Business at its best - Rebuilding rundown neighborhoods
Bobby L. Hickman
May 1, 2008
Morris|Hardwick|Schneider, a real estate closings law firm based in Atlanta, is taking a key role
in an innovative new program that helps rebuild at-risk urban communities.
The Hough Initiative currently focuses on the Hough neighborhood in Cleveland. Dean
Talaganis, who heads the M|H|S office in Cleveland, designed the program along with Arthur Fayne,
president of The 4Kids Foundation, and William Roach, Citi residential lending asset manager. M|H|S
hopes to eventually expand the program to Atlanta and other cities in its eight-state service area.
"The Hough Initiative takes advantage of an unfortunate circumstance – a foreclosed home –
and turns it into a positive event for lenders, families and communities," says Keri Roth, the
firm's REO practice manager, who oversees the project. "It's more than giving someone a place to
live; it also gives back to the community. This benefits not just the family that gets a home, but
also people who work on the house and learn a new trade."
Roth says Talaganis was instrumental in introducing banks with foreclosed homes to community
development organizations. Under the program, a bank sells a house to a community organization,
which then "brings in people who might be in a difficult situation," Roth says. They use the house
as part of an apprenticeship program. The people involved get tools they can use later in life.
They learn how to clean the house, how to do plumbing and fix the roof, even how to balance a
budget in order to purchase items for fixing the house. Once the house is renovated, a low-income
family that was involved in the project buys the home, she says.
The first Cleveland title transfers closed in January. Ruth says, while the program is in its
"infancy stage, we're hoping we can take this into Atlanta, Nashville, Tampa and other places where
our other offices are located."