A drive down Elgin’s Yarwood Street, with its sturdy homes on small lots, provides a glimpse of life in a factory city at the turn of the century.
In its heyday, this neighborhood symbolized the dream of homeownership for many workers at the now-defunct Elgin National Watch Co.
Today, homes on Yarwood and surrounding streets offer residents, many of whom are in low- or moderate-income brackets, a chance to get started in a place of their own.
But those homes also are candidates for a new $100,000 grant program designed to help owners of low- and moderate-income housing obtain funds to refurbish their houses. It is the city’s latest effort to help bolster the fortunes of homes in the city’s three historic districts–Elgin, Spring-Douglas and National Watch.
The spirit on Yarwood Street, in the National Watch district, seems right for such a program, said homeowner Guy Parrish. He and his wife, Brenda, bought a simple two-story house on the street eight years ago because it was affordable, he said.
“I think it would add to the street and to the homes, too. Older homes are neat,” Parrish said. “Right now, I’m sure some of my neighbors don’t understand what they can do with the grant.”
The city has received numerous inquiries about the program, which reimburses a homeowner for up to 75 percent of the costs of renovations, said Sarosh Saher, historic preservation specialist in Elgin’s Department of Code Enforcement and Neighborhood Affairs.
A delayed response is typical, judging from participation in other city-sponsored home rehabilitation programs.
“It’s a level of commitment to the neighborhood,” said Brigid Trimble, neighborhood development coordinator for Elgin’s Neighborhood Housing Services.
The 75/25 program is a new twist on an older, overwhelmingly popular grant available through the city since 1995, Saher said.
The older program helps owners of the city’s grand old houses, the rambling Victorian, Italianate and Greek Revival homes of the last century, get help fixing them up. Qualifying homeowners in the city’s three historic districts can apply for up to $10,000 for rehabilitation work.
Every year, 40 or 50 homeowners apply for a portion of the $100,000 fund, but only 12 to 15 can be accommodated, Saher said.
Saher hopes to see a different group of homeowners vie for a separate fund of $100,000 that will be available for grants. As the name implies, qualified applicants will be eligible for a 75 percent reimbursement, with a cap of $7,500, for their rehabilitation work.
And, as with the original architectural rehab program, applicants must live in one of the city’s three historic districts.
In both programs, the grant money comes from Elgin’s Grand Victoria Riverboat Casino, a private operation that turns over a portion of its revenue to the city. The casino, which opened in the fall of 1994, generates $15 million to $18 million annually for the city, Saher said.
The new grant program is more generous than the old, which reimbursed homeowners for half the cost of the rehabilitation.
Under the 75/25 program, applicants must meet specific income criteria, based on federal standards set by the Department of Housing and Urban Development. A family of four, for example, would qualify as low-income with earnings of $29,750 or less. The cap to qualify for middle-income is $43,500.
Residents who have benefited from the original architectural rehabilitation grant program say it was the spark that lit their ambition to tackle the often arduous task of renovating an old house.
“I don’t know if I would have pushed the work if the grant were not available,” said William Barnes, who lives in the 500 block of Douglas Avenue and received a $10,000 reimbursement in 1997 toward the rehabilitation of his circa-1882 Italianate house in the Spring/Douglas Historic District.
