BROOKINGS – “Any way that we can advance the mission of creating a world where everyone has a decent place to live, we’re going to look at it,” said Brookings Habitat Executive Director Dan McColley. 

Bottom line: That’s what Brookings Area Habitat for Humanity does, one house at a time, but not alone.

“We can’t do what we do without the help of good friends,” McColley readily admits. He adds, “Van and Barb Fishback are two such friends. Van and Barb have been longtime supporters of Habitat, probably going back to our first incorporation.”

McColley explained that about a year after he came to the director’s job here, Van came to see him and asked him why so many Habitat houses were going up “almost exclusively in Aurora.”

“I told him that the economics of Aurora just worked better for us,” McColley said. ”He offered to help me find some buildable land in Brookings.” 

Not long after that, the Fishbacks helped Habitat obtain three lots by making large gifts.

Van purchased a property, which had three lots, and sold two of them to Habitat at an affordable price that allowed the construction of two homes. A third lot, with a house on it, in a different area of Brookings, has also been obtained. The house is beyond saving. 

“It is one of those old houses that we see in Brookings that have been divided into, I think there are seven rental units in it,” McColley explained. “Evaluators that I’ve had go through the house tell me that every system is beyond its useful life: roof, walls, siding, heating. The house is beyond the point where an investor can go in and do what needs to be done and have it cash-flow for them.”

Habitat’s plan is to build four houses on three lots. McColley sees that in keeping with the Fishbacks’ “interest in keeping central Brookings a great place for families to live and complements our mission, with “four new families in central Brookings.” 

A grand patron

Fishback called his and his wife’s relationship with Habitat “kind of a starting point.” He noted, however, “another intermediary: Our bank, First Bank & Trust has a ‘wholly-owned subsidiary’ of First Bank & Trust called the FB&T Community Development Corporation. That’s a critical descriptor.”

He explained that the CDC’s purpose, in accordance with its charter from federal regulators, is “to address low- to moderate-income needs of people in the Brookings area.” 

“What it’s done is allow us throughout the years to address properties that seem to be particularly blighted in the Brookings area,” Fishback explained, adding “properties that even conventional landlords aren’t inclined to take on.”

He credited the late John Bibby, of the early days of the CDC, calling him “a grand patron of many things in Brookings, including the quality of housing in what we would generally call central Brookings.”

He added that a passion for Bibby was “to use the CDC as an instrument to try to provide affordable housing for moderate- and low-income people, at the same time picking up properties that were particularly in poor condition.”

As examples, Fishback cited two of the aforementioned properties that had two houses beyond repair that would “provide good spots, great spots for Habitat recipients.” 

He noted that the transactions that bring a Habitat home to fruition flow via the CDC. McColley added that the relationship doesn’t end there.

“Of course to flush out this relationship even a little bit more, First Bank & Trust services all of our mortgages for us at no cost,” he explained. “That is an annual gift north of $10,000.

“They treat our mortgages as if they were theirs, the same kind of service with regard to monthly collection, all that kind of thing, escrow management, deposits.

“So we have that relationship as well. And they don’t do that for just Brookings Area Habitat; they do that for several other Habitats.”

Web of support

The relationship begins when the CDC buys a lot and then, Fishback explained, “delivers it to Habitat at a price-point they can manage. So if they can manage only ‘X’ dollars for a lot, then that’s basically the price that it needs to be. It involves collaboration and sometimes the demolition of properties could take place as another contribution from another party to Habitat.”

In the acquisition of the three properties noted above, McColley credited Fishback and the CDC for the needed negotiations. 

“We then partnered with another donor in town who gave us the actual cash to purchase at the reduced rate that the CDC gave us. The demolition of the properties was a donation from a third entity,” McColley explained.

“When I talk about us relying on these kind of partnerships, it’s across the community that does all this for us. There’s no way that we can deliver a house at $100,000 if we’re paying $50,000 for the land. It just becomes impossible.”

Continuing, McColley cited a “web of support: small donors, medium-sized donors, big donors, gift-in-kind donations. We can pull off that together in a way that makes housing affordable for the families that we serve and keeps families in the old neighborhoods in central Brookings in safe, decent affordable homes.”

 “This thing all comes together,” Fishback added. “The CDC is interested in being supportive of Habitat or anybody else, frankly, that is going to meet their mission of helping low- to moderate-income people.

“At the same time we’re accomplishing our other mission, which is trying to address blighted property. So the work that we do fits just hand in glove with what Habitat does,” Fishback continued. “It’s not going to work every time; but it’s going to work frequently. And that’s all you can do is keep finishing these things off one by one by one. So both Barb and I and the CDC are extremely pleased with this partnership with Habitat.” 

 “This is an incredibly generous community to do this work in,” McColley said.

Contact John Kubal at jkubal@bookingsregister.com.

Register photo: Construction of another Brookings Area Habitat for Humanity house will be under way soon on this lot on Third Street in Brookings through a reduced purchase price made via the FB&T Community Development Corporation.