners in the region purchasing homes in the neighborhood of $180,000,” Piccolo said in a press release. “Individuals who may not have otherwise been able to purchase a home.”

“The NNDF will take on a two-pronged attack approach,” Piccolo said. “The first is to attempt to fund and empower local builders and handy-humans. The second is to begin building median priced homes for the first-time buyer market.”

Piccolo said many, but not necessarily all, of the building fund would go for housing on the Colville Indian Reservation. He said NNDF wants to build homes with “some emphasis toward solar power technology in order to offset the extraordinarily high-power prices in that region.”

“While funding for any project is not a guarantee, what there is now is an emphasis on the type of deal and a willingness to get even more creative on the financing,” Piccolo said. “We want to keep young professionals in our region, and we recognize that those professionals want clean, affordable housing. For the benefit of our community, our staff will step out front on this issue.”

The NNDF hopes the effort will result an uptick in the number of units available in the local housing inventory.

Piccolo said loans would be structured to help cash flow for builders or individuals who want to build and sell, or flip, a house, creating a revenue stream to encourage further building, but would discourage building houses simply in order to rent them.

“The last thing I want is for our community to become a renter village,” he said. “That’s how you lose a community.”