Our Story
How We Started
As our community grows, the need for more affordable, workforce housing has become apparent. The United Way’s Strengthening Families and Neighborhoods Council realized this need and commissioned Randolph McKetty Associates to complete the Affordable Housing Opportunity Assessment Study for Greenville County.
The study confirmed the need for affordable housing for Greenville’s citizens. The working families and people that our community depends on most (such as teachers, police officers, child care workers and cashiers) are finding it more difficult to locate good quality housing at affordable costs. Additionally, senior citizens and those who have physical and mental disabilities are also having difficulty locating safe and secure housing.
Following the study, the United Way partnered with the City of Greenville and the Greenville County Redevelopment Authority to establish the Workforce Housing Task Force. The Task Force was comprised of more than 50 community leaders including realtors, developers, bankers, nonprofit organizations, local government and neighborhood leaders. Created to research the issues facing the citizens of Greenville in the area of housing and to cultivate resources for the development of affordable housing, the Task Force established the Greenville Housing Fund (GHF) in late 2007.
GHF is a non-profit 501C(3) organization whose mission is to provide an additional source of funding to support the production of affordable workforce homeownership, rental and transitional housing opportunities, and to help reduce the growing gap in financing non-profit and for-profit development of affordable workforce housing. GHF makes resources available for new construction, rehabilitation of existing houses, pre-development costs, gap financing and property acquisition.
