The days of going out the back door and down two flights of steps to the basement to do the laundry or take food from the freezer are over for East Nashville resident Ivy McGee.

An affordable-housing nonprofit, Rebuilding Together Nashville, helped her repair her cozy cottage-style home, starting with a wheelchair ramp for her brother’s use in 2015. Now, she can live safely for years to come in the house she bought almost 20 years ago.

In several other Nashville-area neighborhoods such as 12South, encroaching residential development has driven some homeowners, particularly older homeowners, to sell out, drastically changing the character of the neighborhood. On the outskirts of Bordeaux, newer, trendier houses are beginning to surround older homes in the area off Alice Street and Youngs Lane.

RTN’s home-repair program will help Bordeaux’s neighborhoods, says Winnie Forrester, who has lived for three years in the area and currently heads the Haynes Heights neighborhood association.

“The best protection for encroaching development is if your house is in good repair and is not going to become a tear-down,” Forrester says.

In January, RTN will roll out a two-year program to help homeowners in Bordeaux with needed home repairs so they can age in place. The initiative is being funded by a $511,300 grant from Metro Nashville’s Barnes Housing Trust Fund, a $200,000 Wells Fargo Priority Market Program grant and support from other community partners.

“Thanks to the generous financial support from Wells Fargo and the Barnes Fund, we’re ready to work with Bordeaux-area homeowners and make the critical repairs and modifications to keep their homes safe and healthy,” says Edward Henley III, Rebuilding Together board president.

Ivy McGee, 64, gets emotional talking about all the fixes Rebuilding Together has done for her at her East Nashville home.

-- Photo By Michelle Morrow |The Ledger

The program aims to help 65 homeowners rehab, renovate and preserve their homes so they won’t have to sell them to developers simply because they can’t afford repairs, says Kaitlin Dastugue, RTN’s executive director.

McGee tells friends, neighbors – anyone, really – about RTN and encourages them to check out its services. The nonprofit, she says, has been “absolutely wonderful. Everyone has been so nice. … All of this is the answer to prayers.”

RTN, active in Nashville for more than 20 years, has helped repair more than 500 homes so far. Its Bordeaux initiative is the first time it has focused on one Nashville neighborhood. It sees greater potential to preserve neighborhoods in Bordeaux than other parts of town with hot real estate markets.

“We wanted to get in front of it, to help empower (homeowners) as neighborhoods might change in the future,” Dastugue says.

“There’s a need all over Nashville for this type of service, especially with our aging (residents),” says Melvin D. Fowler, director of the FiftyForward Center in Bordeaux. Bordeaux is a “high area of need for home repair for aging” people.

“I think what they are doing is great,” says urban planner, Realtor and land use consultant Tifinie Capeheart. “Retrofitting homes (for aging in place) is extremely important when it comes to housing affordability. Expensive utility bills are a component of housing being affordable or not.”

Bordeaux boudaries: The area is defined geogtaphically by Briley Parkway, the Cumberland River and Interstate-24.

-- Photograph Provided

RTN’s program will cover what it calls Greater Bordeaux, bounded on the south by the Cumberland River, on the west and north by Briley Parkway, and on the east by Interstate 24. It chose that area because many senior citizens and low-income homeowners live there, often in houses that are older than the typical Nashville single-family home, Dastugue explains. She estimates that there are 3,000 non-rental homes in Greater Bordeaux.

About 64% of owner-occupied homes in Greater Bordeaux are considered affordable to households making 80% or less of the area median income. That’s twice the percentage for Nashville as a whole, RTN says, citing data from the Enterprise Community Opportunity 360 Tool.

Much of Greater Bordeaux is in the 37218 ZIP code, which the U.S. Census estimated (from 2014 to 2017), is home to more than 15,800 people. The median age is 41.4 years, with more than one in five residents age 62 or older. Three in four residents are African American; 21.3% are white.

The census also estimated the median household income in occupied housing units at just over $45,000 per year. The median estimated value of an owner-occupied house was $150,200, with a margin of error of about $10,000. Current values may vary.

The formal application process for homeowners will begin in January 2020, with work scheduled to start on homes in spring 2020, Dastugue adds.

So far more than 45 people have expressed initial interest in the program, Dastugue says. RTN has held “office hours” at different locations in Bordeaux to get the word out. A direct-mail outreach to area homeowners is set for this month. RTN will continue office hours in December, with updated scheduling information available at www.rtnashville.org/bordeaux.

There’s no cost to qualifying homeowners for home repairs through RTN, Dastugue says, nor does the organization require homeowners to provide “sweat equity” and work on the repairs. Homeowners are asked to give back to RTN in other ways, such as by sharing their story or providing refreshments to volunteer repairpersons.

The average amount spent per house on repairs is between $12,000 and $15,000, Dastugue notes, but the actual value is greater because participating contractors and others make in-kind donations to RTN.

“It’s one of our challenges” to find contractors, she says, even though RTN pays market rate. The group’s goal is to recruit new contractors and tradespeople, especially those from the Bordeaux community.

Three years ago, RTN began requiring homeowners to allow the nonprofit to place a five-year lien on their home to recoup its investment in repairing their homes if the homeowners sell their homes within the five-year period. This is to discourage would-be flippers from taking advantage of help with repairs so they can turn around and sell the rehabbed home for a profit.

However, she explains, if a homeowner were to die within the five years and an heir then lives in the home, the lien doesn’t apply.

She says she doesn’t know of any flipping situations because RTN hasn’t tracked what happened to the homes it has repaired. But the temptation to flip might be too great for some homeowners, and helping flippers isn’t RTN’s mission.

McGee has worked with RTN since about 2015, when her fiancé, James Head, told her about the program. The first project was adding a wheelchair ramp to her front door that year to help McGee care for her oldest brother, Butch. He died the following year, she says.

RTN Director of Programs Amanda Frick Keiser visited McGee’s home and helped create a list of needed repairs.

“Keep in mind, it’s a wish list,” McGee says Keiser told her.

“OK, but already I prayed about it. You do what you do, but I prayed on it,” McGee replied. One by one, grants came to RTN to fund repairs.

RTN has added grab bars in McGee’s bathroom, improved the steps into her attic and added insulation that has cut McGee’s heat bills.

It also added what she calls the washroom, a small addition to her kitchen for her washer, dryer and storage shelves there and in the kitchen itself. Now, McGee doesn’t need to go outside and navigate steep steps to reach her freezer or wash clothes.

In her living room, surrounded by family photographs and thriving houseplants, McGee calls the nonprofit’s work a blessing that helps people see that good things can happen with God’s help, that they shouldn’t give up hope.

McGee’s home is much more than a roof over her head. “This is where you find love, where you come to talk,” she says. “This is where you come after you’ve had to deal with all the craziness in the world.

“It’s a safe haven,” James Head says.

“This is home,” she says. “My home is not for sale.”