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Affordable upstate
Fox Carolina: ‘We are impacting a problem:’ Upstate company works to preserve affordable housing
GREENVILLE, S.C. (FOX Carolina) - The need for affordable housing in the upstate continues to grow more dire, as many renters are burdened by rising rent costs. Advocates are finding new ways to help alleviate some of the challenges.
“Everything was bad, terrible,” said Ivan Drummond describing his last apartment.
He lived there for 15 years, seeing new management come and go. But now—he’s at Paris Park Apartments.
“I mean it’s a better place, a whole lot-- 100 percent better,” he said.
He’s one of the first tenants in this newly renovated apartment complex, one of the most recent projects by Affordable Upstate.
“For us it’s about redefining affordable housing and really creating space where people can be proud of where they live,” said Mario Brown, the Co-founder of Affordable Upstate.
The mission-based real estate company renovates existing affordable options.
“Basically a property that runs the risk of being torn down or purchased by a New York or Los Angeles real estate firm that overdeveloped it so it’s to create rents that are unaffordable to the community that that property is in. so what we do is the opposite of that,” Brown explained.
The company revamped more than 600 apartment units across the upstate. With rents ranging from $950 to $1100.
“We can’t build them anymore. And when we do build them it costs a lot more than buying an existing one,” said Brown.
To make sure renters are able to stay in their units, Affordable Upstate has recently launched a property management company called Naturally Occurring Affordable Housing Property Management or NOAH, to help support tenants.
“To be able to offer them case management services, share some of the programs that they may not get with a traditional property management company,” said Matt Foster the CEO of NOAH Property Management.
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MISSION
Our mission is to modernize and preserve naturally occurring affordable housing in the Upstate of South Carolina by investing in communities that are as equally fulfilling for our residents as they are strategic for our investors.