Continuously serving Kosciusko County since 1854
Housing has been a focused and strategic part of the Kosciusko County Community Foundation’s work over the last few years.
As part of the Kosciusko County Community Foundation (KCCF) Annual Celebration Wednesday, CEO Stephanie Overbey moderated a panel to discuss housing in the county.
Providing some background to the efforts by KCCF, she said in 2020 the Community Foundation began making significant grant investments in housing, recognizing that access to housing was important to the local economy; to attracting and retaining talent; and making sure the youth of the community, when they are career ready, have a place to come home to.
“Since then, we’ve done a number of things. We started with a housing study to better understand how much housing was needed and what types of housing, what price points,” she said. “We provided a portion of the funding needed to build four Habitat for Humanity homes in the past few years. We funded the start-up costs for a (free) mobile app (Club 720), developed by a nonprofit ... and it helps people connect to the housing programs they may qualify for.”
The Community Foundation funded a land bank feasibility study and discovered “whether this type of nonprofit would be a good tool for Kosciusko County to turn abandoned, neglected, repeat tax sale properties back into productive housing use,” she said.
They funded a housing loan program for low- to moderate-income residents to achieve homeownership, and awarded an organizational capacity-building grant to Habitat for Humanity so Habitat can be in a position to grow, expand their reach and start a housing coalition.
On the housing panel were Ben Logan, Habitat for Humanity of Kosciusko County executive director; Demetrius Warren, Intend Indiana, director of the Edge Fund; and Alexis Manges, Habitat for Humanity family (with son Khamaree) waiting for a home to be built in Warsaw.
“They’re going to speak a little bit about why a diverse approach to housing of all types is important to a community,” Overbey said.
She first asked Warren to talk about the programs and services of Intend Indiana and why they decided to bring some of those to Kosciusko County.
“Intend Indiana is a nonprofit organization based out of Indianapolis. Essentially, we connect people to opportunity by enhancing collaborative entity development through financing, as well as various housing solutions. That’s kind of our focus,” he said. “We want to make sure that we can help folks find homes either through homeownership, because we want to help create wealth, within individual communities throughout the state.”
He said Intend has four initiatives, with one focused on real estate development; one called Renew Land Banks; and two Community Development Financial Institutions - Build Fund and Edge Fund. While Build Fund focuses on small business lending, particularly for low-income folks, Edge Fund focuses on lending for housing initiatives for low- to moderate-income folks.
“The reason why we saw Kosciusko as a great opportunity is, again, our mission is to be collaborative and we already saw that that was something happening in the county, where that was a focus to improve the housing situation in the county, and so we wanted to collaborate with the Foundation, we want to collaborate with anyone who saw that as a need and was like-minded in having that mission so we can work together to solve that problem,” Warren explained.
Logan explained the programs, mission and history of Habitat for Humanity in the county.
“We’re the people who build homes with a lot of volunteers,” he stated. Next year, Habitat for Humanity internationally will celebrate 50 years in 2026, while the local organization will be marking 35 years.
“What we primary do, what most of you know us probably for is what we call our Home Ownership Program. So that’s where we work with a family that qualifies as low- to moderate-income and they actually get accepted through our application process, and we work with them on financial literacy, home maintenance education and they also put in 250 hours of sweat equity on their build site and our ReStore, on those classes and a lot in between,” Logan said. “On the other side, my team and I are the ones that secure the land, design the house, raise the money, coordinate the volunteers and we build a house alongside them.”
At the end of the day, the family ends up purchasing the home “with a 0% interest mortgage, that’s affordable and fits within their budget and they pay that back over a period of time,” he said. “What we’re really passionate about is home ownership because of the ripple benefits that happen.”
Manges shared about her housing situation that she was facing that led her to apply for a Habitat home. The apartment complex they lived in had a black mold problem that affected hers and her son’s health. They moved, and the second place was worse than the first.
Focusing her next question on Warren, Overbey said that in November 2024, the KCCF awarded Intend Indiana an initial grant of over $1.4 million to start a mortgage loan fund for low- to moderate-income Kosciusko County residents to help them achieve home ownership. She asked him to describe how the program works and who it serves.
“The way that we’re deploying those funds is through a program called Home Power,” Warren responded. “... What we do is, we use this second mortgage program and we collaborate with local banks or local lenders who would provide the first mortgage, and we help to give more buying power to low- and moderate-income buyers.”
Explaining how Home Power, a second mortgage, works, he said, “We take a percentage of the sale price of the home and that percentage is a low-interest rate, a second mortage, that is actually an interest-only payment. It does not have a term, so you can have that payment for as long as you own that home. If you decide to sell that home, you would have to pay that back. It’s a 2% interest-only payment that you would have, and it can go up to 30% of the sale price of the home.”
The KCCF awarded to Habitat a grant of just over $91,000 in November 2023 to help provide about $22,000 each for Habitat’s next four builds. Overbey asked Logan to talk about those four homes.
Logan said two of the four homes are in Mentone, and the other two are in Warsaw. Two are completed and two are in progress, including Manges’ home. He said Habitat was able to leverage a few more of those Foundation dollars to purchase land for another two homes as well.
Overbey said in January 2025, the KCCF awarded Habitat a capacity grant of nearly $1 million to be used over the next three years. She asked Logan what Habitat was doing with those funds and what will that increased capacity mean for the organization and the people they serve.
Logan said it helped Habitat become a debt-free organization as of July, invest in its ReStore and in critical staffing.
“But, what’s more important is what it makes possible. What it makes possible are two big things that I hope you’ll be seeing a lot more of soon,” he said. “One is what we’re calling the Kosciusko Housing Coalition. So we’re getting together lenders and realtors and builders and developers and people in the government space and even people in the nonprofit space like Habitat and even churches like WCC to talk about housing, talk about solutions, to try to innovate, to try to get all the right people around the table so we can bring even more solutions to the housing crisis that we have in this area.”
The second possibility is Habitat is planning to launch a home repair program in spring 2026 for low-income home owners.
Manges then shared how easy and quick the Habitat application process was. She applied in August and was accepted in October.
As for the impact having the Habitat home will have on her and Khamaree, Manges said, “Being lower-income and stuff, I honestly didn’t think I would ever get the chance to own my own home, so it really means everything for us. Having stable housing for me and my son going forward, not having to worry about mold issues or sickness or missing work all the time, fighting for my job. It means everything for us.”
Overbey’s last question for all three panelists was, “From your perspective, why is it important that communities invest in housing of all types for all income levels? What does it mean for the residents, and what does it mean for the greater community?”
In part, Warren said, “I believe that we are all made in the image of God and because of that, we are all deserving of dignity, and so, I think, wherever there is a need, I think as a community it’s important for us to look to fulfill that in whatever way that we can. And so, housing is a need regardless of socio-economic status and things of that sort, so we want to make sure that we can assist, not just as an organizations, but us as humans.”
Logan talked about how home ownership isn’t just about protection from the elements, but also the ripple effects are “tremendous” and it’s about more than that.
Manges said, “I believe it’s important because we all come from different walks of life, different incomes ... You don’t know what the next family is going through, so I think that’s really important in our community to build a strong sense of community. I think that stable housing and secure housing for people strengthens our community without having to give up certain things ... So I think it’s important for everyone to be able to have that security and sense of stability in our community.”
